Ongoing challenges facing the bus industry in Wales mean that the case for franchising of services there “has been strengthened still further,” Deputy Minister for Climate Change Lee Waters has claimed.
On 10 November, Mr Waters issued an update on the process behind delivering such wholesale reform, which was aired in a white paper published by the Welsh Government in 2022.
He used the opportunity to again reiterate a belief that “the privatised operating model for bus services is broken,” although the Deputy Minister praised bus operators in Wales for their efforts since 2020 to work with the Welsh Government to mitigate the impact of change and funding challenges.
Mr Waters adds that regional planning teams in Wales – which he describes as “a bridge towards the new model” – are working to establish which routes are viable without financial support, and on the review and adaptation of networks.
“We will be able to achieve much more when the design of our network is a public responsibility rather than a profit-led exercise, but the regional planning teams can form the basis of a structure to agree a franchised bus network in the future,” the Deputy Minister continues.
In underlining that Transport for Wales (TfW) will lead on the procurement of regulated bus services, Mr Waters also says that local authorities will have “a strengthened and active role” in bus and will work with the Welsh Government to develop network plans in their respective areas.
While the reregulation plans outlined by the Welsh Government in its white paper have been cautiously welcomed by some in the country’s bus industry, TfW came under attack earlier this year from Newport Transport Managing Director Scott Pearson.
Writing in routeone, Mr Pearson described the body as “a money pit of expensive consultants” and criticised what he called “no or little bus industry knowledge.”
Mr Pearson also highlighted congestion as an inhibitor of bus service delivery, a worry that has been articulated by at least one other senior industry figure in South Wales. In a sign that such a message has resonated with the Welsh Government, Mr Waters said on 10 November that the answer to worries over 20mph zones “must lie in prioritising buses.”
In words that will be welcomed, Mr Waters adds that bus lanes and other priority measures “help to unblock congestion and gives buses an extra boost in traffic blackspots, making [bus] journeys more viable and reliable.”
The Welsh Government wants to see “a renewed focus” on such measures. As a result, it has made available £6 million in 2023 and a further £5 million in 2024 “to encourage local authorities to bid for grant funding” for such improvements.
While Mr Waters again criticised the deregulated model, the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) Cymru has pointed out that in the 10 years leading to the pandemic, bus operators in Wales increased commercial mileage by over 5% in response to austerity measures that saw supported miles cut by more than half.
In his update, the Deputy Minister makes no reference to proposals recently made by CPT that advocate an incentivised, minimum-subsidy approach to bus franchising in Wales.
Such work would give the desired control of routes and fares to the Welsh Government, and allow the specification of a ‘base network’, but it would also give bidders scope to propose improvements over that to grow revenue and/or reduce costs. It would generate an additional 40 million bus journeys per year in Wales, CPT has claimed.