A modern Bus Service Run for the Public Good Not Profit is Vital to Bringing Our Towns and Cities Back to Life. By Adam Colclough

 

A modern, accessible, and efficient public transport system is key to giving our towns and cities a viable future. Busses have a significant role to play in this, years of deregulation have had a negative impact on how bus services are run.

Working to create public transport networks that serve the needs of communities and contribute to addressing climate change by cutting congestion and pollution is a priority for the Green Party, with an emphasis on ending deregulation and backing public ownership.

Party activists in Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme are joining with trades unionists, environmental campaigners, and community groups to call for local bus services to be improved.

Deregulation allows private operators to set their own fares, routes, and standards, unsurprisingly this has not resulted in a better service for passengers. It has created a monopoly where private operators cherry-pick the most profitable routes and leave local authorities to pay for quieter but essential routes and off-peak services.

Passengers get a poor deal from bus deregulation, with fares going up every year while services are cut to the bone. At a time when they are struggling to balance the books many local authorities are unable to protect threatened routes.

Losing the bus route that runs through their neighborhood can have a devastating impact on communities. Often it is the most vulnerable people who are hit hardest facing a choice between spending money on taxis or running a car they cannot afford or being socially isolated.

Bus services in Stoke-on-Trent have regularly been cut by provider First Potteries, recently the pandemic and reduction in use due to lockdowns has been cited by the company as a reason for doing so. There is a long history of services being withdrawn and this having a negative social impact, in 2018 for example D&G Busses, who operate routes deemed uncommercial by First cut their service, raising concerns that vulnerable individuals and communities would be isolated as a result. 

 

 

It does not have to be this way, across Europe public control of bus services is the norm. Operating through a franchise system the council elected by local people has control over the network, any provider wishing to win a contract must meet the requirements for fares, routes, and accessibility they set. Under this system revenue generated from profitable routes is used to fund quieter, but socially necessary ones.

The government has introduced Enhanced Partnership Schemes (EPS) to deflect criticism of bus deregulation, these do more to protect the profits of providers than the interests of passengers.

An EPS is an agreement between a local transport authority and a bus provider to improve local bus services. It should set out clearly what improvements are going to and how they will be achieved. An EPS agreement can lead to improvements, but only if the provider agrees with what it is being asked to do.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council have unveiled ambitious plans to improve bus services in the city that could see investment in major infrastructure projects. This is backed by a £29million grant from the Transforming Cities Fund won in 2020 and a bid for a share of a further £3billion in funding for transport made available by the government.

Along with investment in road building the plan will, if implemented, see among other improvements, a simpler and cheaper fare system, uniform branding for all buses regardless of the provider operating them and improved passenger information.

Enhanced Partnership Schemes and pots of government money for which towns and cities must compete for a share are not solution a to improving bus services. Public ownership is the only viable option in the longer term, there are suggestions of a move towards this position, with the Welsh government pledging to repeal laws making it illegal to start a new municipally owned bus company, and Westminster suggesting it may be possible for local authorities in England to buy up bus companies.

For public ownership to succeed deregulation must end, while it remains in place unscrupulous private operators will always be able to force ethical public owned ones into bankruptcy by undercutting them on fares and by compromising on service quality.

Although it offers welcome improvements to a transport network struggling to cope after years of underinvestment the plan as put forward has serious flaws. It is very clearly an Enhanced Partnership Scheme by another name and is entirely dependent on First Potteries, the main provider agreeing to go along with the proposals, giving them the power to dictate the terms. The Bus Passenger Charter included is unlikely to represent the voice of passengers.

A spokesperson for North Staffs Green Party said: ‘bus users in Stoke and Newcastle have had a raw deal for years due to the deregulation of services creating a virtual monopoly. The time has come for them to be given a real say in how a service that is often of vital importance to them is run.’

Adding that the city having a ‘modern bus service run for the public good not private profit is going to be vital to bringing the six towns and other local communities back to life.’

Discussions about how the campaign will be organized are expected to begin in early 2022 and further announcements will be made following on from this.