Has Deregulation worked?

The deregulation of bus services in the UK took place some 20 years ago, but many politicians are now asking the question:

Has deregulation worked? Are services better, more frequent, meeting passenger need?

Bus ridership is determined by a range of factors:-

• The relative speed of buses and cars - priority allocation of road space to buses is a key component of this.
• Bus service punctuality
• The availability and price of car parking
• The extent to which new development is concentrated in urban centres, or dispersed towards or beyond the urban fringe
• The initial and ongoing costs of running a car in relation to household incomes
• The ease of passing a car or motorcycle driving test
• The way car users pay to use the road (an annual sum or pay-per-day)
• The availability of public transport alternatives (trams, metros, trains)
• The intrinsic attractiveness of the bus service
• Bus fares

Most of these factors are completely independent of the regulatory framework for buses and it is impossible to determine in any objective way whether a decision on the regulatory framework, taken more than twenty years ago, has "worked".

It is valid, however, to compare recent experience of bus ridership in the UK with other comparable EU states where public authorities maintain control of bus investment, times and fares.

In France, in the ten year period to 2004, passenger numbers in urban transport grew by only 1.4%, on average, per year. Over the same period, the proportion of costs met from fares fell from 51% to 39%. This compares with average falls of 1.4% per year in England (outside London) in a context of passengers meeting 68% of the costs of bus services through fares.¹

So in France the cost of regulation is high and the benefits very small.

Public transport use (principally bus) fell by 14% in Italy's large cities (where all services are regulated and co-ordinated by public authorities) from 2002 to 2004.²

So Italy seems to be poorly served by a regulated public transport system as well.

Within the UK, bus ridership in the regulated market of Northern Ireland fell by 3% between 2000 and 2005.

And even closer to home regulation is not working.

By contrast, bus networks working under the deregulated system in Exeter, Oxford, Cwmbran, Cornwall, Bournemouth, York, Bedford, Peterborough, Basingstoke, Lancaster/Morecambe and Kidderminster all achieved double-digit passenger growth from 2003 to 2004. Here in the East Midlands trent barton has recorded growth on its network of bus services for six consecutive years up to 2005.

There is no evidence to suggest that buses are less effective in England than in any other EU state. Indeed, ridership by unsubsidised passengers has generally held up well in all the English PTE areas over the last five years. Where there has been an overall fall, it can be attributed to demographic factors and changes in concessionary charging policies.

Are bus services sufficiently co-ordinated with other forms of public transport?

Co-ordination with other modes brings benefits to people making complicated journeys but generally creates disbenefits for others, either by increasing the costs of bus operation or by moving bus stops towards interchange points and away from places where people actually want to go. However, there are many excellent examples of co-ordination where it is relevant to passengers.

For instance trent barton's 'connect' service in Hucknall is a good example of coordination and integration by two commercial operators and it has been hailed as a model of integration by local and central government.

Thanks to Traveline, a joint endeavour between authorities and operators, and the Government's Transport Direct service, it is possible to get co-ordinated information on all transport modes by telephone and on line.

Are buses clean, safe, and efficient?

Thanks to self regulation and ever-more-demanding EU standards, a new bus is a clean bus. The industry has made - and kept - a voluntary commitment to improve the average age of the national fleet, which now stands at 7.12 years. The average age of the trent barton fleet is less than 4 years.

The bus industry has a highly-developed safety culture. Whilst there is no room for complacency, the mode remains a safe one.

An environment where revenue has to be won from passengers in competition with other modes and with private transport is a strong spur to efficiency.

Are bus priority measures having a beneficial effect? What is best practice?

Yes, but there is scope to do more and make existing measures more effective. Recent work by The Robert Gordon University has identified benefits from more extensive and better enforced networks of bus lanes. The study shows that there are cities with substantial bus priority, such as Leeds, where buses are still disrupted by congestion, suggesting that there is scope for even more priority measures.

Reliability and punctuality are the top demands of bus users and priority measures are the only way to meet these demands.

People say that the regulated bus network in London works well and is attracting new users. Is London a sound model for the rest of the UK?

London is unique transport environment characterised by significant long distance commuting, limited and expensive central area parking and the Congestion charge. The London model includes:-

• Unified control over the important parts of the highway network and over road charging policy. Locally unpopular highway measures can be progressed for the greater good.
• Comprehensive local tax-raising powers for transport and a strong bargaining position for funding from central Government.
• Large budgets for priority, policing and for the provision of services.

Authorities outside the capital could achieve comparable results by spending comparable amounts of money and taking bold decisions on road allocation - without changing the regulatory system.

Buses in London are an undoubted success story but they have not always been so. The regulated environment has seen periods of feast - including, arguably, the present - but also times of famine with low investment, poor performance and minimal attention to the needs of passengers. The political focus and will to succeed that has brought about the current situation in London can be applied elsewhere without the need to change the regulatory framework.

What is the future for the bus? Should metropolitan areas outside London be able to develop their own form of regulated competition? Would this boost passenger numbers? If not, what would? Does the bus have a future? In addressing rural railways, the Secretary of State has said that we "cannot be in the business of carting fresh air around the country"; is the same true for buses?

The future for the bus is brightest where space is at a premium and air quality is important. Buses are second only to bicycles in their ability to move people cost-effectively with a minimal impact on congestion and the environment. If local policy makers concentrated on:-

• The availability and price of car parking
• Accessibility planning so that the places people want to go to are clustered in urban centres, not spread around the suburbs
• The relative speed of buses and cars through congested areas
• The price paid for using a car - reflecting its consumption of space and emissions of pollutants bus ridership would grow.

Any of these actions would give a greater return than tinkering with the regulatory framework.

¹Source: Union des Transports Publiques Paris, Report 2004

²Source: Report on Local Public Transport: state of the art and development prospective. Earchimede Strategy Consultants, committed by ASSTRA - Associazione Trasporti, and ANAV - Associazione Nazionale Autotrasporto Viaggiatori; Italy, 2005