CPT President Ralph Roberts reflects on recent events and what he sees as a ‘watershed moment’ for local commercial bus services
I was pleased to see the launch of the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) and WPI Economics report: Bus and coach: The route to net zero in London on 30 November.
If you haven’t yet read it, I would urge you to do so. Of course, the bus industry is keen to play its part in decarbonisation, and the early adopters are racing ahead with significant zero-emission mileage now under their belts.
The Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) scheme is still to make its presence felt, in my view, with very few ZEBRA buses in service. So far, £525m has been allocated, but with the mechanism for spending £205m of this yet to be announced.
This means that, of the 4,000 zero-emission buses target announced in 2020, 1,578 have been funded with only six of them in service. This should mean that there will likely be a flood of zero-emission buses entering service in 2023 under the ZEBRA scheme, and yet more in Scotland under the ScotZEB scheme. All good news then? Well, perhaps.
The market price of electricity is ruining the commercial case for passenger carrying electric vehicles (PCEVs), even with the capital assistance of the schemes above. I call on the government to retain the electricity price cap for PCEVs, lest we see more ZEBRA schemes fail.
Meanwhile, insurance underwriters are nervous about the risk that large fleets of EVs pose while charging in depots. Work is underway to alleviate these fears and educate insurers about the realities, as opposed to the headlines.
Since my last column, the Scottish Government has agreed an extension to Network Support Grant Plus funding until the end of March 2023. A fares freeze is a condition of the funding, so it is likely that we will see some network shrinkage over the first quarter of 2023. This now means that there is a funding cliff edge in April in both Scotland and England. CPT is actively engaged with both governments, but there is no doubt that the fiscal position in which the country finds itself is going to mean that every pound from government will be hard fought for. Meanwhile in Wales, there has been the admission that the government doesn’t know where the funding for its franchising dream will come from. Local bus networks are now facing a watershed moment the likes of which I haven’t experienced in my 43 years in the industry. Bus networks that were designed for commercial demand, mostly catering for social need, either directly, or indirectly, via internal cross subsidy. What fell beyond that was picked up by local authorities, as was always intended in the 1986 Act. That has all changed with the post-COVID-19 period, and there is a real danger that significant areas of social need will not be catered for. One way or the other, this upcoming hole in the fabric of our nation’s mobility is going to have to be addressed. Like all matters of service provision, planning in advance, and retaining current usage, will be much cheaper on the public purse than waiting until it is gone and having to pay to reinvent the wheel.
The good news is that all of this could be paid for by bus companies, if only the decades of compounded productivity losses were released through bus priority measures. A much better way to go about it, and a much better way to push transport towards net zero.
I wish you all a happy and peaceful Christmas and good fortune in the new year.
