Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2016-04-05 07:20:16 - Graham Ellis
Wiltshire's Consultation on bus support (£5.1 million per year) and the various options they have in order to reduce that support to £2.6 million (or lower) formally closed at 5 p.m. yesterday.
There have been similar consultations in neighbouring shire counties recently as well Although I'm worried about some of the question that Wiltshire asked, and about the heavy publicity on certain bus types contrasted to the near (or total) absence on Sunday or evening buses, I must congratulate Wiltshire on ensuring that the consultation ran for long enough and with enough publicity for it to generate full inputs. And I must congratulate them too on allowing time on completion of the consultation to incorporate the public view and findings into (I hope) an ongoing positive future.
Reviewing the supported buses to make a 50% saving is no easy task. There may be plenty of spare seats on many supported services at present, but each occupied seat is occupied by someone who's schedule would be changed - a little or massively - by removal of that service. In many cases, as well as inconvenience or extreme inconvenience, service removal would result in extra cost ... personally, to an employer, or to the public purse - the very thing money was supposed to be save from in the first place. And I'll go further; simply removing supported buses will cut traffic transferring to what are at present commercial buses, jeopardising the more marginal ones. Removing support will lead to more people driving; an increase (admittedly not huge) in road congestion, parking issues, and the environmental impact of cars which is already a problem in places like Devizes and Bradford-on-Avon. And it will remove the health benefit that the gentle exercise of walking to the bus gives, and the mental health benefit of getting out and meeting people for some.
I continue to be convinced by the suggestion that reviewing the whole public transport network and looking at it as a planned system, can provide an excellent network with the mandated budget constraints. By looking at the whole it offers an approach for the future on a potential growth rather than a probably shrinkage curve, with commercial operator competition being at contract rather than an individual passenger level; that offers the operators a stable background to plan ahead rather than them getting 56 days notice of changes made by others that could seriously undermine them. An fit encouraged them to work together as passengers carried within a basket of routes they are co-operators on will help meet objectives and bonus levels.
For the passenger, the system offers common (and fairer) pricing, information and ticketing, transport that connects route to route and runs to a much more regular pattern. There will be some losses, inevitably, but overall the picture will be a positive one. And if this can be got it right, subsequent changes will be in the upwards direction, while still in that budget saving level.
The end of the consultation represents a start in much more to be done. "What do the inputs mean" and "How can we achieve what everyone wants" . There has been a lot of thought already into these questions - let's move on and get them fully answered, and implemented!
