The road still travelled… false alarm on the buses

Back in March, Stagecoach in Swindon and Thamesdown Transport started making noises about planned cuts in subsidy from Swindon Borough Council, bemoaning the dire effect it would have on evening and Sunday services. At the time I listed all the council subsidised bus services that might be effected, 11 in total. In April, both companies were still complaining. The council reinstated funding to just one service — the number 24 that runs through the resolutely blue-voting Lawns area.

The end result? Has there been a decimation of evening and Sunday services? No. In fact, not much change at all. The axe has been taken to evening bus services on the No. 11 and No. 19 and… that’s it. With Thamesdown Transport seemingly continuing to run all its other formerly subsidised services on a commercial basis, and Stagecoach now announcing it will do the same, there’s not much change at all. That’ll be no comfort to residents of East Wichel, Pinehurst and Greenmeadow who are now deprived of evening services on the No. 11, nor to those of Eastleaze, Shaw, Nine Elms, Peatmoor and Sparcells who have lost the evening services of the No. 19. But compared with how bad the bus companies were claiming it would be, the damage is very limited.

One could almost be forgiven for wondering whether the bus companies have been taking tax-payer subsidies for years for services that were actually profitable.

The road less travelled… from June

In a generally downbeat service update from Stagecoach in Swindon, where service 7 gets an increase in frequency, but many others are either reduced or axed altogether (R.I.P. the No 54 bus, killed off less than a year after it was re-routed to avoid West Swindon), comes advanced warning of further cuts to come.

Sunday services in the Swindon urban area
We regret that as a result of the total withdrawal of Swindon Borough Council funding for evening and Sunday bus services in Swindon that further changes will have to be introduced from Sunday 5th June 2011 and full details will be given nearer the time.

That’s quite a lot of services that are going to get a rather short back and sides unless Thamesdown and Stagecoach decide they can run them without subsidy. Currently in the evenings services 6, 7, 11, 16, 19, 20, 24, 29 and 72 and on Sundays services 6, 7, 8, 11A, 16, 17 (partly), 19 and 29 are subsidised by Swindon Borough Council.

Now I appreciate that providing a bus as a publicly subsided late night taxi is not a good use of taxpayers’ money — and many of these subsidised bus services do run with none or just one passenger on board — but a few are quite busy. Keeping a bus service running just for the sake of the one service in the middle of the evening that loads well with people heading into town for a night out may not be a viable proposition. But the blanket cut of evening and Sunday services looks like a cut made in haste, rather than a cut done with consideration for where the money could most effectively be saved.

The 7 versus the 600

I could almost have some sympathy for longstanding residents of Okus. Once upon a time, a large part of Okus was occupied by the Princess Margaret Hospital. As a major — and indeed first — large general hospital built by the NHS, bus services to it were plentiful. Then, in 2002, the hospital closed, replaced by a new PFI upstart at Commonhead. Bus services were reduced to once every half hour, subsidised by Swindon Borough Council.

Now, with the council’s coffers empty, the service has been reduced to hourly. In response, a couple have started a petition. It already has 600 signatures… in support of a service that Thamesdown Transport claim carried on average 7 passengers each journey.

How many of those 600 might be passengers on the partially withdrawn service 23? The bus ran every half hour for eleven hours a day, six days a week. That’s a total of 22 return journeys each day, 132 a week. Even if every passenger only made one return journey per week, taking the Thamesdown average of 7 only gives a total of 792 people. Unless Ms Matthews has been extremely thorough in extracting signatures from former passengers, the likelihood is that most of the signatures on her petition are from people that did not use the service — maybe do not even use any bus services at all.

Even if one were cynical and thought that the bus company was underestimating the number of passengers, the figures are still very low, and in reality an average of 7 corresponds to a few buses in the rush hour carrying many more passengers, and most of the rest carrying far fewer. On the few occasions I’ve observed a number 23 bus in Okus, it never had more than three passengers — less than a taxi-full.

If people were as willing to use bus services as they are to sign petitions complaining of their demise, public transport in this country would be in a far better state.

Dial-a-cut

I’d not been aware that social and community transport is a hotbed of international competition, with companies from other EU countries queuing up for a piece of the action. Indeed, given the strength of the UK’s bus industry — Stagecoach, First Group and National Express are all international operations with the only strong overseas presence in the UK being French state owned Transdev and imminently German state owned Arriva — and community transport being almost by definition transport services that are highly unviable commercially, it would be amazing if that ever were to be the case. However, Swindon Borough Council seems to believe that European community bus operators will be queuing out the door if they put out to tender the service currently provided by Swindon Dial A Ride.

’Tis odd that Swindon Borough Council is happy to apply European competition law to a small non-commercial transport operation, yet elsewhere claims it’s irrelevant to giving almost £½M to a company launching a service in what’s already a highly competitive industry.

Update, 22:11 Thursday 27 May. Apparently, the EU regulation being used by the council is one specific to public transport rather than the general competition-related regulations originally thought. But it’s a regulation that specifically defines ‘public passenger transport’ to exclude services such as social dial-a-ride services.

Whose bus service is it anyway?

Others have already covered in some detail the buck-passing that has followed the re-routing of Stagecoach Route 54 away from Freshbrook. They’ve already noted that there’s been a certain amount of uninformed Braying going on. Quite why, given his political affiliation, Mr Bray is disappointing with the functioning of market forces puzzles me. But then, given how poor Mr Bray’s memory is, perhaps that shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Over 400 members of the travelling public have signed a petition requesting the service be reinstated. They and I believe it will attract many more customers if it is properly advertised, unlike its arrival out of the blue in 2007.

Now there are many things that Stagecoach might reasonably be accused of, but being publicity-shy is not one of them. I’m not sure how much publicity it would need to get Mr Bray’s attention, but Routes 54 and 55 and the TransWilts Express all received extensive publicity — to accompany new buses and a more frequent service — when they were revamped in 2007 with the aid of a part-funded government scheme.

And just as in town planning, a petition is worthless. What matters is the number of passengers. If the majority of passengers are travelling from Wootton Bassett to central Swindon — as Stagecoach clearly believe — then a fifteen minute detour round the suburbs of west Swindon is no incentive to leave the car at home and take the bus instead.

Missing the bus

It’s difficult to understand how the management at the Great Western Hospital managed to get their plans for providing a staff bus service so wrong. Just three weeks ago, they were effusive about the likely level of usage.

The service will be up and running by January 4 and after speaking to staff about the plans, many have said it is a service they will be glad to use… staff would find it more convenient as many have to pass Honda to get here anyway.

Now the £30,000 scheme that was intended to free-up 200 parking spaces has been shelved for lack of interest. Now I’m sure that the hospital management know where their staff live, but if most of their staff pass the Honda site on the way to work that suggests that either the hospital is staffed almost exclusively by residents of Highworth or that staff from around Swindon like to take a tour of Stratton on the way to work.

For much of the twentieth century, many large employers ran staff buses. Surely it’s not that difficult to get right?

Listening to the buses

The recent announcement by Thamesdown Transport (which was regurgitated almost verbatim by Swindonweb) seems to have missed the wider uses for on-bus announcements of the next stop. One of the passengers that they have used in the press release, Mr Trevennen, is rather more aware.

It’s not just the visually impaired who benefit but passengers who are new to the town or are visiting.

The system has been introduced on what the company calls ‘six key routes’: the 1 & 1A to West Swindon, 2 to Covingham, 13 & 14 to Eldene and Haydon Wick and 17 between Penhill and Park North. Except for the short hop between the railway station and the Outlet Centre these are probably not services used by many visitors to Swindon. Route 16 to the hospital might be a better choice, or some of the rural routes, such as the 47 to Lambourn with onward connection to Newbury, or the 48 & 48A to Marlborough. Or to benefit those new to the town, why not service 18 to Priory Vale or 11 to Wichelstowe?

Perhaps Thamesdown Transport should listen more to its passengers.

Penhill and Ride

Today brings that rarest of rare events: Mr Montaut making a sensible and understandable suggestion. Here’s his utterance from that rare lucid moment.

We can keep the car park open and redirect people on to existing public transport. This will cut the costs to the council taxpayers while preventing the traffic nightmare that will be caused by completely closing the site. It would also support Thamesdown Transport through these tough times while supporting the administration in delivering promise 43.

Promise 43, for those that have forgotten, is

We will work with bus companies to increase the frequency and hours of operation. We will also work with parish councils to develop good rural transport links and increase overall the number of bus journeys by 13% by 2006 and a further 20% in the following five years.

There’s only one slight flaw in Mr Montaut’s argument. Currently there are no Thamesdown Transport services that pass by the Groundwell Park & Ride car park. The number 17 service does pass very close though, as it loops round Penhill before heading directly into town along Cricklade Road. It seems this isn’t good enough for the campaigners.

As a commuter, normal buses take too long to get to work, particularly for users living in village areas. It would just add to journey times.

Even with a loop round Penhill, would taking a bus service that uses the bus lanes really take longer than driving a car and joining the traffic jam? Is it really the journey time that bothers Ms Spinks, or is it the thought of having to share a bus with residents of one of Swindon’s more maligned estates?

An odd way to help

The government has recently announced that it is giving Swindon Borough Council an extra £428,873.52 — yes, the figures are calculated down to individual pennies — of tax payers’ money (or more accurately, given the way the government has squandered our money, of tax payers’ debt). According to the government press release, there are no strings attached to this money.

Local Government Minister John Healey has today confirmed that 360 councils will receive their share of £100million within the next few days, to be used as they see fit to help meet local needs and priorities – particularly helpful in this difficult economic climate.

Naturally, the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, has been quick to comment.

I am calling on Swindon Borough Council to use this money to save Old Town and Walcot Libraries and look at how the Groundwell Park & Ride can be kept open…. I will be asking the Council for full details of how they intend to spend this money and to make sure it isn’t swallowed up within the Council.

’Tis an odd choice that. Now, as I’ve made clear, I’m no fan of the proposals to close the Park & Ride service. I don’t find Mr Edwards’ latest argument for not supporting the service convincing either, as it’s far better to seek a long term future for the service with it still running than with it closed. However, though both it and the library closures have received plenty of publicity, they affect relatively few of Ms Snelgrove’s constituents — particularly the Park & Ride service which is in Mr Wills’ patch. Something that affects far more of her constituents but has received far less publicity is the sharp increase in the cost of Residents’ Parking Permits. On that, Ms Snelgrove has nothing to say. And I say that as someone that neither lives in a Residents’ Parking zone nor owns a car.

It really shouldn’t surprise Ms Snelgrove that she’s known as the government’s representative in South Swindon when she chooses to support issues for their political point scoring value rather than for their impact on her constituents.

Listening isn’t talking

Mr Bluh seems to have some very basic misunderstandings of communication.

We said we would listen to them and that is what we have done, even if they didn’t like everything they heard.

Hint to Mr Bluh: if you’re listening, it’s you that should be doing the hearing, not the other way round. But then if, as has been reported, the staff at Groundwell Park & Ride have already been made redundant, the whole ‘listening’ exercise was a sham anyway.

Jam tomorrow

It must seem like an unfortunate bit of timing for the blue nest councillors controlling Swindon Borough Council that, whilst they are attempting to axe the Park & Ride bus service, for a claimed saving of £331,000, that unnecessary and unelected bureaucracy known as the South West Regional Assembly has decided to chuck £150M in the direction of Swindon for transport improvements. Our developers’ poodle, Mr Bawden, seems pleased with this outcome, despite the embarrassment that it might cause his colleagues. The expenditure includes £22M and £111M for phases 1 & 2 respectively of the Swindon Rapid Transit Network. Phase 1 concentrates on ‘traffic management’ — so more roundabouts and traffic lights. Phase 2 concentrates on public transport.

Development of a two tier public transport network with rapid transit corridors; increase in bus routes covering most areas of Swindon; exploring technology options for rapid transit corridor.

Both phases claim to address the issue of ‘Existing P&R schemes under utilised.’ If the current administration in Swindon gets its way, they won’t just be under utilised; they’ll be non-existent.

Off the buses

I find Mr Greenhalgh’s reasoning, if one can call it that, for proposing closure of the Groundwell Park and Ride odd.

We either make savings where we can or we put up council tax.

That didn’t seem to cross your mind when you voted to put up your own allowances.

While the park and ride is an excellent service we are losing a lot of money because it is simply not covering its costs.

Until last year, Thamesdown Transport ran the park and ride bus service for a fee and Swindon Borough Council kept the profit or suffered the loss, depending on how successful the service was. Then that was changed so that, like any other bus service, the bus company runs the services that are profitable and keeps the profit from them, whilst the council subsidises the loss making ones. As parking in the park-and-ride car park is free, the council have, of their own choice, changed the funding arrangement to one where by definition they are guaranteed to make a loss and the bus company guaranteed to make a profit. It doesn’t cover its costs because you’ve set-up contractual arrangements that guarantee that, Mr Greenhalgh.

The number using the service is not that great so I don’t think the effect on traffic will be huge.

That seems to contradict the assessment in the council’s own budget proposals.

“There is some risk that this proposal may impact on our Local Transport Plan assessment and the ability of the Council to secure regional/national funding for future transport schemes. There may also be some impact on general bus network as the operator will lose profit from these services.”

Translated from public sector bureaucracy-speak, that’s quite huge.

We have good parking facilities in the town centre and while this is not an ideal situation it is something we have to look at.

And I’m sure that the knowledge that you’ll make much more money from charging them to park there had no influence on your decision….

This would not be a permanent move and hopefully there will be a change in government and Swindon will be given the kind of funding it needs.

To quote from the council’s own budget proposals again.

“This proposal may impact on our Local Transport Plan assessment and the ability of the Council to secure regional/national funding for future transport schemes.”

Regardless of the colour of the government, a habit of abandoning facilities in an ill considered financial panic is hardly a way of encouraging government to spend taxpayers’ money here.

Surveys for nothing, fares for a fortune

I’ve no idea how Mr Wills thinks pollsters earn their living, but apparently it’s not from running surveys. In what is becoming an annual argument over free travel for pensioners, he seems to think that Swindon Borough Council can obtain a survey for nothing.

In these difficult economic times I am not asking the council to spend more money but only to conduct a survey to see whether passengers can get what they are asking for without any extra burden on the taxpayer.

Surveys cost money… unless you want something that’s so poor as to not be worth the effort. It also doesn’t take much thought to work out that, if some pensioners are currently paying to travel before 9.30 am — which the comments in the Adver report show they are — then giving them free travel will cost the taxpayer money.

Whether or not the extra cost’s as much as the £230,000 claimed by Mr Bluh is another matter. That figure corresponds to roughly 2700 extra pensioners travelling in the extra half hour each week.

Half and ride

Mr Jenkins of Thamesdown Transport claims that he wants to promote the park and ride bus services.

Both the council and ourselves feel that this is the best way forward to provide a park and ride service for Swindon. This is a very positive move and one that will secure the long-term future of park and ride in Swindon. It’s a very popular service and we really want to promote it during the off-peak times of the day.

By ‘promote’ he clearly means ‘advertise’ rather than ‘encourage more people to use’ as, upon taking over the service, Thamesdown Transport have cut it in half and on the northern half have increased the fares and decreased the frequency. Passengers on the southern half get a somewhat better deal with fares reduced, but the frequency is reduced as well and change will no longer be given. The northern half of the service is clearly being milked, not promoted.

There’s nothing wrong with making changes to improve profitability; there is plenty wrong with trying to pretend that you’re not.

A one way ticket

It seems odd to me that Thamesdown Transport’s latest fares rise has caused more fuss than their planned route changes, especially as it earlier plans for these route changes ran into so much political opposition. Leading the fuss, step forward Mr Montaut, continuing his approach of not allowing a lack of knowledge on an issue get in the way of him expressing an opinion.

This is deplorable. What the company needs to do is start focusing more on customers and getting people on their buses and less on their own income. The traditional return fare is offered all over the country, but now it is being axed in Swindon. I have the feeling that if Thamesdown continues to act in this fashion pressure groups are going to start popping up for the buses like they have on trains and planes. The thing is, though, if the company acted more responsibly it would not have to come to this.

Absense of return bus fares is actually not that uncommon. As an example Nottingham City Transport which, like Thamesdown Transport is council owned and also like Thamesdown Transport has a no-change-given exact fare only policy, does not offer return fares. And whilst nobody would disagree that Thamesdown Transport should try to get more passengers on its buses, if it ignores its income we, the council taxpayers of Swindon, will end up the owners of a loss-making company. Perhaps Mr Montaut has forgotten his earlier concerns about the level of subsidy paid to the bus company.

The fares increases proposed range from zero (for a single zone single) through 5% for a single zone return journey and 7% for a two zone single, to 11% for a two zone return journey. Day tickets and season tickets are increasing by between 7% and 12%. Fares increases that are so high that passenger numbers by so much that the bus company ends up worse off are not clever. But with motorists costs rising steeply too, I’d describe these fares increases as predictable, rather than deplorable.

A double deck imagination

Always ones to make a crisis out of a drama, the Adver have excelled themselves, allowing one woman’s imagination to turn a minor accident (one wheel of a bus going off the road) into a near tragedy.

Melody Lyall, the landlady at the Red Lion Pub, in Castle Eaton, said it was a very near miss. “The only thing that kept that bus upright was a small wall that it wedged itself against, otherwise it would have tipped over into a flooded field. Because both the front doors were on that side things could have turned very bad very quickly. It was quite dramatic. I was in my conservatory drinking my morning coffee and I witnessed the whole thing. The field on the other side is flooded at the moment – it is under several feet of water. You can imagine the outcome if it had toppled over…. I would have said they were pretty lucky as it would have been tough to get them all out of that bus without it going over on its side.”

Wow! Children safely alight from a bus with one wheel in a ditch. Whatever next? I dropped a slice of bread on the floor recently. Perhaps I should ask the Adver round to see how close I came to starvation in the time it took me to cut another slice….

A day on the buses

komadori joined the many others marking the last day of Thamesdown’s Fleetline buses in Swindon, in aid of Prospect Hospice. Amongst the general chit-chat, he heard this:

What’s a boss? It’s someone who sits doing nothing behind a desk all day, and claims they’re why the company’s a success.

All the best conversation is on Swindon’s buses.

An unbreakable partnership

It seems that hardly a week passes at the moment without yet another local government partnership crawling into sight.

• Swindon Community Safety Partnership (Swindon Borough Council, Swindon Primary Care Trust, Wiltshire Police, Wiltshire Fire & Rescue Service, Wiltshire Probation Area and Wiltshire Police Authority)

And what has brought them to my attention? Their suggestion, at least ten years after it was introduced in many other towns, that glass in bus shelters could be replaced by clear polycarbonate, to reduce vandalism. It’s nice to see such quick thinking.

Thamesdown in clean bus shock

If I were responsible of publicity at Thamesdown Transport, rather than making a fuss in the local press about the fact that they now clean the interiors of their buses more than once a day, I’d be rather ashamed that they’ve been allowed to run in such a filthy state for so long. The drivers of buses of some other companies (admittedly not local ones) have swept their buses regularly between journeys for many years. In comparison with the cost of a new bus, a broom and a couple of minutes of driver time would be insignificant.

A hypocritical approach to public transport

It’s difficult to believe how quickly the local red nest manage to contradict themselves when talking about bus services in Swindon. Step forward once again Mr Montaut to maintain his impressive record of twaddle.

There is a big issue about cutting down on the amount of subsided funds to Thamesdown Transport and other bus companies. People should also be encouraged to use bus services, but it is not helping that elderly people cannot use the bus with their passes before 9am.

Wow! In the space of just two sentences, he’s criticised the level of subsidy as being too high, and then asked for something to be done that would put the subsidies up. Don’t forget either that it’s only a month since his colleague Mr Wills was accusing the council of taking too much money out of the bus companies rather than putting too much in.