Should railways and buses be under common control in UK

[Ken H]

In the 1920's railway companies increasingly took an interest in bus companies. they saw buses as a way to penetrate locations where a railway wasnt cost effective.
At nationalisation the Tilling bus group was also nationalised and vested in a separate part of the British Transport Commission (BTC) to the railways. The railway interests in other companies, notably British Electric Traction(BET) bus companies, were vested in the bus group
Later in 1967 BET sold its bus interests and were united with tilling in the BTC. This was to morph into the National Bus Company.
Sorry if thats simplistic - I am trying to be brief.

So buses and railways became separated. I think that was a mistake.

So do we think buses and trains should become under common control from government. This would allow better integration etc?

 

[Dr Hoo]

Surely the thing to understand is why so little (it seems) was achieved on 'integration' during the British Transport Commission.

Section 3 of the Transport Act 1947 stated:



I have never understood why successive Chairmen and Commissioners were not charged with 'breach of statutory duty'.

This travesty lasted until Ernest Marples dismantled the entire edifice with the Transport Act 1962, as speedily implemented by its last Chairman, namely Dr Richard Beeching, despite him having one or two other things on his mind at the same time.

If integration was 'impossible' when public transport still had a market share of well over 50% how would it work better now?

 

[py_megapixel]

It's insane that they aren't to be honest. Buses and trains are not fundamentally different, but they are suited to slightly different jobs, meaning they are excellent at complementing each other but competition between them is a bit pointless

What's even more insane is that London doesn't have true integration, despite everything being under the control of one publicly owned entity.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Regional buses yes, so they could fill gaps in the railway network rather than competing with it and through tickets could be offered.

Urban buses in non PTE areas probably not, they serve a different market. Urban bus, tram and rail in PTE areas should be under PTE control.

The observant will note that this is (almost) how it works in a certain quadrilingual European country renowned for excellent public transport...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 May 2022 ==

What's even more insane is that London doesn't have true integration, despite everything being under the control of one publicly owned entity.

Totally agreed.

 

[PTR 444]

It should probably be a criteria that any settlement with a population of at least 10,000 must be connected to a “National Public Transport Network”, consisting of a direct bus with integrated ticketing to the most convenient rail station if a railway does not already exist there. These places could then be added to the National rail database, with tickets available to purchase from rail stations, as well as purpose-built ticket machines at the bus stops served (think of it a bit like Bristol’s Metrobus setup).

 

[SynthD]

https://www.whtimes.co.uk/news/traffic/exclusive-thameslink-interview-with-grant-shapps-8966578 (no paywall)

To mark the introduction of a new railway timetable, Grant Shapps MP has insisted his plan for a joined-up rail and bus network will "revolutionise" travel throughout the country.

And he insisted that rural communities in Hertfordshire will soon link up with one another, thanks to the flagship National Bus Strategy.

"Hertfordshire's 'east-west' has been notoriously bad since the Beeching Cuts, which took away great lines like the Alban Line," said Mr Shapps.

The Beeching Cuts in the 1960s resulted in the closure of approximately 5,000 miles of railways nationwide.

"But Herts is one of only three areas in the country which wants to put in franchising - like London's system - so we could end up with a London-style service. It's very exciting. It's experimental.

"One thing that wasn't very intelligent about buses before is that there was no integration plan. It was just, 'well, we're going to run a bus', and that was that."

That's not a satisfactory answer, but at least he's dogfooding his own constituents on his plans.

 

[NoRoute]

Integrated .. yes, everything under common control... probably not if it means it being operated by one organisation and creating more monopolies, in which case definitely not, in fact I'd go further and suggest one of the problems with the railways is that it was a public monopoly for far too long, and then became a railway infrastructure monopoly which has not helped it.

You need competition between organisations in order to drive things forward, otherwise organisations get set in their ways, avoiding change, not adopting new technologies, ways of operating, and avoiding the difficult decisions and changes needed to improve. That's why a lot of the big changes come from new businesses and start-ups, coming in from the outside and forcing companies to change.

 

[Irascible]

You do not *need* competition to provoke forward looking behaviour, just an independent watchdog with teeth. Nor do you need the duplication competition requires in a public service, that's waste the railway has been pruning for 60 years ( at least until more was artificially introduced).

 

[Gareth]

Urban buses in non PTE areas probably not, they serve a different market. Urban bus, tram and rail in PTE areas should be under PTE control.

I'm a believer in local government and that any given city or county should be able to run buses directly if it wishes, set up a franchise system if it prefers, or leave it entirely to private companies with minimal interference, if it finds that agreeable. But to do that, we'd need to properly decentralise taxation, so local government would be primarily self-funded. It wouldn't be entirely different to the decentralised nature of a certain quadrilingual country you admire.

 

[RT4038]

Surely the thing to understand is why so little (it seems) was achieved on 'integration' during the British Transport Commission.

Section 3 of the Transport Act 1947 stated:

View attachment 115068

I have never understood why successive Chairmen and Commissioners were not charged with 'breach of statutory duty'.

This travesty lasted until Ernest Marples dismantled the entire edifice with the Transport Act 1962, as speedily implemented by its last Chairman, namely Dr Richard Beeching, despite him having one or two other things on his mind at the same time.

If integration was 'impossible' when public transport still had a market share of well over 50% how would it work better now?

I guess that the phrase 'properly integrated' can be interpreted fairly widely - I expect what was meant by that in 1947 might not be the same as is thought of today.

There were just too many obstacles and issues to bring in this 'proper integration' - inter alia, differing farescales and workers conditions between operators, proud private companies (large and small) not wanting to lose their businesses, and proud Corporations not wishing to lose their local control over their bus operations, coupled with serious vehicle supply and operational shortcomings that the BTC shied away from taking too much responsibility for. And their hands were pretty full with railway problems.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Approaching this subject from a different angle, can anyone cite a railway station where there is no regular bus service but with sufficient land outside for buses to park and wait?

 

[JonathanH]

Approaching this subject from a different angle, can anyone cite a railway station where there is no regular bus service but with sufficient land outside for buses to park and wait?

There will be plenty of such stations in rural areas. I assume you mean major stations.

There are a number of major stations where the bus station is nowhere near and interchange involves a bus or walking between the railway station and bus stops.

Is the suggestion that all bus stations would be at the railway station if there was common control and sufficient land?

What is the suggestion to fix that at Plymouth, Exeter, Bristol, Norwich, and many other places?

 

[Ken H]

There will be plenty of such stations in rural areas. I assume you mean major stations.

There are a number of major stations where the bus station is nowhere near and interchange involves a bus or walking between the railway station and bus stops.

Is the suggestion that all bus stations would be at the railway station if there was common control and sufficient land?

What is the suggestion to fix that at Plymouth, Exeter, Bristol, Norwich, and many other places?

I think the railway doesnt want buses in stations. They would rather charge an arm and a leg for parking.

 

[RT4038]

There will be plenty of such stations in rural areas. I assume you mean major stations.

There are a number of major stations where the bus station is nowhere near and interchange involves a bus or walking between the railway station and bus stops.

Is the suggestion that all bus stations would be at the railway station if there was common control and sufficient land?

What is the suggestion to fix that at Plymouth, Exeter, Bristol, Norwich, and many other places?

More to the point, who is going to be paying for all these near empty buses to travel to and from bus stations at inconveniently sited railway stations? Bus Stations can be built outside the Railway Station, but not many buses actually use it (Stratford upon Avon, brand new one at Coventry etc). That is before consideration is made towards making connections with trains, and the inefficiency that may be incurred in that endeavour. Quite what happens in places with more than one railway station (Warrington for example), where a bus station is outside one and totally inconvenient for the other other. Every bus route goes to both?

 

[JonathanH]

I think the railway doesnt want buses in stations. They would rather charge an arm and a leg for parking.

Would they? Do the bus companies want to go to stations? Let's take Norwich. It has a large forecourt area at the railway station but the bus station is a mile away on top of the hill near the shops and offices.

Is there some panacea you envisage where all the buses in Norwich serve the railway station, are timed to depart when the train from London arrives each hour and then serve the town centre as well?

Are all the buses meant to be planned by a common transport authority including those operated by 'independents' for the last 100 years? Where would coaches arrive?

Do the needs of rail passengers trump those of the passengers who want to get to the shops? Is the fare from Norwich to Cromer and Sheringham or Great Yarmouth meant to be the same on the bus and the train with tickets fully interchangeable?

 

[MattRat]

Integration most likely requires nationalisation, and do you trust the government to run such a system?

 

[py_megapixel]

Integration most likely requires nationalisation, and do you trust the government to run such a system?

Ideally it would be a nationally owned company that runs itself at arms length from central government without ministers meddling with it. Whether that would actually happen, though, I have no idea.

 

[JonathanH]

Integration most likely requires nationalisation, and do you trust the government to run such a system?

Full nationalisation of buses is not going to happen. It doesn't even happen in London.

Control of buses would never go beyond some form of local government specifying services through a transport authority - there is already the process of contracting socially necessary services to fill gaps left by commercial operators (if funds permit).

Ideally it would be a nationally owned company that runs itself at arms length from central government without ministers meddling with it. Whether that would actually happen, though, I have no idea.

There has never been a time in this country when all buses were nationalised. Where do you draw the line with coaches?

 

[py_megapixel]

there is already the process of contracting socially necessary services to fill gaps left by commercial operators (if funds permit).

There is, and it's horribly inefficient, because letting commercial operators take their pick and then tendering to fill in the gaps in whatever they create throws away all possibility of cross-subsidising the unprofitable but necessary services using proceeds from the profitable ones.

 

[JonathanH]

There is, and it's horribly inefficient, because letting commercial operators take their pick and then tendering to fill in the gaps in whatever they create throws away all possibility of cross-subsidising the unprofitable but necessary services using proceeds from the profitable ones.

Yes, and it can lead to some cynical decisions like not running evening services to save money. However, given there isn't a bottomless pit of money somewhere that cross subsidy has to be paid for. Even a nationalised business would have to decide whether to run loss making services or not and whether the cross subsidy is worth it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Integration most likely requires nationalisation, and do you trust the government to run such a system?

It doesn't, but it does require regulation.

 

[py_megapixel]

It doesn't, but it does require regulation.

That legislation would have to be very far-reaching though. It would have to ban operators from offering their own ticketing products alongside the integrated ones, and in rural areas a truly integrated system would require essentially giving the railway the power to set the bus times. I imagine there would be considerably less private interest in running bus services if that were the case.

 

[DC1989]

I read before (it may have been on this forum) that someone has a meeting with one of those bosses of a bus company and said 'so of course you time your buses that stop at xxxxx rail station based on train departure times?' and received back a bemused look

I myself was in rural Kent recently and got a bus to the train station. The bus was one per hour and so was the train - the bus arrives at the train station about 5 minutes after the train. So you have to wait 55 minutes for the train (after waiting perhaps up to an hour hour the bus). This clearly is a complete nonsense

 

[Bletchleyite]

That legislation would have to be very far-reaching though. It would have to ban operators from offering their own ticketing products alongside the integrated ones

If the vast majority of users use ENCTS etc as they do on some routes then this might not be all that big a thing!

and in rural areas a truly integrated system would require essentially giving the railway the power to set the bus times. I imagine there would be considerably less private interest in running bus services if that were the case.

I'd suggest there would be plenty of interest. If anything more interest from smaller firms as they'd be protected from the big boys running them off the road. Public services are normally done by way of procurement of contracts with private companies (e.g. most bins are emptied this way) and so that approach to bus operation seems the obvious default.

There are lots of options, but what is clear is that a "free for all" is not, to my knowledge, what you have in any other "first world" country, and when the UK is alone in something it's normally wrong...

 

[stuu]

I myself was in rural Kent recently and got a bus to the train station. The bus was one per hour and so was the train - the bus arrives at the train station about 5 minutes after the train. So you have to wait 55 minutes for the train (after waiting perhaps up to an hour hour the bus). This clearly is a complete nonsense

But makes perfect sense if you are hoping to catch a bus from the railway station

 

[JonathanH]

I myself was in rural Kent recently and got a bus to the train station. The bus was one per hour and so was the train - the bus arrives at the train station about 5 minutes after the train. So you have to wait 55 minutes for the train (after waiting perhaps up to an hour hour the bus). This clearly is a complete nonsense

I had that experience at Headcorn, but it is difficult to see how it could be different given the running time to Tenterden and the need to run the service efficiently. This would be a case of the train having to be timed at the same time in both directions to match the reality of how the bus times work and the bus having to arrive before the trains and leave after.

We have to be realistic about the constraints of bus and railway operation that not all connections can work neatly every time. I was the only passenger making the bus connection when I did it. The fact that the bus connection works in one direction is good.

 

[Dr Day]

giving the railway the power to set the bus times

I would see it more as 'the transit authority' specifying bus (and possibly also train) frequencies and any mandated connections rather than 'the railway'

 

[Railwaysceptic]

There will be plenty of such stations in rural areas. I assume you mean major stations.

There are a number of major stations where the bus station is nowhere near and interchange involves a bus or walking between the railway station and bus stops.

Is the suggestion that all bus stations would be at the railway station if there was common control and sufficient land?

What is the suggestion to fix that at Plymouth, Exeter, Bristol, Norwich, and many other places?

Major schemes of building new bus stations within railway precincts will rarely be feasible but we can consider running bus services which call at a railway station as part of their itinerary. The forecourt of Elstree & Borehamwood Station has three bus stops and several buses call there. How many other stations could provide similar facilities? Could Hereford? Could Salisbury?

 

[bangor-toad]

So do we think buses and trains should become under common control from government. This would allow better integration etc?

Hi,
Here in Northern Ireland there is common control. Translink operates the buses, coaches and the trains.

Some things do work out well. The iLink tickets work on any service in the paid for zone be that bus, coach or train. It's also cheap compared to many English tickets. Many sites do have combined bus and train stations.

The bad. There's basically zero integration between bus and train times. Almost any of the possible trains home are timetabled to arrive 1 or 2 minutes after the bank of buses leave. It's frustrating...

Would this model work elsewhere in the UK? I suspect not.
Cheers,
Mr Toad

 

[dcbwhaley]

Approaching this subject from a different angle, can anyone cite a railway station where there is no regular bus service but with sufficient land outside for buses to park and wait?

Edale springs to mind.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 May 2022 ==

I read before (it may have been on this forum) that someone has a meeting with one of those bosses of a bus company and said 'so of course you time your buses that stop at xxxxx rail station based on train departure times?' and received back a bemused look

Given that buses rarely run to timetable such integration is not really possible.

And you could very fairly turn the question around: Why aren't trains timetabled to arrive at xxxx station just before the bus arrives