Additional minimum standards expected of participants in the bus Enhanced Partnership (EP) mechanism in England are listed in a review of that approach. The Department for Transport (DfT) wants them to be achieved by March 2027 for the following financial year’s bus grant funding to be accessed.
Although he who pays the piper calls the tune, that might be a problem in some areas. While posterchildren for bus partnership success are well known, in certain other areas, EPs have delivered little of notice from a passenger perspective despite lots of talking and plenty of money being allocated.
In one such location that may (or may not) be hypothetical, Bus Service Improvement Plan funds have generated service uplifts. At the same time, the dominant operator has seen a wretched collapse in reliability due to a variety of influences, many of its own making.
Meanwhile, the local authority issues street works permits as it might confetti. Long-lasting, disruptive and uncoordinated full and partial closures wreak havoc. When public and private factors are combined, the bus network is left almost unusable, because who has time or will to stand around for an hour when a journey no-shows?
That is an extreme case, but ongoing difficulties with reliability are not isolated. Scarcely a month passes without a bus operator somewhere adjusting schedules to add running time either at peak or across the day. The service becomes less attractive while costing more to run. A circle of doom if ever one existed.
Lord Hendy in his capacity as a transport minister says the government will assist EPs that are not currently hitting the spot get to where they need to be. The recent review outcome echoes much the same, although how it will happen remains to be seen.
A question that DfT officials might ask is how such a difference in EP effectiveness between where the approach excels and where it does not is evident. Where EP delivers, the benefits are legion. Portsmouth enjoys 24/7 service provision, excellent priority measures, and has seen over 40% bus patronage growth.
Leicester is on the way to fully electrifying its city fleet and has integrated timetabling and ticketing. In Norfolk, ridership is well up. The list goes on, even before legacy centres of partnership like Brighton, Nottingham, Oxford and such are considered.
But differences between what goes on in those areas and others where EP is struggling to make a mark leave a challenge for the government and the Bus Centre of Excellence. The good from the former needs to find its way to the latter, and quickly if DfT is to stick to its expectations for what is being delivered on the ground.
Choices by previous ministers have constrained (or crippled) local transport authority capacity, and so it is right that central government bears the burden of undoing that.
Yet talk of better bus services has been heard by the public since debut of the National Bus Strategy nearly five years ago. Patience among those waiting for jam tomorrow will not be endless. Patronage gain that has tailed off or ceased entirely in some areas gives an indication of what awaits if improvements do not come.
Enhanced Partnership can deliver. That is beyond question. The task now is to ensure it does so how Lord Hendy says: all of the time, and not just some of it.
DfT report on the bus Enhanced Partnership review available by clicking here.
