Well, there is good news: the 5 major operators have pledged to implement contactless payments on all their buses. Somewhat unbelievably, this won't be complete until 2022!
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English bus usage continues to fall (in most places)
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Robertj21a
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Well I would also include Centrebus as they're the one that keeps the fares of the others in check - but if you outlaw competition then you're scrapping the 1986 Act. Personally, I'd much rather leave the major services to the commercial operators like Arriva, First, Stagecoach etc as I have little faith in the staff employed by local councils etc to have sufficient knowledge or ability to handle such matters. The councils should just fill in any necessary services that aren't already supplied commercially - i.e what should already be happening.
2022? That's insane.
Remember this press release from 2011?
http://www.firstgroup.com/ukbus/latest_news/?id=007371
They said "contactless bank cards will be accepted across England from late 2012". It was supposed to be touch-in, touch-out like Trent Barton or the Netherlands. They rolled out new ticket machines across their fleet nationwide. But we are still waiting.
2022 is only 10 years late. Maybe by then contactless bank cards will have been replaced by another technology.
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By 2022, I think there's a very high chance that contactless bank cards will be obsolete for many people.
In my view, all that's needed (at least in the short term) is the option to pay for your ticket by card instead of cash. Attempting to implement a TfL-style "Oyster-style" travelcard by proxy is likely to be way too complicated for unzoned travel over long distances and is, in any case, actively hostile to those who would wish to pay for themselves and a friend or their children. A £10 note will pay for travel for more than one person and a card ought to be able to do the same.
Busaholic
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Excellent post. I agree in every detail. Contactless cards are not the way forward and it's only this country that is barking up this particular creek. Visa and Mastercard, being worldwide organisations, may well not allow their names to be associated with them when their widespread misuse becomes apparent.
MedwayValiant
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Mr Cameron's government told us four years ago that an Oyster-type scheme would be in use on all trains and buses in the country by 2019. That's clearly not going to happen, although I haven't seen any announcement that the plan has officially been abandoned.
Moving to something slightly less impossible to implement, Arriva told us we'd have an Oyster-type scheme in Medway "next year". That was in 2008, and we're still waiting for it ...
Moving to something slightly less impossible to implement, Arriva told us we'd have an Oyster-type scheme in Medway "next year". That was in 2008, and we're still waiting for it ...
edwin_m
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Contactless cards are only complicated if you need the facility provided in London (but not on buses) where the fare is only calculated once you touch off at the end of a journey. It ought to be pretty easy to interface a card reader with a normal bus ticket machine so people could state their destination in the usual way then pay more quickly by contactless instead of faffing around with cash.
Indeed, Edwin - the point I was hoping to make. With the added time-saver of the driver also not having to faff around with cash (in the cab and, to a lesser extent, at the end of the shift).
MedwayValiant
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It has been noted that contactless cards are unlikely to be a long term solution, and in any case any bank card based system is going to be awkward for some sections of the population. The Oyster system as used on London buses wouldn't work nationwide because fares are not flat, and a touch-in touch-out system as used on the Underground is a non-starter for buses.
But is there any technical reason why buses all over the country couldn't adopt Oyster PAYG, with the fare deducted from the balance and paper tickets still issued? The existence of paper tickets means that one person could pay for a whole group of travellers if he wanted - they'd still have a ticket each to show to an inspector (although ticket inspections en route are rare in most of the country in any case).
The only difference from the current system is the method of payment. Boarding would be quicker because no cash has to be handled, and operating costs would be reduced for the same reason.
But is there any technical reason why buses all over the country couldn't adopt Oyster PAYG, with the fare deducted from the balance and paper tickets still issued? The existence of paper tickets means that one person could pay for a whole group of travellers if he wanted - they'd still have a ticket each to show to an inspector (although ticket inspections en route are rare in most of the country in any case).
The only difference from the current system is the method of payment. Boarding would be quicker because no cash has to be handled, and operating costs would be reduced for the same reason.
Bletchleyite
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Why are contactless cards not a long term solution?
Didn't TfL want to let Oyster be used for other payments, effectively becoming a prepaid CPC? I think the issue was that then it was effectively necessary to regulate it like any other financial product, although someone else can probably clarify the finer details.
Ultimately, using Oyster anywhere in the country didn't become a thing, any more than the idea of using it to buy drinks and ice cream in shops and at vending machines.
Ultimately, using Oyster anywhere in the country didn't become a thing, any more than the idea of using it to buy drinks and ice cream in shops and at vending machines.
Why wouldn't a touch in touch out system work nationwide on the buses? Seems to work perfectly well for Mango users on Trentbarton.
You're posting rubbish -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contactless_payment
"Major financial entities now offering contactless payment systems include MasterCard, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, American Express, KeyBank, Barclays, Barclaycard, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Freedompay, The Co-operative Bank, Nationwide Building Society and The Royal Bank of Scotland Group. Visa payWave, American Express ExpressPay, and MasterCard PayPass are examples of contactless credit cards which have become widespread in U.S. and UK. The UK (and the rest of the world) version of the contactless applications differ from the U.S. one. The UK version has the capability of transacting offline, based on the limit stored in the application."
Unless we're getting rid of cards completely, I can't see why contactless would one day disappear?
Sure, things will evolve. Sure, we might have other ways to pay that are considered even more convenient, but plastic cards have existed for some considerable time and I doubt they're going to disappear anytime soon.
Just as cash won't disappear, even if people barely ever use it for small and other 'day-to-day' transactions.
Sure, things will evolve. Sure, we might have other ways to pay that are considered even more convenient, but plastic cards have existed for some considerable time and I doubt they're going to disappear anytime soon.
Just as cash won't disappear, even if people barely ever use it for small and other 'day-to-day' transactions.
Tetchytyke
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Widespread misuse? You're really going to have to explain more.
howiottpie said:
It should work, but it's an unnecessary complication. Just let the passenger use a contactless payment card to settle the fare displayed on the ticket machine. That'd be enough to speed up boarding, especially on a Monday morning when everyone's buying their weekly with a £20 note.
Bletchleyite
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Agreed, an easy solution which benefits the passenger and will save the company running time and cash handling costs.
MedwayValiant
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I've not used a Trent Barton bus for years, but isn't there an issue with a handful of their routes not accepting Mango cards? Passengers don't much care about the reasons for that, they just know that all of a sudden they need to use cash to travel with an operator which is keen on saying that you don't need to use cash.
But the main issue would be incomplete journeys when people failed to touch out and were then charged maximum fares. London Travelwatch has reported that as many as 6% of rail journeys to ungated stations are incomplete, and it would surely be higher on buses. "Haven't used this operator before, couldn't find the touching out pad." "Couldn't get at the touching out pad because someone was standing in front of it." "Got off at the front, and only the middle doors have a touching out pad." And so on.
The initial premise of this thread was that bus usage is falling, but we've rather switched to ways that the bus network as a whole could be improved. It seems natural to assume that more people would travel on buses if the network as a whole were improved, but is that actually true? And if not, which do we prioritise?
I ask this because the bus network as a whole would surely be improved by the abolition of ENCTS in its current form. Just about all operators complain that they don't get properly reimbursed for ENCTS, and passengers who do pay fares complain that fares rise and services get cut precisely because of the loss that operators make on ENCTS travel.
Bus usage would of course fall in the short term if ENCTS free travel were abolished. No more would we see people taking a bus one stop instead of walking five minutes, and no longer would we see queues of two dozen people who believe that they are required by law to travel on the first bus of the day on which their cards are valid.
But might it lead in the longer term to an improved bus system which people who do pay fares would be more willing to use? Although yes, I'm well aware that it's probably politically impossible actually to do this.
TheGrandWazoo
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Very, very good point. I've deliberately just sat back and watched the various posts appear - good, bad and indifferent.
The reasons for ridership decline are many fold. First of all, the golden age of bus ridership was some time ago. Look at the figures (millions of journeys p.a. excl London)
- 1950 - 14.0m
- 1960 - 11.3m
- 1970 - 7.2m
- 1980 - 5.0m
- 1990 - 3.7m
Therefore, ask yourself why in the regulated age did bus travel fall? An age of stability etc. There were financial reasons - rampant inflation and oil shocks that meant spiralling fares. There were operational reasons - some areas had massive driver shortages whereas industrial disputes (directly and indirectly) also decimated service reliability. Then you have social economic reasons - many people were wealthier so car ownership and foreign holidays became commonplace. Also, the introduction of TV meant fewer evening journeys to the cinema. The closure of larger employers (e.g. single sites employing large numbers of people) and a more fragmented labour market also reduced works services etc.
We can see modern day parallels to this. We now have an even more fragmented employee base. Social trends have seen evening bus ridership fall as people drink more at home - the derelict pubs now on major roads now echoing the derelict cinemas of the 1970s. The massive increase in internet shopping is also a factor - even the large out of town places like the MetroCentre experienced a 10-15% drop in footfall over the last 10 years.
However, the single biggest issues have been policies of successive governments. The Labour government funded a succession of initiatives, such as Rural Bus Challenge and Kickstart. RBC was the reason behind much improved headways in rural counties though often the money seems to have been squandered - the poster who referred to Somerset hasn't twigged that this is where the enhanced headways came from. Kickstart was a much more focussed way of pump priming enhancements in a truly sustainable manner.
The Labour government also gave us ENCTS and this is perhaps one of the biggest challenges. The objective was to ensure that bus companies were no better and no worse off. However, Gordon Brown seemed to ignore the central plank of price elasticity of demand - make something free and take up goes up exponentially. There were instances of some companies doing well (filling up excess capacity without additional cost) whilst others suffered (influx of tourists not paying fares with additional resources required to meet demand not being sufficiently remunerated). However, it did lead to overall passenger ridership increasing even if there is the 0900 surge of senior folk at bus stops.
However, it is clear that outside of London, bus travel was increasing and that was because of the spending being allocated to it. Cue the financial crash and the age of austerity. Budgets being slashed and the cutting of almost entire networks, or ever decreasing circles as services are cut, cut and cut again. My mother's local service was a supported service, half hourly daytimes and hourly evening and Sunday. Firstly it lost the evening and Sunday plus early mornings. Now it is reduced to FOUR journeys per day - little wonder that my mother now elects to get a taxi as indeed to most people who live on the estate that don't decide to walk.
Direct subsidy cuts are one thing but there's insufficient ENCTS remuneration and bus companies have also lost out on half of the BSOG. Hence, fares go up. Bus companies have taken a pragmatic view in many areas, taking on some formerly tendered services if only to protect the wider business.
The correlation between bus ridership and government expenditure is pretty clear over the last 5 years. However, that is only likely to accelerate as bus service provision is NOT a statutory duty; in that respect, it's an easy cut. However, it is one that AS A COUNTRY we voted for. The Tories were given a mandate and the country rejected Labour - a lot of people voted for austerity and hence that is what we're reaping.
I did say that it would happen a year ago on this board, that Miliband was not seen as leadership material, and that the age of austerity would be here again. I wish I'd been wrong. What has caught the industry off guard is the Buses Bill - a way in which government can wash their hands of the issue but dressed up as empowering local people. The clamour from local government has not been great - they see it for what it is and know they'll be left holding the baby.
As it always is, a lot of this depends on whether we wish to spend money on a world class transport network.
Robertj21a
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True, but we already know the answer to that one - we don't (taking 'we' to be the UK electorate at large).
It may be the wish of many of us to have a public transport system like the excellent facilities available overseas (e.g Switzerland), but it's never going to happen in the UK.
overthewater
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Gordon Brown has no reason not to fully understand how to operate and pay for a successful OAP travel scheme. He was an MP for Fife, who under a Labour controlled council, back in the 80s introduced free travel. The Scheme worked well, block grants etc and it was centrally paid for. Scottish Government does this aswell as it pays for the scheme. Mind you... maybe it should be Block grant scheme.
English councils are backwards at this, having the councils pay for it, which should have never been done.
When it comes to Rural Bus Challenge and Kickstart, not all the money was wasted, Lincolnshire has done alright out the scheme, I think parts of East Anglia have been successful. Bedfordshire should be shamed of its self, on how it wasted alot of money of routes which competed against stagecoach.
English councils are backwards at this, having the councils pay for it, which should have never been done.
When it comes to Rural Bus Challenge and Kickstart, not all the money was wasted, Lincolnshire has done alright out the scheme, I think parts of East Anglia have been successful. Bedfordshire should be shamed of its self, on how it wasted alot of money of routes which competed against stagecoach.
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It might be worth looking again at the National Travel Survey 2014:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/457752/nts2014-01.pdf
People are travelling less generally, not just by bus.
From page 13, since 1995/7:
Car/van driver trips down 11%
Car/van passenger trips down 14%
Walk down 31%
Bus outside London down 20%
The downward trend in trips started before the 2008 crash, and also continued during the strong economic growth of the last few years and associated drop in unemployment to the current low level.
So a lot of the decline in bus use maybe similar to the reason or reasons for reduced number of car trips. Those reasons are somewhat open to conjecture.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/457752/nts2014-01.pdf
People are travelling less generally, not just by bus.
From page 13, since 1995/7:
Car/van driver trips down 11%
Car/van passenger trips down 14%
Walk down 31%
Bus outside London down 20%
The downward trend in trips started before the 2008 crash, and also continued during the strong economic growth of the last few years and associated drop in unemployment to the current low level.
So a lot of the decline in bus use maybe similar to the reason or reasons for reduced number of car trips. Those reasons are somewhat open to conjecture.
TheGrandWazoo
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Indeed, bus patronage is not located in a vacuum and many of the socio economic factors that affect it also impact on other modes.
However, NTS doesn't really explore the causal effects in any real detail.
wellwhatitis
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Thankyou! This is exactly the point I came on to make, people's movements are much more eratic and less frequent than they used to be due to economic constraints, home delivery and home based leisure pursuits. Shopping areas sell much larger items and more of them, such that people feel they can't go to shops without their cars.
When they do move around, it tends to be further and for longer, not conducive with the bus industry.
The Trent Barton Mango Card is great most of the time if you are only travelling on Trent Barton buses. With touching in and out, not only do you get 15% off standard single cash fares, but there is also a daily cap at £5 for off peak travel (after 9am). I believe that there are also weekly and monthly caps which included travel at peak times. When you are using it for multiple journeys all by Trent Barton or just the occasional single journey it's convenient, easy to use and quite good value.
My main problem with it is that it is only valid on Trent Barton Buses and the Nottingham Tram. Even then the fare capping on the buses and the trams are run separately and does not transfer from one to the other.
Although Trent Barton run many services to and from Nottingham, the further away you get from the city and into the County of Nottinghamshire the more sparse Trent Barton routes become, with Stagecoach being the main operator in Mansfield and the north of the county. Also there are so many smaller independent operators out in the more rural areas. Mango then only becomes occasionally useful just to receive a 15% discount if a part of a journey happens to be on a Trent Barton bus.
How can we expect the bus operators in Nottinghamshire to agree on a joint multi journey smartcard when the 2 major operators are so uncooperative about fares on their shared frequent Nottingham - Mansfield - Chesterfield Pronto route. Here Trent Barton and Stagecoach will not even accept each others paper day tickets and even worse will not accept their own. Trent Zigzag and Stagecoach Day Explorer are both not valid on any Pronto bus.
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overthewater
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Isnt that because of the law?
Are those figures supposed to refer to million millions (i.e. billions)? I mean even Southampton manages to exceed 3.7m journeys per year, and the bus service there is terrible.
As for your parting shot: it seems to me that British people would like European levels of service at American levels of taxation.
overthewater
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I would suggest you look again at the US level of Taxation its dogs dinner. UK is one of the most simplest in the world.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
Largely due to the interpretation of it by the Competition Commission.
Also, taxes in the US may be lower, but you'd have to pay for your own health insurance.
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