Could a new political party in power, reverse bus decline ?

[Simon75]

Would a change of party, in Central government, reverse the decline in bus use ?

 

[PaulMc7]

Would a change of party, in Central government, reverse the decline in bus use ?

If they put more funding into bus operators and actually built proper bus priority so that journey times could be sped up massively then yes it's possible. However, I don't see it happening because so few politicians actually use buses so have zero understanding of the issues that the industry faces.

 

[Harpers Tate]

I'd say not and here is why.

It will take maybe 20 years to recover the losses that have happened over the last 20 years. It pretty much takes a generation to significantly move public behaviour en masse. Note, for example, how long it took to substantially reduce the numbers smoking and to shift public perception of those who still do.

It will involve huge improvements in service patterns with greater frequencies and "fast" services alongside stoppers, and so on, to bring end-to-end journey times closer to driving. And better quality vehicles. This would need to be in place FIRST before any other move to encourage modal shift begins. It's pointless taking other measures to encourage shift if the "to" part of that shift remains a poor alternative. And that will cost money upfront.
It will (then, and only then) involve a huge shift in relative costs at the point of use with free or much, much cheaper bus fares AND parallel large increases in the costs involved in motoring.

Governments are elected. If a manifesto proposes general taxes are raised to fund initial service improvements and then later, motoring costs are increased (by whatever means) both to fund it and to encourage modal shift, that party would likely not get elected. And if it became policy after an election, it likely would not be re-elected. So, at best, you get 5 years.

Therefore the required 20 years of consistent policy would not ever actually happen.

 

[Failed Unit]

I must admit. My attempt of commuting by bus I found.

Buses in Hertfordshire generally very old (but still ok for about a 1 hour journey)
Unreliable- lots of cancellations
Poor information- buses diverted round roadworks but nothing on the operator’s website.
Infrequent- which makes the unreliable nature worse
Slow - they need to go around estates to pick up passengers but express routes between big towns definitely needed.

It will take a lot of money to fix these things and a lot of publicity to get me to try the bus again. But in my case I would have cycled if there were shower facilities at the end. To me a “shower only” fee at the local leisure centre would work. So what will get better bang for the buck? Improving infrastructure to use e-scooters/ e-bikes or bus routes? Ideally both.

 

[Dai Corner]

Only the public can reverse the decline in bus use, as it is they who would have to travel more or change mode.

 

[Snow1964]

No

There are many parts of the country where the infrastructure is too run down, bus stops not much more than a pole, often without seats.

Even if they chucked Billions of pounds at the industry would take years to get sufficient quality vehicles, and train sufficient staff.

Sadly heading back to where we were 120+ years ago, negligible buses. We just don't take buses seriously in this country, too ingrained that they are cheap transport without any quality.

 

[Robertj21a]

No, it's not the actions of any government (short of making bus travel free for everybody), it's the fact that so many want the convenience of their own private transport - car,, bike, scooter, walk etc

 

[Magdalia]

Even if they chucked Billions of pounds at the industry would take years to get sufficient quality vehicles, and train sufficient staff.

There will be no recovery in bus provision because of the labour market. The bus companies can't recruit enough drivers to deliver the existing service, so there's no hope of them being able to deliver more.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Yes, clearly they could, by reversing decisions on subsidy, improving integration etc in order to make the service more attractive.

Whether they will is a separate question.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 May 2023 ==

Only the public can reverse the decline in bus use, as it is they who would have to travel more or change mode.

Not true. Reversal of the decline in provision is necessary, and that requires subsidy.

 

[Dai Corner]

Not true. Reversal of the decline in provision is necessary, and that requires subsidy.

I disagree. There is ample spare capacity on many routes. More subsidy can increase provision but that doesn't necessarily mean people will use it.

 

[Fleetmaster]

Only the Greens I guess?

They would be the only party where it seems logical to think they would be wholly behind the idea that every £1 of public investment in buses, and more importantly changes in land use that benefit buses, leads to £1+ benefits in terms of climate, environment and social mobility.

And they would be the most inclined to change the way buses are subsidized going forward, being significantly more committed to the idea such things should be a matter of general taxation for the public benefit, and that subsidy should be about not jut providing necessary services but lowering fares across the board.

But of course this is just a complete fantasy. The only viable route to power for the Greens, is if Labour shoot themselves in the foot and need them as a coalition partner. You can see that happening, Labour being specialists in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But the idea that the coalition negotiations would see Labour cede the entirety of bus policy to the Greens, seems absurd.

Not because Labour's ideas are amazing and they are super committed to buses, because they clearly aren't. Nor because the Greens plans would be too expensive even for the spend today and pay tomorrow approach of a Labour chancellor. More likely, depressingly, it's because even for the Greens, buses are of relative low importance.

We are sadly not yet advanced enough in the transition to fully electric electric to show the Greens that massive investment in buses could not just make a big difference to climate targets but also see the bus network become a viable means of lowering the energy costs of councils and social housing, potentially making it a much higher priority for them at the next election.

 

[Man of Kent]

Most of the ideas expressed here consider only the bus and do not look at the wider context into which it fits.

The planning system and other societal changes have reduced the number of destinations that can be served successfully by any form of mass public transport. When retail was only available in town centres, everyone went to town centres. Now retail parks are dotted all over the place - usually excepting town centres - and inevitably with free car parking.

Indeed, the planning system for many years from the 1970s - possibly earlier - pushed minimum car parking standards on most developments, be they retail, employment or housing. That was reversed, imposing maximum standards, briefly after some reforms introduced by the Labour government in 1997 - that's the same government that put land use planning and transport in the same ministry, and issued the "Workhorse to Thoroughbred" white paper (an early version of what we now call a national bus strategy). It was a brief renaissance for the bus, and many housing developments of the time made proper provision for bus routes, though persuading people in expensive new houses to use buses proved rather more difficult.

But it was a brief period, and although there may be no more Meadowhalls or Metrocentres being built, retail parks and worse, office parks, continue to spring up at locations difficult to cater for a mass market by bus (e.g. by an out of town motorway junction). Policies for new housing places bus access far down the list of criteria to be considered. NHS Wales built an out of town hospital not so long ago - Grange University Hospital between Newport and Cwmbran - and then wondered why there were no buses serving it. As far as I can tell, it boasts two buses an hour on one corridor - for a hospital with 470 beds and goodness knows how many thousands of staff.

So no, unless a political party is prepared to tackle all of this, things are looking quite bleak for buses.

 

[Citistar]

In my opinion, we need a government willing to deliver a package for stability rather than the ridiculous parade of short term projects that have appeared over the past 25 years. Local Transport Authorities need a reasonable per capita settlement of ringfenced public transport funding allocated by central government for them to spend how is most appropriate locally, with the requirement that the vast majority is actually spent on providing services to the public. No need for expensive consultant administrators such as Ernst Young or Grant Thornton to be involved by the DFT in setting that up and adminstering it as happened with the £2 fare cap or the Covid grant. The savings of central government spending on administration of such schemes would be considerable.

Fares need some stability too, as there is likely to be something of a cliff edge slump in usage when the fare cap ends. Until the recent intervention, there has been very little done to control fares over the past three decades, but i've always believed that an open, all operator fare system for each area would be hugely beneficial, providing that fares are set at realistic levels which makes it possible for operators to economically run the services. If everybody knows where fare levels sit and that return/day/season tickets are valid for all relevant journeys, it makes collaborative working between all parties far more feasible. As an example - look at the most recent cuts to services in South Bristol, so of which were caused by expiring contracts not being replaced, others by reduced usage. There is a massive barrier to any operator other than First taking these services over (commercially or supported) - at least 50% of tickets in the city live on the First app which no other operator can access. If there were an open ticketing system, the window opens up for other operators to provide a replacement, perhaps interworking an off-peak service with existing commitments at peak times.

So there is my manifesto - a long term commitment to stable funding and regulation of fares.

 

[A0]

I must admit. My attempt of commuting by bus I found.

Buses in Hertfordshire generally very old (but still ok for about a 1 hour journey)
Unreliable- lots of cancellations
Poor information- buses diverted round roadworks but nothing on the operator’s website.
Infrequent- which makes the unreliable nature worse
Slow - they need to go around estates to pick up passengers but express routes between big towns definitely needed.

It will take a lot of money to fix these things and a lot of publicity to get me to try the bus again. But in my case I would have cycled if there were shower facilities at the end. To me a “shower only” fee at the local leisure centre would work. So what will get better bang for the buck? Improving infrastructure to use e-scooters/ e-bikes or bus routes? Ideally both.

The Hertfordshire Intalink website is actually one of the better ones which has a 'ticker' of service updates which show diversions etc.

To be fair to the operators, websites are not the easiest thing to put 'ad hoc' updates on which is why they tend more towards using Facebook / Twitter for such updates as those platforms are perfectly suited for that.

Not sure where you are travelling to / from - but Herts is pretty good on frequency across the main 'town to town' corridors. Again, your criticism that "express routes" needed between "big towns" - where do you have in mind ?

Example - Hemel - Watford (two of the bigger towns) has the 501 which takes a quick route between those places. The problem is people don't want to travel from town centre to town centre and never have (unless they happened to live in the town centre in which case it's their local stop).

It's also worth noting that Hertfordshire County Council is Conservative run and has been since 2001.

 

[zwk500]

Not true. Reversal of the decline in provision is necessary, and that requires subsidy.

I disagree. There is ample spare capacity on many routes. More subsidy can increase provision but that doesn't necessarily mean people will use it.

Both are true. There needs to be buses people can use (not just buses running, but at the times and frequencies they need them), but Investment will only be justified if there are people to move with the buses. Both need to do their part, and unfortunately none wants to move before the other.
It's very hard to argue for more funding when only a dozen people are using the service, but it's equally hard to persuade another dozen people to leave the car at home when the buses don't meet the trains, or don't run more than once an hour, or don't get into town before they need to start work...

Relating to the OP, Labour getting in probably won't help, because they'll be desperate not to play into Tory hands by suddenly spaffing a great amount of money on unsecured returns.

 

[JKP]

Only the Greens I guess?

They would be the only party where it seems logical to think they would be wholly behind the idea that every £1 of public investment in buses, and more importantly changes in land use that benefit buses, leads to £1+ benefits in terms of climate, environment and social mobility.

And they would be the most inclined to change the way buses are subsidized going forward, being significantly more committed to the idea such things should be a matter of general taxation for the public benefit, and that subsidy should be about not jut providing necessary services but lowering fares across the board.

But of course this is just a complete fantasy. The only viable route to power for the Greens, is if Labour shoot themselves in the foot and need them as a coalition partner. You can see that happening, Labour being specialists in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But the idea that the coalition negotiations would see Labour cede the entirety of bus policy to the Greens, seems absurd.

Not because Labour's ideas are amazing and they are super committed to buses, because they clearly aren't. Nor because the Greens plans would be too expensive even for the spend today and pay tomorrow approach of a Labour chancellor. More likely, depressingly, it's because even for the Greens, buses are of relative low importance.

We are sadly not yet advanced enough in the transition to fully electric electric to show the Greens that massive investment in buses could not just make a big difference to climate targets but also see the bus network become a viable means of lowering the energy costs of councils and social housing, potentially making it a much higher priority for them at the next election.

Based on what I have seen here in Scotland, the Greens are only interested in cycling and walking and closing off streets which is often detrimental to buses.

What is really needed is a strategic approach with free flowing routes around major towns and cities combined with proper land use planning and restrictions on cars entering city centres.

A package of frequent Buses then need to be put into place at affordable or free fares subsidised by car parking or low emission zone charges.

Will this ever happen? No because politicians will consider they will be unelectable by the great British public.

 

[Failed Unit]

The Hertfordshire Intalink website is actually one of the better ones which has a 'ticker' of service updates which show diversions etc.

To be fair to the operators, websites are not the easiest thing to put 'ad hoc' updates on which is why they tend more towards using Facebook / Twitter for such updates as those platforms are perfectly suited for that.

Not sure where you are travelling to / from - but Herts is pretty good on frequency across the main 'town to town' corridors. Again, your criticism that "express routes" needed between "big towns" - where do you have in mind ?

Example - Hemel - Watford (two of the bigger towns) has the 501 which takes a quick route between those places. The problem is people don't want to travel from town centre to town centre and never have (unless they happened to live in the town centre in which case it's their local stop).

It's also worth noting that Hertfordshire County Council is Conservative run and has been since 2001.

My journey was Welwyn Garden City to St Albans in this case. It does indeed have an express route, namely the 724 but in my 6 attempts to use it, it didn't show up 3 times (couldn't find out what happened to it on the Intalink site). I have found that if the service isn't tracking it probably isn't coming (but that isn't always the case as the trackers sometimes don't work) The UNO 601 service I found much better (and the tracking worked). Again you could argue this is express but at certain times of the day it does have some big gaps in frequency. The other route 653 isn't really designed for people to travel between WGC and St Albans and the 301 is probably a good route between the 2 places to be honest, but I think that if it had a few less stops more people may try it. I never got to try the 301 on this 2 week period as either the bus didn't show up or the 601 arrived first.

It is a chicken and egg as I said above the 724 running every 30 minutes may be the solution, but it is hardly full now, so really someone would need to put money see if passengers will switch. However going the other way Welwyn to Hertford now as the combination of the 724 and the recently introduced 324. Neither are full so not really sure what can be done here to get less people driving between the towns.

The recently withdrawn 366 shows some of the problems with balancing recourses and demand. It had gaps towards Luton from the Welwyn Garden City between 0730 and 0930. The time a lot of people wanted to use it, in the other direction from Luton the missing bus was the one that would leave circa 1600. The bus was probably used for a school run but I tended to cycle rather then use the route. Now it is gone so I can't really complain about it, but it was amazing how that gap in the "travel to work" for me times put me off using the service. I am sure the school contract made more money for the operator.

If you look at the 653, it has gone from every 20 minutes recently to every 30 minutes (does it make much difference to users?) - I guess only UNO know that. But looking at recent news story that pattern is very familiar over herts.

What do I want - to give it another try confidence the existing service can operate reliably. If I am taking the bus I don't want to bother with parking so I will be honest for me 30 minutes frequency is normally fine. (if they all run) - Missing one and waiting 29 minutes is annoying but not the end of the world.

As for the last point - I will help try and change that tomorrow

 

[stuu]

Anecdotally, the bus stops round here (Taunton) look a lot busier since the £2 fare started. They also have £1 fares for anywhere in the town, and evening buses with the BSIP money. I was at a friend's birthday the other day and two people said about using the bus to get about, neither of whom I would normally expect to say such a thing, both being car owners.

Get the price and the service level right and people will use them

 

[Bletchleyite]

I disagree. There is ample spare capacity on many routes. More subsidy can increase provision but that doesn't necessarily mean people will use it.

"Frequency is king" when it comes to bus services. If you've got an hourly service which runs half empty, it's entirely feasible that if you up it to 4 buses per hour (which is a fairly magic frequency, I'd say, in terms of attractiveness) that it'll load far better, particularly if you also fund other things like quality bus priority measures so if you drive you get stuck in traffic but if you go by bus you don't. It may not be profitable to do that, but if you're the local authority with an aim of reducing car use (as you should have) then it's sensible to fund it, and things like parking charges can give it a pump primer.

It's also important to note that marginal quiet services are part of the offering. For instance, if I did an office job where I normally finished at 1730 and the last bus was 1745, and a taxi home was £20, say, I'd probably not go by bus because of the risk of missing it if I have to work a little overtime, and the stress of "do I spend £20 for another 5 minutes of work" would put me off. If there's also an 1845 and a 1945, even if they normally carry one man and a dog (no bicycles on most buses of course), their mere existence means I'm more likely to use the bus even if most days I do use the 1745. Thus, one shouldn't look at whether the journey alone is worthwhile, but whether its provision leads to people using other journeys (which needs surveys, not just stats).

There are, of course, some non-viable bus routes, but in a small to medium town with no local rail service any radial bus service should carry decent loadings if the whole package is right, and that takes funding, both of subsidy of marginal trips and of capital spending for high quality vehicles, quality waiting infrastructure* and quality priority infrastructure.

And only really Government has control of that funding, thus Government is the only thing that can really fix it.

* That doesn't need to be eye-wateringly expensive "trophy" bus stations as the Northern PTEs tend to favour - cross-town operation is more convenient for many anyway, as it gives a choice of destinations, which in some cases will give a plus over the car. But if you don't have, and maintain, decent shelters with passenger information, and it's just a bent flag on a lamp post from when a lorry whacked it 20 years ago next to 3 lanes of stinking ring road carrying the brand of a company that hasn't run for 20 years and a few obsolete route numbers if you're lucky, you aren't selling your product properly.

 

[A0]

My journey was Welwyn Garden City to St Albans in this case. It does indeed have an express route, namely the 724 but in my 6 attempts to use it, it didn't show up 3 times (couldn't find out what happened to it on the Intalink site). I have found that if the service isn't tracking it probably isn't coming (but that isn't always the case as the trackers sometimes don't work) The UNO 601 service I found much better (and the tracking worked). Again you could argue this is express but at certain times of the day it does have some big gaps in frequency. The other route 653 isn't really designed for people to travel between WGC and St Albans and the 301 is probably a good route between the 2 places to be honest, but I think that if it had a few less stops more people may try it. I never got to try the 301 on this 2 week period as either the bus didn't show up or the 601 arrived first.

It is a chicken and egg as I said above the 724 running every 30 minutes may be the solution, but it is hardly full now, so really someone would need to put money see if passengers will switch. However going the other way Welwyn to Hertford now as the combination of the 724 and the recently introduced 324. Neither are full so not really sure what can be done here to get less people driving between the towns.

The recently withdrawn 366 shows some of the problems with balancing recourses and demand. It had gaps towards Luton from the Welwyn Garden City between 0730 and 0930. The time a lot of people wanted to use it, in the other direction from Luton the missing bus was the one that would leave circa 1600. The bus was probably used for a school run but I tended to cycle rather then use the route. Now it is gone so I can't really complain about it, but it was amazing how that gap in the "travel to work" for me times put me off using the service. I am sure the school contract made more money for the operator.

If you look at the 653, it has gone from every 20 minutes recently to every 30 minutes (does it make much difference to users?) - I guess only UNO know that. But looking at recent news story that pattern is very familiar over herts.

What do I want - to give it another try confidence the existing service can operate reliably. If I am taking the bus I don't want to bother with parking so I will be honest for me 30 minutes frequency is normally fine. (if they all run) - Missing one and waiting 29 minutes is annoying but not the end of the world.

As for the last point - I will help try and change that tomorrow

Except there are more than 4 buses an hour between Welwyn GC and St Albans - and have been for some years (I used to live in the area, so know it *very* well).

The 724 is hourly, but the 301 and 302 are half hourly each and take a shade under an hour from Welwyn GC town centre to St Albans and then there are the Uno services you mention. It's better than the 1980s in the days of NBC run London Country where you had 3 buses an hour - the 340 was half hourly which started at the Hospital, went via Woodhall and town, before heading through Handside to go to Hatfield, and the 724 which went via the Town and QE2.

The 300 / 303 in those days went on to Potters Bar from Hatfield.

The 366 was a basket case - and had been for many years. Its timetable was always hap-hazard, in part due to its creation where it was a replacement to the Luton - Welwyn railway line, which also had a pretty random timetable. It was never registered as commercial in the 1980s and I can remember in the 1990s seeing 25 seat Mercedes Minibuses on it which rarely had more than a handful of people on board. Uno have covered most of the route with the 610 / 612 - except rather than serve Welwyn GC they instead leave the Marford Road and serve Hatfield Business Park (which in the 1980s didn't exist as it was the BAe site). And Uno's service is far more frequent than the 366 ever was.

In terms of the 653 - really it's a St Albans town service - replacing the old 'S' routes - but I think most of those were only ever half-hourly. It's just that Uno have extended it, presumably for operational convenience onto Hatfield & Welwyn GC - historically there was never a service taking the route that one does.

On the last point - be careful what you wish for. You have a County Council at the moment which does invest in public transport and seems to do a better job than other councils of a different political persuasion.

 

[Cambus731]

I've long come to the conclusion that (with the occasional exception eg Stagecoach in Cambridge), the privatisation of the bus operating industry has been a terrible mistake. And if any government wishes to increase bus usage, then essentially the services need to be more extensive, more frequent, more reliable, the staff need to be on better pay and conditions and the services need to run later.
As this would be virtually impossible for any business to achieve without going bankrupt, then it would have to be run at a loss. So therfore the possibility of bringing chunks of the bus operating industry back into public ownership, either nationally or by local authorities, or a mixture of the two, should be explored.
Unfortunately I think the opportunity has gone, as in recent years, Stagecoach, First, Arriva and Go Ahead have all been available and could conceivably have been purchased by the state had Labour been in power.
This could be interpreted as left wing ideology, but it's not.

 

[A0]

I've long come to the conclusion that (with the occasional exception eg Stagecoach in Cambridge), the privatisation of the bus operating industry has been a terrible mistake. And if any government wishes to increase bus usage, then essentially the services need to be more extensive, more frequent, more reliable, the staff need to be on better pay and conditions and the services need to run later.
As this would be virtually impossible for any business to achieve without going bankrupt, then it would have to be run at a loss. So therfore the possibility of bringing chunks of the bus operating industry back into public ownership, either nationally or by local authorities, or a mixture of the two, should be explored.
Unfortunately I think the opportunity has gone, as in recent years, Stagecoach, First, Arriva and Go Ahead have all been available and could conceivably have been purchased by the state had Labour been in power.
This could be interpreted as left wing ideology, but it's not.

Bit in bold - I don't agree.

In Northampton - a large town with a University, most of the town services run up to 11pm running sensible frequencies - yet too often you see large vehicles running around with only the driver on board. That's not a good use of resources, nor is it particularly environmentally friendly. It would be better for the one or two people who need to travel got a taxi - which in this neck of the woods usually means a Toyota Prius which will emit far less over that journey than an empty full-size bus.

That's the case up and down the land outside a couple of big cities - it's not unique to buses. A few weeks back on a Friday night I caught the last train from Nuneaton to Rugby - to change onto the service to Northampton. The number of people who boarded that train to Northampton was fewer than 5 - including me. And the train itself was, at best, 1/4 full - probably less.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In Northampton - a large town with a University, most of the town services run up to 11pm running sensible frequencies - yet too often you see large vehicles running around with only the driver on board. That's not a good use of resources, nor is it particularly environmentally friendly. It would be better for the one or two people who need to travel got a taxi - which in this neck of the woods usually means a Toyota Prius which will emit far less over that journey than an empty full-size bus.

Which is where Anruf-Sammel-Taxi (telephone-call group taxi, but probably better changed to English as "arranged shared transport" as the abbreviation works) comes in, i.e. you run the later timetabled journeys using a shared taxi if someone phones up and says they want it, but if not it's just an entry in the timetable that costs very little. It's a form of demand-responsive transport that is proven and has been used in the Germanic countries for 30+ years, rather than the Via "many to many" model which is failing the whole UK over.

This works better when all your transport, taxi licensing included, is under a central transport authority like TfL, and it's solely a politician's gift to move to that model, as Manchester is.

 

[A0]

Which is where Anruf-Sammel-Taxi (telephone-call group taxi, but probably better changed to English as "arranged shared transport" as the abbreviation works) comes in, i.e. you run the later timetabled journeys using a shared taxi if someone phones up and says they want it. It's a form of demand-responsive transport that is proven and has been used in the Germanic countries for 30+ years.

Or instead of setting something else up - for those who have bus passes (e.g. elderly / disabled) let them be used on local (i.e. up to 5 miles) taxi journeys after 20:00 with the cost being passed back to the Council. It would be far cheaper than the subsidy to run a single bus. Anyone else can pay the going rate - and please don't peddle the "those in poverty" line - if they've been working all other methods of getting to work will have cost them something and the minimum wage is over £ 10 an hour. If they've been out pubbing or clubbing, then frankly have one less drink - the cost of going to the pub nowadays would easily match the cost of that taxi ride.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Or instead of setting something else up - for those who have bus passes (e.g. elderly / disabled) let them be used on local (i.e. up to 5 miles) taxi journeys after 20:00 with the cost being passed back to the Council.

It would be acceptable for me to do that if you also included any young person aged 16 to 18, potentially old enough to be out for the evening (but not including alcohol in pubs) but unlikely to have driving as an option and also unlikely to be able to afford a taxi, and Mum and Dad's Taxi isn't available to every child.

 

[HSTEd]

I know the last 20 years have not been great for bus services, but there has been a long term decline in bus use since what, the 50s?

Buses have hamstrung by the fundamental limitations of the mode of transport, I'm not sure if that can be overcome long term, even if subsidy levels are restored.

 

[A0]

It would be acceptable for me to do that if you also included any young person aged 16 to 18, potentially old enough to be out for the evening (but not including alcohol in pubs) but unlikely to have driving as an option and also unlikely to be able to afford a taxi, and Mum and Dad's Taxi isn't available to every child.

Most 16-18 year olds aren't "out for the evening" because most town pubs won't admit under 18s now.

So that leaves the cinema - which in many places isn't the town centre. And most parents prefer to pick up their children or would cover the taxi.

The increased incidence of anti social behaviour by young people in London on public transport who can go where they like 'cos its free, innit', doesn't really support that.

 

[HSTEd]

Or instead of setting something else up - for those who have bus passes (e.g. elderly / disabled) let them be used on local (i.e. up to 5 miles) taxi journeys after 20:00 with the cost being passed back to the Council. It would be far cheaper than the subsidy to run a single bus. Anyone else can pay the going rate

Really?
The cost of running a bus is recorded by the DfT, and its only about £4/mile.

It's not really that much more than the cost of a single taxi.

 

[A0]

I know the last 20 years have not been great for bus services, but there has been a long term decline in bus use since what, the 50s?

Buses have hamstrung by the fundamental limitations of the mode of transport, I'm not sure if that can be overcome long term, even if subsidy levels are restored.

Bit in bold - spot on.

And changes to how people live, work, shop, socialise all meant the bus became less attractive. It could never offer the flexibility required. People moved and didn't live on the bus route to where they worked.

There are some posters around here who seem to want to plan people's lives - dictate where they live, how they travel etc etc. In the next breath, I'm sure they consider themselves "liberal" when in reality they are nothing of the sort.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 May 2023 ==

Really?
The cost of running a bus is recorded by the ONS, and its only about £4/mile.

It's not really that much more than the cost of a single taxi.

Yes - because let's say you run a bus which has a 10 mile round trip - 5 miles out, 5 back. You run it hourly from 7pm - 11pm, 6 nights a week. That's £ 200 a night, £ 1200 a week, £ 62,400 a year. For one route.

Now, let's say there are 10 people who use the taxi for 3 miles - using my local area as an example, the pre 11pm rate is as follows: £1 meter start, £ 3.70 first mile, £ 1.80 subsequent mile. So that would be £ 8.30 for a 3 mile journey. And if those 10 people are going in different directions, the taxi will take them to their destination, whereas you'll end up with 2, 3, 4 possibly 5 different bus routes. The taxi cost £ 83 / night.

 

[telstarbox]

Perhaps the local context of different places across the country is too different for one single solution. Buses clearly are popular in some places such as London, Oxford, Reading and Brighton so what are those places doing right? Clearly London has a unique procurement setup but what about the others which are still privatised?