Now the Bus Services Act has passed into law, the industry in England needs to work with its LA partners, says CPT President Paul Lynch
A new era for our industry began abruptly and with little fanfare, a brief government media release on a chilly Tuesday morning declaring that a “landmark bus bill” had become law.
Royal Assent for the Bus Services Act was granted a few days before Hallowe’en, completing the bill’s 10-month journey through parliament. It heralded, according to Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, a “new era of better buses”.
Make no mistake – this is a watershed moment. It is the biggest shift for our industry since the 1985 Transport Act that deregulated bus services. It gives broad new powers to mayors and local authorities (LAs) to exercise control over local transport.
So what happens next? It will be decision time for town halls across England. Every LA will need to assess and determine the right course for their local area in the regulation of buses.
There is currently a tendency among politicians to characterise this as a binary choice of either Enhanced Partnership or franchising. But it is much more subtle than that – there are a wide range of variants within both categories.
Time to influence this legislation is now over. We must turn our minds to how to support LAs in implementing it
Franchising, for example, need not be a fully centralised Bee Network copy. That just will not work for many places. Instead, LAs could franchise only certain corridors or routes – and there is no rule that they would need to own depots and buses.
Similarly, Enhanced Partnerships come in all shapes and sizes to suit local needs, as long as they are held together by a legally binding plan with shared objectives.
The decision on what will work best for each locality is a complex one, with far-reaching consequences. What is right for a big city might not be effective in a rural county or a seaside town – and the size, scale, shape and competitiveness of the bus market varies enormously.
So the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) has stepped up with a handbook and a toolkit to support decision-making by LAs. Commissioned by CPT from Frontier Economics, these materials have the backing of the Department for Transport and are intended to support evidence-based analysis.
CPT’s tools seek to make the process easier for resource-strapped councils and to take the ideology out of the decision – to root it in evidence based on what will work best for bus users.
They outline a helpful step-by-step process by which LAs can set out a vision for bus services, assess the strengths of the existing model, and then weigh up the benefits of alternatives with clarity.
In choosing a regulatory structure, five broad considerations need to be weighed up: strategic fit, value for money, market capacity, affordability, and achievability. And these new analytical tools are illustrated through example areas – large, smaller, urban, and rural.
The handbook and toolkit will be shared with transport leads at every LA in England. It has support from the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport, and the Association of Transport Co-ordinating Officers – the two groups representing senior transport officials – and from organisations such as the Campaign for Better Transport.
Over the last year, CPT has led the industry in working with government to ensure the Bus Services Act is fit for purpose, but the time to influence this legislation is now over. We must turn our minds to how to support LAs in implementing it effectively.
Bus operators have shown for decades they can prosper under a wide variety of regulatory regimes. The way forward is in the hands of local politicians. Our job is to support them in making smart choices and in delivering on the swift, affordable and reliable buses that their voters – and our customers – want.
