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Multi-modal integration (in particular rail and bus)

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Oscar

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Integrated rail and bus ticketing and timetabling is crucial for making public transport an attractive alternative to the car. Many public transport journeys can often only be made or may only provide a reasonable journey time by using more than one mode. Yet there is very limited effective integration of this kind in the UK outside of London. What can be done about it?

Most bus and rail operators show very little interest in co-operation. Rail operators do not see such integration with buses as crucial to their business and bus operators often find that competition provides them greater commercial success than co-operation. Buses tend to offer lower fares, lower speeds and lower comfort than rail and therefore do not see themselves as targeting the same market. The frequent timetable, fare and operator changes caused by bus deregulation also makes co-operation difficult. However, bus travel is losing its stigma and in London, where buses are run as an integrated system and receive significant investment, bus patronage has grown significantly. Patronage has also increased dramatically in Cornwall, where the County Council is heavily involved in bus service provision, and on the Dalesbus network of integrated Sunday and Bank Holiday services which connects to rail at Ribblehead, Settle, Skipton, Northallerton and Darlington and offers some integrated ticketing. Better bus and rail co-ordination would also make rail more attractive for communities without a railway stations or could offer a cheaper alternative to station parking. This is likely to have a significant impact on modal shift away from the private car – although rail patronage is increasing, much of this is likely to be caused by leisure travel rather than modal shift, as car kilometres are not decreasing.

Plusbus may go some way towards addressing this issue, but its weaknesses include the following:

- It only covers certain areas.
- It is only available to/from certain stations within the Plusbus zone, leading to Plusbus not being offered to passengers (e.g. online) or increased cost to passengers if passengers buy tickets to stations further away or buy two tickets to make their ticket eligible for Plusbus. Many additional stations within the Plusbus zone were removed from the list of interchange stations due to “lack of use” and rail tickets must be bought to/from one of the named interchange stations for Plusbus to be available. This means that, for example, a passenger wishing to travel from Chesterfield to Swinton (S. Yorks) by train and continue by bus must buy a ticket to Sheffield or Rotherham (£5.60 Off-Peak Day Return to Rotherham) and another ticket to Swinton (£3.60 Off-Peak Day Return from Rotherham) rather than one through ticket (£5.60 Off-Peak Day Return) to be eligible for Plusbus, in this case meaning the fare is 64% higher. A passenger wishing to travel from Beverley to Cottingham by train (in the Hull Plusbus zone) to connect to a bus service there would require a ticket to Hull (Off-Peak Day Return £6.40 as opposed to £3.30 to Cottingham – 94% extra). In reality however, such passengers are unlikely to be aware that Plusbus is available for their journeys.
- It cannot be bought on buses, so is of limited use at the start of a journey.
- Bus services included in Plusbus and destinations accessible using Plusbus change as routes run by participating bus operators change (in the case of loss-making contracted services this is determined by contract allocations – services from Scarborough to Ravenscar were originally run by Scarborough and District, a participating operator, but were contracted to Esk Valley Coaches in 2010, which does not accept Plusbus, even though Ravenscar is still – seemingly very deliberately – within the Plusbus zone)
- The distance from rail station over which Plusbus is valid varies enormous depending on which company runs services where (e.g. Transdev York services from York to Holme-upon-Spalding Moor – which is in fact very close to Howden and Gilberdyke stations and around 30 km from central York – is included in York Plusbus, because First York used to operate them, whereas services to Rufforth, little over 5 km from central York, are not; West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire have Plusbus zones covering the whole metropolitan counties, whereas Harrogate Plusbus costs almost as much and covers only a small urban area)
- Plusbus is not accepted by Manchester Metrolink, the Tyne and Wear Metro or the Glasgow Subway.
- Some Plusbus zones are large (e.g. West Yorkshire) and some are very small (Ely) – there is never any choice of validity.

Of course there are also bus link add-on fares available and multi-modal day tickets or season tickets available in PTE areas, Bristol and Nottingham, but overall nationwide availability is severely limited.

Bus timetables generally show no concern for rail connections, often making connection times long or certain journeys practically impossible. Reasons for this include:
- Operational convenience or necessity causes difficulties (bus operator may only have a small fleet and timings of school services may make peak time rail connections impossible).
- The location of railway stations is inconvenient.
- Connections with rail are undervalued (partly because of lack of common fare structure and joint marketing).
- Bus companies are concerned about perceived or actual competition.
- The number of rail services calling at a station makes basing a bus timetable around trains difficult.

Sometimes bus services well integrated with the rail network could provide equally fast and more frequent services in isolated areas at a much lower price than rail, but guaranteeing the provision of such services is difficult in a deregulated industry. Services on lines such as the Kyle of Lochalsh, Far North and Esk Valley Lines may be better provided by buses and the railways could then be used as tourist services.

How could the situation realistically be improved?

- The number of Plusbus destinations and interchange locations and/or bus link add-ons could be increased significantly.
- Timetable and fare integration with rail could form part of Bus Quality Contracts, which could also help to make bus services more secure in the long term.

More radical suggestions include:
- Local government and transport bodies could set local fares for all public transport modes on a zonal basis, as happens in many European countries.
- Bus stations or main city centre bus stops could be consistently located adjacent to railway stations.
- Rail timetabling could be built (at least to an extent) around a system of nodes where trains arrive and depart around the same minutes past the hour, as happens in Switzerland and in the Netherlands, which would facilitate not only connections between rail services but also connections with bus services as buses serving a station at a particular time would connect to all or most rail services (see http://www.passengertransportnetwor...cgi?tag=Taktfahrplan&blog_id=1&IncludeBlogs=1 for an example of how this could be achieved).

What other problems are there and how could they be alleviated?

Of course, another important question is: how important is rail-bus integration for the people of the UK, the environment, the railway and the bus industry?
 
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SeanG

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Very long post, not goign to lie, didn't read it all.

However, I can say that the T&W metro was built with this in mind.

The idea was to get a bus to interchange points (Regent Centr, Four Lane Ends, Heworth) and then the metro into the centre of Newcastle. This was meant ot aleviate Newcastle of busses.however the deergulation of the busses put paid to this and now the city centre is full of them
 

CNash

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I'd like Plusbus (or a similar scheme) to be rolled out to London. It'd be useful to me as although my season ticket covers a large number of stations in South London, buses are often more useful for very short journeys between towns, and it annoys me that residents of other UK cities can get discounted bus travel while Londoners have to pay full price. Not even a Gold Card helps with bus fares!

For example, if you were to buy a ticket with an origin or destination inside of Z1-6 (and maybe also the stations outside of Z6 where TFL buses also call), you would be entitled to load a discounted Bus Pass onto an Oyster card. It would encourage travel on buses within London rather than trains, easing overcrowding (or perhaps just "balancing the load" between buses and trains).
 

Hartington

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I used to live in Maidenhead. Trains to London 4 times an hour but buses only once or twice an hour. Not ideal but at least, with a bit of planning, you could connect from one to the other. Then there was the branch line terminus in Demark. The train arrived along with several buses. Because they all terminated there everything connected.

Now look at where I live today, 2 (ish) miles from Castle Cary station. There are 2 bus routes; one runs from Shepton to Yeovil once an hour at best and never on Sundays. The other runs Wincanton to Street 6 or 7 times a day with 2 or 3 of the runs timed around schools. The trains don't run to any kind of regular schedule either London/Penzance or Bristol/Weymouth. Pretend for a moment that the trains start running to a regular pattern. How do you time the buses to fit? Do they arrive 5 minutes before train time and wait until 5 after? Those buses tend to carry through passengers; why disadvantage them so a few more people than currently do can make intermodal connections? What effect does all that have on utilisation for the bus? The Wincanton/Street in particular never seems to have much slack in the schedule so maybe they'd need an extra bus.

Don't get me wrong, I approve of integration but there are issues in some places that I don't see as easy to resolve. Here in Somerset most people get to Castle Cary by car/taxi/kiss and ride. The station car park is regularly full.
 

Oscar

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Very long post, not goign to lie, didn't read it all.

However, I can say that the T&W metro was built with this in mind.

The idea was to get a bus to interchange points (Regent Centr, Four Lane Ends, Heworth) and then the metro into the centre of Newcastle. This was meant ot aleviate Newcastle of busses.however the deergulation of the busses put paid to this and now the city centre is full of them

I've read about this and did have it in mind when writing the post - a great shame.

Pretend for a moment that the trains start running to a regular pattern. How do you time the buses to fit? Do they arrive 5 minutes before train time and wait until 5 after? Those buses tend to carry through passengers; why disadvantage them so a few more people than currently do can make intermodal connections? What effect does all that have on utilisation for the bus? The Wincanton/Street in particular never seems to have much slack in the schedule so maybe they'd need an extra bus.

Don't get me wrong, I approve of integration but there are issues in some places that I don't see as easy to resolve.

Unfortunately this kind of conflict is very common and cannot usually be resolved easily. I think a decision should probably be taken after analysing current and potential bus and rail patronage, costs and the potential for investment to alleviate the problem. However, consistency is key to public perception and the long term impact of public perception on multi-modal patronage could be huge. Perhaps the best solution (though difficult to achieve in Britain) would be replanning regional public transport as a whole rather than retimetabling individual bus routes to connect with rail.
 
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edwin_m

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Unfortunately bus-rail integration is pretty much impossible in a deregulated bus market, unless all operators can be persuaded to agree to something like a PlusBus (which is probably why the areas and prices vary so wildly). Buses that feed into railway stations would be a better options for longer journeys and result in higher useage of public transport overall, but it won't happen while the bus operators are expected to maximise patronage of their own service at the expense of anything else.
 

Moonshot

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Key point from first post is below.....

Many additional stations within the Plusbus zone were removed from the list of interchange stations due to “lack of use”

No matter how much you dress it up, if the public dont make use of a " soft" facility, its going to be ditched......
 

Oscar

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Key point from first post is below.....

Many additional stations within the Plusbus zone were removed from the list of interchange stations due to “lack of use”

No matter how much you dress it up, if the public dont make use of a " soft" facility, its going to be ditched......

Perhaps the public didn't make use of this facility because of the fragmented way public transport is generally presented.
 

Moonshot

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Perhaps the public didn't make use of this facility because of the fragmented way public transport is generally presented.

Which doesnt seem to impact on rising numbers using public transport......
 

Oscar

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Numbers of passengers using rail are rising and I would suggest reasons for this include increased commuting in the South East as the gap between the London economy and economy of the rest of the UK continues to widen, increased leisure travel by rail, fewer young people learning to drive, increased road congestion and the advent of digital technology (which can be used on a train journey). While patronage is high at certain times, on certain routes and amongst certain groups, many trains run considerably under capacity (which to a large extent is inevitable). Most people in the UK rarely travel by rail and as far as I know the main reasons for this have not been researched in depth.

Bus patronage outside of London are declining.
 
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pitdiver

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Where I live on the TL line my local station has a Bus Stop just at the end of the station approach. The trains run at the worst approx every quarter of an hour. However the buses run one every two hours. Okay they follow a timetable but if you miss a bus due to a delay on the train you are in trouble. Hence the car park is absolutely choc a bloc.
 

sheff1

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Key point from first post is below.....

Many additional stations within the Plusbus zone were removed from the list of interchange stations due to “lack of use”

No matter how much you dress it up, if the public dont make use of a " soft" facility, its going to be ditched......

But there is no obvious reason why the Plusbus in PTE areas, at least, cannot be issued in connection with a train ticket to any station in the area. All it would need is a 'flag' against the stations in the ticket issuing systems. The Plusbus Fare is a distinct one at a set price for the whole PTE area and issued as a separate ticket, so it is not as if it would need to be updated individually for each station every time there is a fare change.

The take up may be low, but even one person using a Plusbus from, say, Swinton in preference to driving would be a gain.
 

Moonshot

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But there is no obvious reason why the Plusbus in PTE areas, at least, cannot be issued in connection with a train ticket to any station in the area. All it would need is a 'flag' against the stations in the ticket issuing systems. The Plusbus Fare is a distinct one at a set price for the whole PTE area and issued as a separate ticket, so it is not as if it would need to be updated individually for each station every time there is a fare change.

The take up may be low, but even one person using a Plusbus from, say, Swinton in preference to driving would be a gain.

Smart cards the way forward in PTE areas......already see the readers on Metrolink. I m actually part of the focus group for this project.....and from what I see, smart card tech is very flexible
 

Starmill

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I'd like Plusbus (or a similar scheme) to be rolled out to London. It'd be useful to me as although my season ticket covers a large number of stations in South London, buses are often more useful for very short journeys between towns, and it annoys me that residents of other UK cities can get discounted bus travel while Londoners have to pay full price. Not even a Gold Card helps with bus fares!

Errrrrrm, stop and think; how much is a bus single using Oyster? Have you seen some of the adult bus fares (often only available as singles or all day tickets) around the rest of the country?

I can see one puny change from my neck of the woods that might be of assistance. Manchester Metrolink does not accept Plusbus because, basically, it's a rip-off. There is a massively overpriced zonal system of fares at the minute which add the tram fare to the train fare but it is very restricted. I can't remember what the exact situation is with Plusbus, but assuming I am right that it is never accepted on Metrolink, it could be accepted in the City Zone only, to allow passengers to connect from Piccadilly, Deansgate and Victoria to Piccadilly Gardens and Shudehill (though iirc the former is not actually a bus station).
 
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CNash

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Errrrrrm, stop and think; how much is a bus single using Oyster? Have you seen some of the adult bus fares (often only available as singles or all day tickets) around the rest of the country?

I'm aware that London bus fares are generally cheaper than the rest of the country. I was speaking in relative terms - full price versus discounted. A percentage is still a percentage.
 

yorkie

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PlusBus is woefully inadequate, and appears to be a box-ticking exercise. I posted this last month:-


Is Plusbus somehow government-subsidised, sponsored or otherwise enforced? I have often wondered how the bus operators agree to it, especially the railcard-discounted version, when they must receive much less revenue than when people buy tickets from the bus operators themselves. The only conclusion I've been able to come to is that there must be enough people buying it but not using it, or not making the most of it, that it is worth their while participating in the scheme. Or is there more to it than that?
Yes, I think there is more to it than that, you may find this document interesting. I recommend reading the whole document, but I have quoted some extracts I found to be of particular 'interest'...

Select Committee on Transport Written Evidence
[SIZE=+1]Memorandum from Journey Solutions (TPT 33) [/SIZE]

There is a nation-wide integrated ticketing scheme..
Hmm, I reckon there's some "box-ticking" going on there. If it's truly "nation-wide" then really, I should arguably be able to do any journey with any ticket and get an add-on for any bus journey.

Journey Solutions was created in 1999 to enable the public transport industry to deliver on its commitment of improving transport integration—in particular making combined train and bus travel easier, more convenient and better value for customers. All Journey Solutions work aims to support Government policies on improving and integrating public transport in local communities, across regions and throughout the whole of Britain.
It's not totally clear to me if they were forced or encouraged to do this, or what exactly the "commitments" are.
Journey Solutions also has an Advisory Panel, which includes representatives from a wide range of stakeholders....
I won't list them all here, but some are interesting, including the DfT.


Journey Solutions looks at improving the customers' whole journey experience, including:....
  • — integrated ticketing for the whole journey;...
Laughable. Rather than "looking at" improving the experience, all they need to do is allow any PlusBus ticket to be issued for any ticket that is valid via the relevant PlusBus area, and for the PlusBus areas to be, err... "nation-wide" ie, covering all bus services throughout the nation.


So instead of doing that, they are "looking at" and doing nothing.
The minimum standard is...
... very much sub-standard, for what is claimed to be a "nation-wide" scheme, in my opinion!
Journey Solutions would like to thank the Association of Train Operating Companies for their significant ongoing contribution....
...entirely voluntarily, I wonder?
 

Mcr Warrior

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:!: Through tickets to Metrolink (tram) stations are of course separately available as an "add on" to rail tickets to Manchester Stations.
 

bb21

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Metrolink is unique in the sense that it is the only tramway in the country that does not accept unlimited travel bus-only products.
 
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