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?
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?
Last edited: