Public Transport Disparity: Why Systems Also Matter

One of the major, somewhat unexpected, talking points of the 2019 General Election was buses. While the state of public transport has been a discussion point in recent years with the disastrous effects of the rail timetables, this time it was both the level of funding and the systems in place up for debate. Since the election, funding for buses and ‘Beeching’ towns has been announced, but is this enough?

According to the Campaign for Better Transport, yearly funding for buses is £400 million lower now than a decade ago and 3000 routes have been lost or reduced in that time, with 243 in the 10 months of 2019 leading up to the reports publication. In this same period, fares have risen on average 60%, higher than rail fares in the same period. Given that more journeys are made in the UK by bus than by train, should we not be paying more attention to this issue?

Boris Johnson recently announced £5 billion over the next 5 years to cover this shortfall in funding for buses. An increase of ‘turn up and go’ routes and new ‘Zero Emissions’ buses are key points of this policy, but the spending plans are limited by the lack of change in the system in place. Improvements to local transport was central to Labour’s 2019 campaign, with £1.3 billion a year in funding for local bus routes being touted as early as April 2019. This pledge also included placing bus services into the hands of local councils and introducing a ‘London-style’ tendering system for all councils. This is one of the most important parts of the policy, even if it perhaps not the most exciting or headline grabbing piece of policy.

‘London Buses’, the part of TfL responsible for, unsurprisingly, buses, plans routes, sets service levels, and ensures the quality of services. This allows for TfL to ensure that communities that may otherwise be under-provided transport links due to remoteness, insofar as parts of London can be remote, or lack of a profit motive. It also means there is a system in place that means underperforming companies can lose their rights to run a certain route, so that travellers are not stuck with a bad service. TfL also sets the pricing of bus journeys, currently £1.50 per trip for an adult including one change within 60 minutes of the start of the first, so competing firms cannot undercut one-another on a particular route to assert a monopoly.

Elsewhere in the UK, service providers decide what routes they want to run, and what prices to charge. This leaves travellers entirely at the whim of private companies. While some areas have little coverage, more profitable routes can have several operators and routes serving very similar areas. The Wilmslow Road bus corridor in Manchester has 6 operators and 9 different routes using the same 5.5 mile stretch of road. During peak hours parts of this route average 1 bus a minute, leading to claims it is the busiest bus route in Europe. This route leads directly into Manchester city centre and passes through universities and student housing, hospitals, and train stations and is likely an extremely profitable route. Contrast this to the thousands of miles in rural areas which may be lucky to see 2 or 3 buses a day, leaving older residents isolated. Allowing local councils control over where routes are run would provide those in underserved areas a much needed lifeline that they can rely upon.

The current governments plans for rail services are equally underwhelming. With HS2 still being prioritised despite a bill now topping £100 billion, train services in the rest of the UK are taking a blow. The so-called ‘Northern Powerhouse Rail‘ project, linking major cities in the north of England, is one example of how a small portion of the money spent on HS2 could vastly improve transport links outside of London. Linking these cities and then integrating HS2 would vastly improve both passenger and freight links in the North. This underinvestment in railways outside of HS2 has also been shown in the money given to re-open lines cut in the Beeching years. The £500 million to be invested toward re-opening these lines has been called ‘loose change‘ by Rail magazine who estimate it would only be enough to re-open 25 of the 5000 miles closed. Transport spending per head has also been a major issue for the past decade. According to the Institute for Public Policy Research, spending per head on transport between 2007 and 2017 fell by 3.6% in the North and rose 11.4% in London.

This repeats the argument for rail nationalisation. By bringing the railways back into the publics hands, we can invest and run the system for the people it serves, not for profit. The same can be said for buses. Public transport is too important a lifeline to be used as a toy for profit.