Transform bus policy advisor Chris Day provides a critical commentary on the latest debate on bus services in the Scottish Parliament.
On 12 November, the Scottish Parliament held a debate on Better Bus Services. Media coverage focussed on an announcement about anti-social behaviour on buses. But the debate offered interesting insights into the state of play among political parties six months out from the Holyrood elections.
The debate, initiated by Scottish Green Party MSPs and therefore starting with their motion, is fully recorded here and can be watched here.
Apart from revealing that everyone agrees ‘that communities deserve affordable, accessible and reliable buses’ what else did we learn?
In their Motion, the Greens argued that bus services should be run ‘in the public interest’, improving services and reducing fares, and that free travel should be expanded for young people; buses should be affordable, accessible and reliable.
Setting aside the inconvenient fact that a number of Councils historically managed to run their bus companies into the ground, there is little detail about exactly how affordability, accessibility, and reliability will be achieved by publicly-owned bus companies.
“there is little detail about exactly how affordability, accessibility, and reliability will be achieved by publicly-owned bus companies”
The other strand of their thinking is that free bus travel should be expanded. This is not the place to examine whether this is good public policy. But the Greens voted against a SNP amendment that such action must be ‘affordable, sustainable and accessible’. Whether because it was a wrecking amendment, or because they think it should not be ‘affordable, sustainable and accessible’ is not recorded.
The SNP largely agreed with the Green Motion, but argued any more free travel must be ‘affordable, sustainable and accessible’. The Minister recounted a litany of Government success on buses, such as the £20 million announced in the Bus Infrastructure Fund for a range of infrastructure projects across Scotland: bus lanes, priority signals, accessible features and transport hubs.
This demonstrates an understanding of how to deliver the improvements MSPs say their constituents want in urban areas, but overlooked the fact that the Scottish Government previously cut the £500 million Bus Partnership Fund. Disappointingly, none of the other parties picked up this glaringly open goal.
The Conservatives argued the idea that buses should be run ‘in the public interest’ means nothing; that competition leads operators to deliver better services, and buses cannot run on time if roads are in disrepair or face lengthy diversions due to uncoordinated road works. They noted that the Confederation of Passenger Transport wants faster, greener and safer bus journeys, and its top priorities are addressing traffic congestion and faster journey times. Bus and rail timetables are poorly aligned, and ticketing systems do not work across different modes of transport or different operators.
An interesting argument, were it not for the fact that buses mainly compete with the private car, and this approach to the free market seems to rely on a lot of government intervention.
“buses mainly compete with the private car”
The Conservatives also argued strongly for the removal of bus passes from young people for antisocial behaviour; so strongly that it sometimes seems to be their only bus policy.
Labour focussed on buses operating in the public interest; shorter and simpler franchising processes; called on the Scottish Government to prioritise using domestic bus manufacturers; and for bus passes to be removed for persistent anti-social behaviour.
Like the Greens, Labour did not offer a solution the question of what any publicly owned and/or regulated bus operation would actually do to deliver affordable, accessible, and reliable bus services.
The Lib Dems, while not submitting an amendment, suggested it is not beyond the wit of ministers or Transport Scotland to come up with some real long-term solutions to the problems of fewer bus routes, rising costs and falling patronages. In return for public subsidy, operators should meet clear benchmarks for reliability, punctuality and accessibility. Perhaps the most sensible contribution to the debate, it was not raised again.
Other contributions concerned rural and island bus services, citing examples of good practice. And concerns that funds are directed to free bus travel, while support for the basics is limited in order to finance it; so scarce resources are focussed on the central belt.
“…the main causes of declining bus patronage are: car availability, work patterns, and journey times – but there was little evidence in the debate that MSPs have grasped these fundamentals.”
Research by KPMG shows that the main causes of declining bus patronage are: car availability, work patterns, and journey times – but there was little evidence in the debate that MSPs have grasped these fundamentals.
A recent paper sets out how a virtuous circle of bus service improvements can follow from reduced journey times. In fairness, this was just published in October, so perhaps has not percolated down to MSPs and researchers.
What happened in the end?
The Green Party motion with the SNP amendment was passed. At least there are still five months for the parties to get their acts together before the election.
