South Yorkshire bus review published

[ALEMASTER]

Commissioned by the Sheffield City Region Mayor and led by local MP Clive Betts: https://sheffieldcityregion.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Bus-Review-Report-June-2020.pdf

A few themes of its findings:
- low frequency is discouraging use in many areas
- reliability issues caused by congestion and slow journey times
- buses need to play a bigger part in reducing road transport emissions and tackling climate change
- buses are not integrated into crucial associated policy areas such as housing development and spatial planning
- inadequate connectivity between different modes of transport
- handling of service changes
- ticket choice overwhelming, not always confident of getting best value option
- varying quality of experience in bus stop infrastructure, information, accessibility, ticket sales and vehicles themselves
- local authorities showing lack of leadership and accountability along with inadequate public funding from the government

 

[Bletchleyite]

Good bit of Papal Roman Catholicism and ursine arboreal defecation there. Will any of it be dealt with, though? I doubt it.

 

[Man of Kent]

Good bit of Papal Roman Catholicism and ursine arboreal defecation there. Will any of it be dealt with, though? I doubt it.

It has been pretty good at identifying a range of problems, but its recommendations to deal with them largely ignore how they may be funded. Franchising is only at no. 6, so not as radical as some had hoped (and a post-coronavirus addition highlights the financial risk).

 

[Llandudno]

Commissioned by the Sheffield City Region Mayor and led by local MP Clive Betts: https://sheffieldcityregion.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Bus-Review-Report-June-2020.pdf

A few themes of its findings:
- low frequency is discouraging use in many areas
- reliability issues caused by congestion and slow journey times
- buses need to play a bigger part in reducing road transport emissions and tackling climate change
- buses are not integrated into crucial associated policy areas such as housing development and spatial planning
- inadequate connectivity between different modes of transport
- handling of service changes
- ticket choice overwhelming, not always confident of getting best value option
- varying quality of experience in bus stop infrastructure, information, accessibility, ticket sales and vehicles themselves
- local authorities showing lack of leadership and accountability along with inadequate public funding from the government

I wonder how much the survey cost, I could have told them all that from my sofa!

Mind you because of lockdown restrictions perhaps they did collate their findings from the sofa!

 

[carlberry]

I wonder how much the survey cost, I could have told them all that from my sofa!

Mind you because of lockdown restrictions perhaps they did collate their findings from the sofa!

The odd thing is that this report appears to be more truthful than most and dosent produce the answer that the people who commissioned it probably wanted. i.e. it suggests that most of the problems are nothing to do with ownership of the buses and lots of them are already under the control of the people who say they want to make it better.

 

[Llandudno]

The report goes into great detail about the virtues of the 2p bus fares in the SYPTE pre-deregulation era, however, other PTE’s spent money on improving the infrastructure of public transport instead, thereby creating a legacy for future generations.

Merseyrail Loop & Link lines and Tyne & Wear Metro for example

 

[Stan Drews]

There is very little evidence to suggest that ownership is a relevant factor in the many difficulties facing the current bus industry. Nationalisation would use up a vast amount of funding, just to set it up, that would be far better utilised helping to solve the issues that could put buses at the heart of improving our towns and cities.

 

[markymark2000]

Interestingly, a good chunk of the report actually slates SYPTE. It has quite a lot of operator input as well which is great to see as most reviews seem to just be the councillors and MPs complaining about operators.
It's also interesting that the comments from the residents match those from the enthusiasts in that Stagecoach are thought of slightly better than First in South Yorkshire. Quite a lot of bad comments about First.

I hope that with this, SYPTE gets a kick up the behind and sorts itself out.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

The report is hardly earth shattering and, as others have said, many of the issues are completely removed from the issue of ownership. I don't know South Yorkshire that well but my take on the area....

There are so many different issues that impact the area's bus services. You have town's like Doncaster or Rotherham that have suffered a massive decline, with the former particularly pronounced by the impact of Meadowhall and other developments out of the town centre. That is pretty difficult to sort now but is a consequence of the planning decisions of the past. That's before you get onto residential developments where, like many places, you have little or no provision for buses with them being totally car centric.

Then you have the piecemeal provision of bus priority so that buses get stuck in ever burgeoning congestion. Of course, we see the proposed Sheffield CAZ that insists on all buses being euro VI but no restrictions on private car usage. Will they face into this??

The criticism of SYPTE is pronounced; a condemnation in itself of local government involvement. I've found them, in the limited exposure I've had, to be an organisation caught in the 1990s and there's little evidence that they have the requisite skills to manage change. The idea that a move to franchising will solve the issues is laughable.

That's not to give the operators a free pass. Stagecoach is a decent enough operation; it seems more consistent than the old YT and does a reasonable enough job. First came across as pretty underwhelming and to be honest, that probably a gloss on things. The business has been poorly managed for years and I hope that Nigel Eggleton can get the business sorted and service reliability sorted. However, even other operators like Powells (HCT) and TM Travel are not exactly creating desire.

 

[Mwanesh]

Buses are the last thing to spend money on.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Or Halton Transport?

Or that, yes, I wasn't saying that all municipal arms-lengths were good. What makes them good is good management. Halton was just one of the very few left that don't have good management - the rest were sold off years ago. I suspect Warrington Borough Transport may not be too far behind as that similarly does not seem to be particularly well managed nor that profitable.

The point I was making was more that you actually get less meddling in a nationalised (locally or nationally) body than you do operating under contracts like TfL or indeed the railway - you just give the arms-length its budget and an idea of what you want it to do, and let it mostly get on with it. That has the advantage of the railway being run by railway professionals, and the buses by bus professionals, say, and not by a Transport Minister (or local equivalent) who just gets plucked from wherever (Adonis being the only recent exception I can think of).

 

[ALEMASTER]

Or Halton Transport?

The fact is that irrespective of anything, London style provision needs London style money.... and to be fair, London doesn't have London style money these days (and that was before Covid)

Perhaps a look at those areas like Brighton or Nottingham to see what they are doing right may help?

Nottingham/Derby is actually a really good comparison, with Trent Barton being having quite a good reputation for publicity/branding/customer service and Nottingham City Transport also being a well regarded operation. The first thing I notice when you compare is that tickets in South Yorkshire are cheaper...

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Or that, yes, I wasn't saying that all municipal arms-lengths were good. What makes them good is good management. Halton was just one of the very few left that don't have good management - the rest were sold off years ago. I suspect Warrington Borough Transport may not be too far behind as that similarly does not seem to be particularly well managed nor that profitable.

I was being tongue in cheek. Warrington seems a bit better than Newport which really surprised me last year.

Good management is what is important and that's evident in South Yorkshire. I stress, I've limited exposure to the area but Stagecoach are not too bad. It seems that First have a long way to turn around that business. Getting the basics right seems to be a major issue.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Nottingham/Derby is actually a really good comparison, with Trent Barton being having quite a good reputation for publicity/branding/customer service and Nottingham City Transport also being a well regarded operation. The first thing I notice when you compare is that tickets in South Yorkshire are cheaper...

Generally speaking if you want the quality you need to pay for it. There are two very outstanding quality rural networks I know of - Southern Vectis and Stagecoach's Lakeland operation - but the fares are not low at all. The way they work around that is mostly that the longer-duration season tickets are priced quite low on the basis that most tourists are only there for a weekend and so they're not really applicable. On the IoW, for instance, a day ticket is £10 but a weekly £27 (so 2.7 days to break even), whereas in MK (using it as an example of somewhere that basically has no tourist industry whatsoever) a day ticket is £4.80 and a weekly £18 (which is 3.75 days to break even). Even then, though, the IoW's excellent service is more expensive than MK's utter dross.

 

[mwmbwls]

This report chimes with evidence given to the House of Commons Transport Select Committee 17th June 2020.

Subject: Coronavirus: implications for transport

Witness(es): Tim Bowles, Metro Mayor, West of England Combined Authority; Andy Burnham, Metro Mayor, Greater Manchester; Steve Rotheram, Metro Mayor, Liverpool City Region

Tim Bowles is the Tory Metro Mayor and his contribution was consistent with his Labour co-participants
The video recording of the meeting can be found here https://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/1303d0ee-6aac-4f94-9c40-53c99eb8709f

The argument that London is a special case does not seem to wash anymore - indeed the direction of travel being adopted by the Ministry
of Housing, Communities & Local Government favouring consolidation of local authorities, such as Lancashire, and more with directly elected Mayors suggests that there will be continuing pressure to reform the system.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Generally speaking if you want the quality you need to pay for it. There are two very outstanding quality rural networks I know of - Southern Vectis and Stagecoach's Lakeland operation - but the fares are not low at all. The way they work around that is mostly that the longer-duration season tickets are priced quite low on the basis that most tourists are only there for a weekend and so they're not really applicable. On the IoW, for instance, a day ticket is £10 but a weekly £27 (so 2.7 days to break even), whereas in MK (using it as an example of somewhere that basically has no tourist industry whatsoever) a day ticket is £4.80 and a weekly £18 (which is 3.75 days to break even). Even then, though, the IoW's excellent service is more expensive than MK's utter dross.

That's the point - quality does cost. Also, it isn't the main issue for passengers. People don't mind paying (within reason) as long as the quality is good. There's no point ruminating about how inexpensive the bus fare is if it doesn't arrive on time (or at all). People want value for money and price elasticity of demand isn't as pronounced as people think - people are prepared to spend for a decent product, but the high cost/low quality product is doomed to failure in any market.

I had to travel to MK on Tuesday to get my work laptop sorted (couldn't be done online) and so had three hours to kill and observed the local buses. I actually thought that the Arriva fleet looked better (because its been repainted in the bland "new" livery) and the Red Rose vehicles I saw looked smart. However, the Z&S and Redline examples were hardly likely to entice anyone out of their cars!!

 

[Bletchleyite]

I had to travel to MK on Tuesday to get my work laptop sorted (couldn't be done online) and so had three hours to kill and observed the local buses. I actually thought that the Arriva fleet looked better (because its been repainted in the bland "new" livery) and the Red Rose vehicles I saw looked smart. However, the Z&S and Redline examples were hardly likely to entice anyone out of their cars!!

It looks much better than it did in the days of Peddle's rotting minibus fleet, but operationally it's still quite poor, and interior maintenance is still very much "spit and gaffer tape" if they bother at all. But anyway we're heading OT, I just cited it as a fare example

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

It looks much better than it did in the days of Peddle's rotting minibus fleet, but operationally it's still quite poor, and interior maintenance is still very much "spit and gaffer tape" if they bother at all. But anyway we're heading OT, I just cited it as a fare example

You're quite right - we could digress too far

The places where bus travel had been improving were those places that had done more to improve the reliability of bus services through better bus priority, better marketing etc. Brighton is one, so is Nottingham, so is Reading, so is Bristol. Aside from Nottingham, these are places that are a bit more economically buoyant (and that does help - more workers mean more bus journeys) but they've also been pro-bus and less pro-car.

South Yorkshire probably needs a root and branch approach to improve things (and merely introducing franchising just isn't the answer). However, I just don't know where you start.... SYPTE seems abject, First SY needs sorting, and the council seems reluctant to do anything to upset car drivers, and there's no money.

 

[gordonthemoron]

Strangely (or rather not), when NCT introduced Go2 services and significantly increased service frequency, bus usage went up. Whowouldathunkit?