A columnist in routeONE magazine called it "predictable, irrelevant and widely-ignored." On Thursday we mentioned the House of Commons' transport committee’s report "Bus services across the UK". Here, we offer you the chance of assessing whether routeONE is correct, in our abridged and paraphrased version of the committee's conclusions and recommendations.
It may be that the government has in any case already made up its mind. We'll have to await the Queen's speech on 15 November 2006 to find out moor.
Quality Contracts
1. Modal shift from car to bus is vital in tackling congestion and reducing carbon emissions.
2. Quality Contracts would provide PTAs with the security and control that they require [my italics] to implement efficient, desirable bus networks within their areas.
3. QC procedures need simplifying. There needs a détente between operators and PTAs to ensure that bad relationships do not persist into any new arrangements.
4. PTAs have not used those London-style measures available to them because they lack confidence of any reciprocity from operators.
5. QCs would guarantee that PTA investment will be met with improvements on the part of operators.
6. The DfT should back some PTA trials, which could try different variations of QCs and the ‘London system’, with no strings attached.
7. The DfT should recognise the futility of insisting that the PTAs work within a system that they do not like and trust. The QC process should be easier to obtain.
8. In the light of QCs, PTAs need indemnifying against any threat of legal action by bus operators against PTAs
9. QCs need to be fully democratically accountable, to include PTAs’ constituent local authorities.
Traffic Commissioners
10. The Committee commends the important work done by the traffic commissioners, despite their limited numbers and resources.
11. Properly resources and higher profile traffic commissioners should retain their independence entity.
12. Traffic commissioners should have the powers to enforce QCs, penalising both operators and local authorities for failures.
13. The traffic commissioners should have an automatic right to any journey information held by the bus operators, under a duty of confidentiality.
Acceptable Profits
14. The government should commission a study to establish the minimum profit bus operators require to stay in business.
Partnerships
15. Change should be forced upon local authorities and operators (outside the Mets) to form partnerships in the face of lack of competition and stretched local government budgets. This to come before the committee in July 2007.
Community Transport
16. The government promised two years ago to hold consultation on an overhaul of community transport and permits. This should now be carried out.
Fair Trading
17. The “ridiculous” situation regarding through ticketing and service co-ordination needs thorough review. It is wrong that the OFT states it does not view the bus as being in competition with the car.
Bus Priorities
18. Congestion-busting measures should be given a high priority by government and local authorities.
19. Priorities are in the interests of the whole community and must be rigorously enforced. Priorities should be available to community transport.
Free Travel (inlcuding Young People)
20. The government should resolve the various free travel schemes and issues across England.
21. Free travel resources are not equally shared among local authorities.
22. Concessions for pensioners clearly promote bus use.
23. There is a strong case for mandatory concessions for young people, especially in education, as one factor in reducing peak congestion and in influencing travel choice.
Buses' Image
24. The poor image of bus services should be countered and not ignored. The DfT should be prominent in promoting bus use not only to the public but through public policy.
School Transport
25. Schools must play their part in tackling anti-social behaviour on buses. The DfT and Department for Education and Skills should to develop policies for encouraging responsible behaviour by students travelling to and from school by bus.
The Last Conclusion - the most interesting?
26. Those political bodies having made deregulation work have done so in spite of the legislation, not because of it. For many, including all of our major metropolitan areas outside London, the current regime is not working. Reformed QCs would enable greater flexibility to enable more structured networks.
Saturday, 4 November 2006
Transport Committee
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5 comments:
i think routeone has got it right. its all been said before and is therefor not relevent
Its all to do with roadspace. Give me more of that in my city and I can run buses reliably and better than any newly created PTE or franchise operation. Most commercially with very little call on tax £s too. Wake up Transport Committee and consider congestion charging and bus priorities and forget quality contracts.
“Those political bodies having made deregulation work have done so in spite of the legislation, not because of it.” So what. Who cares when bus companies have largely seized the opportunities and made a good job of things.
I think the comment of raodspace has it right and the transport Committee needn’t worry about who controls the bus service once priority measures are in place.
That is something else we have all talked to death over the last 30 to 40 years!
I look at London and then I look her at Manchester and I then wonder why we cannot have what London has. For me, it’s quite simple. Londoners have total integration between modes. Londoners enjoy a unified bus operation where there is no distinction between operators. Londoners always get a low floor bus. More Londoners use the buses than they did 5 years ago. Londoners have more uses to chose from than they did five years ago. Younger Londoners travel free. Londoners have presented to them a decent image of their bus service. I could go on.
So what if it costs a little more. Isn’t that a mark of a developed society?
The operators reaction to the report was most interesting! An interesting stunt like Ptegasaurus would indicate to me a certain desperation on the part of operators in the face of a serious challenge to a failed system?
Widely ignored? Plenty of media reporting on deregulation on the 20th anniversary.
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