The Government has announced a package of extra funding measures to the tune of £220M for buses alongside a new National Bus Strategy for England intended to ensure that bus services develop in a way that meets passengers' needs in what is being called "A Better Deal for Bus Users"
The Bus Users' Group has been looking at the details to see how much they might benefit bus passengers in the Lancaster District.
National Bus Strategy
The government's ambition to "secure a long-term, sustained improvement in bus services" will be underpinned by the new Bus Strategy, which will set out how local and national government can work together with the private sector bus industry to bring improvements for passengers. The BUG hopes that passengers will be able to have an input into how it develops.
Area-Specific Schemes
Some of the announcements are specific to certain areas of the country and will not immediately benefit Lancaster, except where localised "pilot projects" may be rolled out to other areas in due course.
Bus Priority
A sum of £20M will be made available in the West Midlands for bus priority schemes identified by the Mayor of the West Midlands. It's a sobering thought however that such a large sum of money will apparently only result in 5km of new bus-only roads, 5km of bog-standard bus lanes, 8 "junction improvements" and 16 "enhanced waiting facilities" (or as we know them: "bus stops")
Electric Buses
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| An electric bus in Nottingham |
£50M is to be made available to provide electric buses and supporting infrastructure (charging points). The government will invite expressions of interest from towns that seek to convert all their buses to "zero emission capable" ones with one being chosen to act as a pilot scheme for the future.
What isn't spelt out is that such buses would only be "zero emission" if the electricity used to power them is generated from renewable sources such as wind or solar power. Otherwise, the emissions are merely moved from the roadside to the power stations. Arguably, electric buses in themselves benefit wider society rather than the passengers that travel in them, although new buses are, naturally, always welcome. Given that Stagecoach has recently invested several million pounds in a fleet of 32 ultra-low emission diesel buses for Lancaster it is unlikely that the city will be chosen for an all-electric pilot scheme.
Superbus Schemes
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| A bus in Fowey, Cornwall |
There will be a four-year project to develop a so-called "Superbus" scheme in Cornwall to more closely integrate the county's bus and rail networks. The project will build on work already undertaken by Cornwall Council and will include reductions in bus fares, for which £23.5M has been allocated.
Lancastrians may, of course, benefit from this if they choose to holiday in Cornwall!
England-Wide Measures
Lancaster will obviously not benefit directly from the expenditure in the West Midlands or Cornwall or from electric buses in another part of the country, but some parts of the announcement are England-wide and will bring local benefits.
Information
The government wants to see better and more consistent information at bus stops. Locally, Lancashire County Council does a fairly good job in this respect (some errors and omissions notwithstanding) with departure lists on display at all the most well-used stops.
On-line information will also be improved through the "web portal" that is being developed to allow independent app developers to access operator-held data on fares and bus location to add to the scheduled times that are already available.
Locally, Stagecoach has timetables and fares available via its website and "next bus" departure information on its app, but hopefully the "open data" project will allow the development of a single source of online information for both Stagecoach and Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire services, showing timetables, fares and "next-bus" real time information for both operators in one place.
Fares and Payments
The government wants to see all buses accepting contactless payments. Locally, Stagecoach already does this and it would be good to see Kirkby Lonsdale Coach Hire fall in line. Smaller operators are to be incentivised to move to contactless payment by a "carrot and stick" approach either with the assistance of new grants to fund the work or by withholding existing grants until conversion is achieved!
More interestingly, the government says that it wants to work with local authorities and operators to develop multi-operator ticketing schemes, so that passengers can use "the first bus to come along" without worrying about which ticket they might already hold. The BUG welcomes this as it has already identified the Lune Valley as somewhere where such a scheme is badly needed and is now working on a scheme to put to operators and Lancashire County Council in due course.
Demand Responsive Service Trials
| Demand Responsive Bus In Pembrokeshire |
A sum of £20M is to be made available for yet more trials of "demand responsive" transport in rural and suburban areas. These are seen as being "more flexible" and "user-friendly" and even promoted as making it possible for passengers to order a bus "at a time it suits them to travel". The reality, of course, is that they replace services that run at fixed - but advertised - times that provide certainty of service with a system that requires passengers to pre-book a ride and to fit in with the bookings that other people may have made and other runs the bus may be doing. They will have to do this for every journey they make, which must act as a barrier to using public transport, when what we need are incentives. There have surely been enough trials of this form of transport over the years to show that whilst it may work in certain very-specific circumstances it is not a panacea - or even a viable solution - to the rural transport problem.
More Funding for Local Authorities
Last but not least, the government intends to increase the funding it provides to local authorities to subsidise bus services. The government currently provides a Bus Service Operators Grant of £250M a year, paid to bus companies, which was originally paid as a partial rebate on the duty paid on bus fuel. Since 2014 £43M of this grant has been paid instead to local councils to help them pay for non-commercial bus services in their areas. The government now says that from next year the direct payment to councils will be increased by £30M a year. It's not clear from the announcement whether this is an extra £30M or whether the amount of Bus Service Operators Grant paid to bus companies will decrease by the same amount.
It has been calculated that if the £30M is distributed on a pro-rata basis then Lancashire CC could be in line for an extra £1M in funding to restore some of the services lost in recent years. Whilst welcoming this the BUG can't help but point out that since 2016 Lancashire has reduced its spending on bus services by £4M a year so the chances of all the cuts being restored are slim indeed.
So, What Do We Think?
If Lancashire does indeed receive an extra £1M for bus services the BUG will obviously be fighting for our District to get its fair share of the pot, hopefully to restore at least some of the evening and Sunday services lost in 2016. We realise, however, that this amount would be insufficient to restore everything that has been lost.
The BUG is very interested in proposals to encourage multi-operator ticketing. This does not need to wait for smart-card or contactless payment schemes but could be started very quickly using existing ticketing systems.
We would welcome contactless payment being extended to all buses in the District, particularly if grants are to be made available to provide it.
And we look forward to better information - particularly on fares and real-time data - becoming available especially where information on ALL services is available in one place, be that on-line or paper-based.
It's good to any the government - any government - take an interest in buses and whilst we may not agree with everything they propose to do with the money it looks as if some of it will directly benefit bus passengers in the Lancaster District. We will be fighting to make sure that it does!
But we aren't getting carried away. At the same time as it announces a relatively-modest £220M for buses the government has announced a £25 BILLION (That's £25,000,000,000) programme of road building designed to encourage the use of private cars!
