Speak up for coach and bus industry’s plight

MPs need to be reminded about the value of our industry and the challenges we face, says Confederation of Passenger Transport President Ralph Roberts

As the summer comes to an end… with a heatwave, schools are back everywhere and, with college and university students about to start their term, we are seeing footfall return to more healthy levels. After the ups and downs of the last few years, even normal seasonality dips are enough to make managers nervous, as I have discovered in my conversations up and down the country.

It is also good to note that the bus industry has been promoted recently — from political football to political punchbag. Labour’s shadow transport secretary has been frequently sharing her displeasure about how bad a job the industry is doing in her view. Unsurprisingly, I strongly disagree. The people employed in this industry up and down the UK work long and unsociable hours to deliver the best service they can against what can only be described as a stacked deck. All-time high levels of congestion, persistently poor planning strategy and decisions, threadbare local authority transport budgets and much more are just some of the things that hold bus companies back from delivering better services.

It occurred to me that a phrase that I hate describes the situation perfectly: we are where we are. Recriminations will not help the situation. Only by accepting the reality of where we are, will we make things better for UK bus users and reverse the 70-year-old modal shift pattern away from public transport. We all know why we are where we are, and there is fault on both sides of the ‘debate’.

I would urge you to make sure that your local MPs know the reasons though. Only this week, I pointed out the obvious changes in how we live to one MP. There are no longer collieries, steelmaking, carbuilding or shipbuilding, high-density housing has been replaced with an urban sprawl, and there are huge uplifts in car ownership, to name but a few. It suddenly dawned on them that this might affect how people move about and how demand for bus services may have changed. It is not always obvious, so it is our job to make sure that it is.

Talking of schools returning, I saw that a national newspaper ran an article about the increased costs of school coaches and were complaining about the “7% hike”. They have clearly missed the horrific price increases in diesel, gas, electricity, water, food and interest rates. I think we have been a soft target for too long and we should remind them of their proclivities every chance that we get.

School coaches transport 600,000 school kids every day on contracted trips and are an essential part of our nation’s public transport mix. The driver shortage in coach companies is double what it is in bus and, instead of moaning about a below-inflation price increase, society should value the job the sector delivers. I would urge you to do what you can. Invite MPs to your business, show them what you do, let them hear from staff and highlight how much has been invested.

And lastly, the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) in London hasn’t touched most of us… except that it has. No doubt, town halls up and down the nation will be vowing to stay well away from any form of car constraint given the media coverage of the ULEZ introduction. We must keep reminding our politicians that our coach and bus passengers are the greenest and most efficient road space users. Coach and bus are part of the solution and our passengers deserve a good deal, following years of policies aimed at promoting car travel.

Have a great autumn folks.