A recent report from IPPR suggests that although bus services are vital, much more is needed to make them fit for the future
“Buses play a crucial role in the lives of people in England. From the daily commute and trip to school or university, to shopping or a visit to see family and friends; buses connect many of us with the things we need and care about. A good local bus service can be the difference between isolation and the ability to live a good quality of life.”
We hear similar quotes in press releases and strategy documents every day, telling us what the industry already knows. That buses are vital to people’s lives across the country. Cutting through the emotive language that usually accompanies such news stories, and reading the local outcries whenever a service is proposed for withdrawal, it is clear that buses are very much still vital for the economy and for the well-being of millions of people.
The quote at the start of this page comes from a recent report, dated June 2023, by think tank IPPR, which outlines what would be required to, in IPPR’s words, ‘truly level-up the bus network and bring all of England’s metropolitan areas up to the same per head level of provision as London.’ The report begins by acknowledging that, despite decline, the social significance of buses remains high, and that the public sees them as a vital part of an effective, clean, and fair transport system. Action to address regional inequality in access to local public transport must go hand in hand with a faster decarbonisation of bus fleets across urban areas, IPPR says.
“Buses have a crucial role to play in the UK’s path to net zero,” says the report. “The UK government’s existing transport decarbonisation plan fails to deliver the rapid and deep emissions reductions needed to keep 1.5 degrees of global warming in reach and does not grasp the opportunities that would come from prioritising widespread behaviour change.” It urges a greater focus on high quality local public transport, integrated with improved walking and cycling routes, community transport, and shared mobility schemes, and at a time when a general election is imminent, adds that decisions and investment made by the next UK government will either support a rapid renaissance for local buses or see more bus services lost across England, with serious negative consequences for people’s lives and the UK’s ability to reach net zero.
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Clarity and delivery
IPPR says that the UK’s political parties must go into the next election not just able to present the country with their vision for a ‘levelled up’ public transport system, but also make clear how they will deliver it by 2030.
Modelling carried out as part of its research suggests that a scale up in bus services in metropolitan areas in England to match the per-head level of provision in London would result in a total increase of 2.7 billion bus journeys a year and require 5,800 extra buses across mayoral combined authorities by 2030. That would represent an equivalent of over 900,000 cars taken off the road and a total reduction of 12% in car miles just from increasing bus services in mayoral combined authorities compared to the DfT’s core transport projections for 2030, it believes.
The report identifies that whilst local leaders and operators have the ambition to decarbonise bus fleets at pace, funding and government leadership remain the main barriers to a faster transition.
Looking at England outside London, the report says that current progress to decarbonise bus fleets is too slow, with only 87 zero-emission buses in use in England by May this year; at that pace, England will not have a zero-emission fleet until 2060, it notes.
The IPPR report includes among its key recommendations that, as a matter of urgency, the UK government must set out a more ambitious transport decarbonisation plan which emphasises rapid reductions in transport demand and encourages greater shifts to public transport and active travel, with a vision to deliver a world-leading local public transport system.
The think-tank also highlights the need for the Government to set the phase-out of new diesel bus sales to 2030 and make clear that the default choice of technology for buses is electric, not hydrogen, and that it should back the ambition of local leaders by extending the funding of zero emission bus regional areas (ZEBRAs) by £2.5 billion between 2023 and 2030, with funding allocated through a single pot.
A decisive role
Since 2016, transport has been the UK’s largest emitting sector for greenhouse gases and in 2020 road transport accounted for 91% of domestic transport emissions, the report notes, with the biggest contributor to surface transport emissions being cars and taxis. The role of the bus will be decisive, says IPPR, and while England’s bus network remains vital for many, it is a shadow of its former self.
A more ambitious transport decarbonisation plan must provide a clear direction of travel by setting out more ambitious targets at both national and local levels, says IPPR, and should include the phase-out date for the sale of new ICE bus sales as 2030. “From today, operators should be purchasing only zero-emission buses for routes in urban areas and, if required, the Government should be ready to regulate to enforce this,” it believes.
For more rural areas, there is recognition that electric buses do not yet offer the range needed, that bus operators are likely to be smaller and less able to purchase electric buses, and that councils will have less capacity to apply for funding; plug-in hybrids are suggested as the solution here.
Franchising solution
There are significant economic and social advantages to delivering bus decarbonisation through franchising, the report finds, recommending that as in Manchester, every mayoral combined authority should pursue the development of a franchising model for local bus networks as soon as feasible. “If more mayoral combined authorities followed Greater Manchester’s lead and pursued a franchising model, this would likely further reduce the cost of subsidies to government,” it concludes. Considering wider funding and supply issues, IPPR recommends that the Government should set bus manufacturers a minimum percentage requirement for manufacturing electric buses as a proportion of their total business, and require recipients of ZEBRA funding to source a minimum percentage of their electric buses from UK manufacturers.
More funding needed
The report will make hard reading for Government, and bring scepticism from the industry: “At the very least we recommend that government should scale up its investment in BSIPs from £1 billion to the £3 billion it originally committed to as part of its national bus strategy,” the report says, adding that the next UK government should commit a ‘transformative level of funding’ to local authorities, which it suggests needs to be in the region of £10 billion.
Beyond increasing funding, IPPR recognises that there are a range of enabling measures that are needed to move further and faster on bus decarbonisation at a national and local level, and with careful coordination between the two. These include, at a local level, careful road planning to accommodate more buses and better service provision, alongside improving speed and reliability. “We recommend that all local authorities within mayoral combined authorities set out plans to reallocate road space to buses: aiming to creating a cohesive network of bus-priority routes that support the shift to car-free high streets and city centres,” the report suggests. “Reallocation of road space to buses should be integrated with action to provide more space for walking, wheeling, cycling and nature in-line with a coordinate response to climate adaptation and in support of a nature recovery.”
Local authorities are urged to explore introducing zero emission zones that include all private vehicles travelling into major city centres, town centres and high streets and in areas of high air pollution, implemented alongside physical transformations to an area that prioritise walking, cycling and public transport.
Practical solutions
Recognising the practicalities of operation, the report notes that it will also be crucial to create enough space for coaches and buses to charge. “To this end, we recommend that local authorities set out plans to incorporate shared charging infrastructure that would include use cases for bus depots allowing public charging as well as new public charging infrastructure allocating space and charging points for coaches,” says IPPR, citing the example of community ownership of assets such as is currently being crowd-funded in Merton and Malvern Hills. Meanwhile at a national level, the report praises plans from National Grid ESO to reform grid connections from a first come first served to a first ready first served model which should enable those with planning consent already in place to be prioritised, and result in bus depots getting grid connections much more quickly. “We recommend that bus infrastructure should also be considered a strategic infrastructure priority when receiving these connections,” it adds, whilst noting too that there remains uncertainty around how batteries will be used at the end of their life, with a recommendation that the Government should consider requiring battery manufacturers to take an equity stake in bus recycling plants to encourage battery designs to be more easily recyclable.
It’s good to see some reasoned arguments and proposals backed up by research, facts and figures, but what the industry needs next is for the Government to take these on board and push forward with existing and new plans to ensure that the bus continues to be at the heart of the community.
