Cuts, Cuts and More Cuts

If you know of any actual, pending or rumoured cuts in local bus services your way, resulting from local transport authority cuts, please email me.

At least it seems that the government is highly unlikely to make radical changes to free concessionary travel. Other than what was proposed under the previous government, we don’t yet know what it has in find for BSOG, reforms that will no doubt make the industry worse off, overall. Expect something radical. By that I mean unpalatable.

The likelihood of funding problems in the future already means a number of local transport authorities, big and small, are planning for or executing cuts in subsidy and therefore services. Today, for example, Warrington Transport operates a completely revised Sunday service following the cancellation of all Warrington council Sunday contracts. No Warrington Transport bus will be on the road after 1800. Halton Transport’s two-hourly Warrignton-Chester service will from today operate between Runcorn and Chester only. Hourly buses to Widnes and Liverpool remain after 1800, thanks to cross-boundary support from others, subsidised by neighbouring authorities.

Warrington my be a smaller player. But changes are starting to affect larger authorities. There’s a rumour, for example, that Greater Manchester PTE are looking to slim down Sunday evenings, too, if push comes to shove. Time was when Sunday services were soft targets. This is certainly no longer the case before 1730, with stronger demand during city shopping hours.

Further south is big-spending Surrey council. From 28th August, it intends to shave off £1¾mil from its £3.6mil bill in two areas of the county, plus the abandonment of its Pegasus fare-paying school transport project. Though the council claims this will have a “minimal impact” on passengers (because, for example, people will now need to change buses), the same cannot be said for operators, whose bottom lines are supported by this sort of subsidy.

The other emerging fact of life in local government will have a further impact on its ability to deliver supported services. Increasingly, councils are implementing “jobs freezes”. As staff retire or leave, expect gaps in knowledge and professional skills. Such transport-related jobs have traditionally been something of a bolt-hole for industry professionals, in difficult times. 25-30 per cent cuts in authority budgets will see this avenue well and truly blocked off. The number of new posts advertised in New Transit, already pitifully small compared to the halcyon days of yore, whether in the industry proper or local government, will reduce further (partly because New Transit is now monthly: best to see the Jobs in Transport website). The eight vacancies currently advertised in the Centro PTE are very much the exception. Consider them while you can. As for bread and butter jobs elsewhere, vacancies have all but dried up in Coach & Bus Week and are few and far between in routeONE.