Urban congestion examined with transport industry

Members of parliament spoke to three respected industry professionals – Kevin O’Connor, Peter Coates and Professor David Begg – about the topical issue of urban congestion and its impact on bus services. Jade Smith and Gareth Evans report

The Transport Committee held the second evidence session of its urban congestion inquiry on January 30 and heard from transport industry representatives and academics.

The Committee heard oral evidence on the subject of urban congestion, including from Arriva UK Bus MD Kevin O’Connor, National Express UK Bus MD Peter Coates and Professor David Begg, who was commissioned by Greener Journeys to write a report on the impact of congestion on bus journeys.

The session focused on: [wlm_nonmember][…]

[/wlm_nonmember][wlm_ismember]

•  The increase in the number of private hire vehicles and its effect on urban congestion;
•  The potential for more car-sharing/carpooling to reduce congestion;
•  The effects of urban freight and logistics – particularly the proliferation of delivery vans – and how these effects could most effectively be mitigated; and
•  The effects of congestion on bus services, and how to boost bus patronage.

Bus Services Bill

Starting off with the Bus Services Bill (BSB), Professor David Begg said: “There is a lot of really good stuff in the BSB. I support the attempts by Government to try to create an environment where bus patronage will grow, but there is a hurricane coming that the Bill is not going to deal with. That hurricane is not just around congestion; it is around disruptive technologies and the changes that are taking place in society, with the big shift towards online shopping and how that is undermining bus use. It is about the impact that car-sharing facilities will have on the bus market. The Bill certainly is not dealing with traffic management. In my report I said that congestion is a disease that, if not dealt with, will destroy the bus sector.

“The Bill will strengthen and enhance partnerships. What I do not have visibility on yet is whether these partnerships will get together to deal with the impact that congestion is having on buses. In my report, I recommended that there should be targets set at the very least to try to stop bus speeds from continuing to fall. I have not seen any evidence yet that there is any willingness to set such targets.”

Kevin O’Connor provided his opinion: “The fact that the BSB has caused quite a few conversations around what can be done to increase bus patronage is something most people can agree with. Some of the Bill is quite contentious, depending on whether you think a particular mode is the best way to run buses.

“We recently signed an alliance in Liverpool and had one of the first board meetings a few months ago. The people we had in the room were very different from those we had previously: we had people representing highways and we had the police, the chambers of commerce and the local enterprise partnership. Previously it could be quite difficult to get everyone in the same room and focused on the same thing. We have not quite managed to agree yet on a minimum bus speed target, but just having everyone in the same room is definitely a step forward. It is probably worth saying that we did not need the Bill to do that.”

“I absolutely endorse that,” said Peter Coates. “In the West Midlands we have been working in our Bus Alliance for over a year now. Again, we have the right people in the room, who can actually make a difference to bus speeds. We certainly want to set targets to see a reduction in congestion and an increase in bus journey times.”

Car share services

Iain Stewart MP (Conservative, Milton Keynes), asked how bus companies could work with private innovators of car services such as Uber to complement bus usage rather than replace it.

Kevin responded: “The bus takes people very close to their door. There are some people who are put off because it is not a door-to-door service, but we can do much more in terms of making sure people are informed of where the bus starts and finishes.

“We did a lot of research last year into non-users. The most feedback we had was that people wanted technology. People were put off about where the bus stopped and whether it would get to where they need to go. We invested a lot in that technology. We also gave all our open data to Google for free, so that when people are using Google planner they can use it.

“Our focus needs to be on understanding why people don’t use public transport, and making it as attractive as possible. If we can make it even more preferential to use a bus in terms of bus speeds, that helps us more than anything we can do alone.”

“The customer is going to insist that bus companies work with car share companies, for the simple reason that mobility counts,” Professor Begg said. “I am still a bit guilty of yesterday’s thinking, where I think about trying to get modal shift, with more people on buses and trains. The role of Government is not to achieve outputs in terms of modal split, but to achieve outcomes in terms of a stronger economy, less pollution, a more equitable society and safety.

“Mobility as a service is coming. If we could just get car occupancy rates up even from 1.2 per vehicle for commuting trips to 1.3, it would make a massive difference to congestion. My generation say, ‘People never share vehicles.’ The new millennium generation have a completely different view of what the Prime Minister calls a ‘sharing economy.’ The mobility account providers are going to insist that there is co-operation between bus companies and the new disruptive entries to the market.”

Open data

Iain went on to talk about the barriers to developing mobility products, one of which he identified as being a lack of complete open data. He asked if there is a role for Government to try either to incentivise or legislate.

“There is a section in the Bill on trying to encourage open data,” Kevin began. “In TfL’s model, they have tried to encourage people to use their data for free and to develop apps. We did not do it for any altruistic reason. We want people to use public transport. We don’t really mind what public transport they use, because, if it is in our area, hopefully they will use our services. There is going to be demand from customers, and people who do not do that or do not have technology which matches will lose out. Part of it is encouraging people through legislation in terms of open data, or insisting, but I think customers are going to demand it.

“The first barrier is to get people comfortable with how they plan and use a journey. People start and end their journeys in different areas. We are also doing quite a lot of work collaborating with train companies, including ORR (Office of Rail and Road) and others, just to increase visibility. There is a lot more that we can do to make people’s journey simpler. If people start getting used to public transport, they will ultimately use our services, but just focusing on our area is too narrow.”

Peter said: “Like Kevin, we are certainly sharing our data and working on improvements to get location and speed, so that the data is richer and people can use it to develop apps and get people used to using transport. We are very aligned on that. There are already incentives for all our vehicles to be tracked, with automatic vehicle location systems. That is also helping to look at where bunching of buses is occurring. Sharing data is something we’re very keen on and working hard to achieve.”

Congestion

Clive Efford MP (Labour, Eltham) said that road space is finite and that if any space is created, something will come in and fill it. He asked what consolidates that gain of increasing occupancy to stop it all just being infilled.

Professor Begg responded: “When we had the Transport Innovation Fund 10 years ago and the Government was talking about road pricing being a case of when and not if, we always said that anything we could do to reduce traffic and improve traffic flow in a given corridor would have to lock in the benefits, otherwise the roads fill up and we go back down to an equilibrium level of traffic.

“We always thought the equilibrium level of traffic speed was higher than we found it to be. We have gone to a level of traffic speed at equilibrium level in London that is much lower than most people would have anticipated. I suspect that is because of the categories of vehicle that are increasing exponentially, which are private hire vehicles, Uber-fed, and vans. Their commercial model will not allow them to take vehicles off the road, whereas motorists will disappear. What has happened is that the equilibrium traffic speed has dropped. That is why we have fewer cars on the road. The other categories of vehicle are not dissuaded. In fact there are actually more of them, to deal with the inefficiency due to traffic congestion.”

Robert Flello MP (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent) made the point that he wanted to deal with congestion, but in places like his constituency there isn’t a service for people to use instead. He asked what could be done about that.

“We are in business to try to maximise occupancy and follow demand,” Kevin began. “If there is a demand, our job is to fill it and hopefully predict it before it comes. We have done a lot of work with Amazon fulfilment centres. The bus companies can promote their services and change the networks. One of the great things about the model at the moment is that there is a lot of flexibility, and we can choose to be dynamic and register services to meet demand, but first, it is beholden on the bus operators to be able to see that demand. Unfortunately, it is not always there. We do not have a system with endless subsidy so that we can cover every area. If it is not commercially viable, unfortunately it will not be there, but if there is demand it is beholden on us to try to seek it out.

“We do a lot of deals in terms of giving discounts to employees. We can do schemes where they pay out of their wages on a monthly basis to help in terms of budgeting. If we see demand like that, and we have businesspeople who focus exclusively on commercial enterprises like that, we would definitely take a punt.”

Bus lanes

The Chairman, Louise Ellman MP (Labour, Liverpool Riverside) asked for views on bus lanes, to which Professor Begg said there is no consistency. He said it is really confusing for motorists who want to obey the law.

Robert asked if it was correct that some authorities have removed bus lanes, and if there is a body of evidence, why would they be doing that, or does it suggest there is no body of evidence?

Peter said: “In Coventry, we are currently undertaking a trial, looking at the impacts of removing some lanes – not only on bus passengers, but also on road speeds. The lanes were put in a number of years ago and traffic patterns have changed. It will be evidential on the basis of the impact on people, not cars and buses as just vehicles, but the number of people in those vehicles. We’re working closely and will be sharing all our data on the number of people in our buses that are impacted by the changes.”

Professor Begg commented: “The timings might not be right now; they might not be in the right location. You continually have to review them. My plea is that they are reviewed on an evidence-based process. What is it doing for traffic flows? What is it doing for bus speeds? My worry is that local politicians and MPs are much more likely to get people coming to their surgery complaining about bus priority, but I wonder if you’ve ever had a bus passenger come along and say, ‘Please could we have more bus priority?’ We must keep remembering that bus passengers are not vociferous and they are under-represented.

“The Government can with impunity, knock 20% off bus service operator grant, but they cannot touch fuel duty for motorists. We’ve had seven consecutive Budgets with no increase in fuel duty – despite the fact that oil prices are at rock bottom and public finances are in a perilous state. That tells me that certain transport users are much more powerful politically; they are much more vociferous and can get to the politicians. Bus passengers are under-represented.

“If taking out bus priority is going to be bad for bus passengers, if it increases journey time, reduces frequency and increases fares, bus passengers need to know about that.”

Graham Stringer MP (Labour, Blackley and Broughton) asked what the criteria should be for putting in a bus lane or taking a bus lane out.

“One of the first things to do would be to look at what impact it has on traffic flows,” said Professor Begg. “If bus lanes are effective and you are taking enough people out of their cars and on to a bus in a bus priority lane, good schemes actually improve traffic flow. You cannot just look at how it impacts on one mode of transport; you have to look at how it impacts on all.

“The obvious thing you look at is what impact it would have on bus patronage. A really good and effective bus priority scheme should give you double digit growth in bus patronage.”

Deregulation

Graham Stringer MP enquired: “You’ve made the point that congestion causes difficulty in all sorts of ways, but isn’t the most pernicious thing that has happened to bus transport over the last 30-odd years the deregulation of buses? There are direct comparisons with London and outside London over that period. We need to get that into perspective when we look at the BSB, don’t we?”

Professor Begg replied: “Yes. I’ve always taken the line on franchise and bus regulation that when there are clear signs of market failure, you need to regulate. That’s a tool that local authorities should have if there is market failure. I don’t think it’s where the key issue is right now. There are such strong headwinds hitting the bus sector that it doesn’t matter whether you are in a regulated or a deregulated environment; you are in deep trouble.

“To back that up, London has been one of the most remarkable success stories in bus worldwide, but the wheels are starting to come off that success story because of congestion. Over the last two to three years, London has shown a sharper decline in bus patronage than most other places in the UK because it cannot actually run a service with the level of congestion on the road network. Congestion is no respecter of regulatory regime, and nor is online shopping or all those disruptive technologies.”

Park & Ride

Huw Merriman MP (Conservative, Bexhill and Battle) asked: Do you think that the Government needs to do more in their planning policy to encourage Park & Ride (P&R)?

Peter responded: “Yes, we would like to see more of it. There is very little in the West Midlands. It is part of the Bus Alliance that we are working on to see expansion of that. Clearly from out of town or out of city P&R sites, you have to have good priority to get into the city centre. You cannot just join a line of already queuing traffic. I’ve heard a lot of good reports from Sway in Manchester, where it’s recently gone in.”

Kevin agreed: “There are lots of innovative ways to give bus priority measures. There are a number of busways around the country, which I guess are an enhanced version of a bus lane but no car can travel on them. The increase in passenger numbers wherever a busway is introduced is in significant double digit growth, because it is just so much more attractive than using the car. The main aim is to make sure the speed is quicker by bus.”

Huw enquired: “Do you think local authorities should have much more of a requirement to deliver? There is all the talk of Government delivering new garden towns. Should it only be a garden town if it has a P&R, and more than just a nod to a P&R but a network?”

Kevin replied: “P&R is part of it, but it would be remiss of me not to lobby for things like busways as well. If you’re looking at planning a new town, there are lots of ways you can make sure of that. People often cite London as an example of how popular buses are. It’s very expensive to park in London; you have the congestion charge; and excellent transport services. If you’re planning a town, we can do our part by making the bus as attractive as possible, but, if we can make the journey quicker and more pleasurable, it’s an even easier sell.”

Demand

Martin Vickers MP (Conservative, Cleethorpes) said he wondered why it is that, with the exception of big cities, bus operators in provincial towns seem to be “a bit slow” in meeting the demand in new housing estates or new out of town shopping centres and so on.

Kevin responded: “It’s a difficult one to answer. I can only talk for the business that I run. We’ve tried to get much better at reacting to that demand and getting ahead of it. We’ve attempted to get much better in terms of marketing. We need to move at pace and we need to ensure that we are attracting as many people as possible. We’ve brought a lot of people into our business from retail and the travel industry.

“We’ve tried to change our marketing and commercial approach. Demand and the type of people who use the services, and how we attract people, are changing. We have to get much sharper and much better at going out there and attracting people to the same standard as retailers do.”

Citing the example that a pub can be registered as an asset of community value, which means it cannot be closed for six months – giving the opportunity for others to see whether they can take it over and run it – Huw asked whether under the BSB, threatened bus routes should acquire a similar status.

However, Professor Begg warned: “How long would you want to run a bus with one person on it? There’s a balance between giving everyone enough notice about any changes and ensuring that bus operators can react to changing market conditions.”

Welcoming “those sort of conversations,” Kevin said: “There is sometimes a misconception in terms of who is controlling or who is taking away a service.” He added: “Unfortunately many more people sign the petitions than actually use the service.”

Peter said that within the West Midlands Alliance, the network reviews always look at the data for a route if it is in danger. “It would be a last resort to pull it out. If we had to operate it for a year or six months, it inevitably would have an impact on someone deciding to take it on,” he added.

Planning conditions

Turning to planning conditions, Martin asked: “When local authorities grant planning permission for new housing estates, for example, is there sufficient emphasis on meeting the inevitable congestion that is caused, or are they a bit lax and more interested in building the houses?”

Kevin commented: “It’s patchy. There are some great examples where there are local growth funds and investment right at the start of the planning, where we are involved. For example, the Dartford area at Ebbsfleet has seen significant growth. We have bus departure times within blocks of apartments in new developments – that has been really assisted for housing – and there is bus priority over the Dartford Bridge. There are some fantastic examples, but it’s patchy and sporadic.”

Highlighting what he called “some really good examples in America,” Professor Begg described how there are new housing developments with no car parking: “The market is driving it, because about a third of the costs of some new residential blocks is for providing car parking. In Washington or Los Angeles, developers are now building large apartment blocks with no car parking and they are giving the residents $100 a month towards a mobility account, which they can use on public transport or Uber.

“In the foyers of those new apartments, there are public transport timetables and you can see when the next bus is leaving. The younger generation are not that fussed about owning a car. It’s a hassle to own one and the cost of providing parking is astronomical for developers. I think that trend will start to creep into the UK as well, because we have a problem with that. Right now local authorities always have to try to produce a minimum number of car parking spaces for any development, rather than a maximum. We need to do more to encourage car-free developments.”

Congestion charging

When Graham asked whether urban congestion charging is dead, Professor Begg responded: “Yes, in the form it was in 10 years ago. I do not think it’s really feasible or practical now to expect local authorities to take forward pricing. It is something that has to be done at national level. What interests me is how we can use all the new technology that is out there to come up with a road pricing scheme that is deliverable.

“Any new scheme which means that even a minority of people are going pay more is not going to happen. It is trying to come up with a form of road pricing or, to use a different term, a new way of charging that will replace vehicle excise duty, which is diminishing fast, and will replace fuel duty, which is diminishing fast, and that people accept and, hopefully, opt into. That is the challenge. It’s dead in the way it was, but it has never been more alive in the sense that there is such a financial imperative now to find some way of getting road users to pay for the roads. We have to come up with a solution, a national initiative.”

Asked by Graham how the priority in a taxation system should be decided between various vehicles, including electric, Professor Begg said: “We’re trying to price in external costs that a road user does not take cognisance of – the big ones being pollution and congestion. Fuel duty is a fantastic tax for pollution, but at some point we are going to have to replace it and that will be a real challenge.

“In terms of charging for congestion, we have the real challenge that road users do not think they are responsible for congestion. They think that someone else is responsible and that their journey does not contribute towards congestion. Maybe the problem is that this has been driven by economists who have been coming up with something to cover the external costs, which means that the cost of motoring would have to rise by about 10 pence per kilometre. That is steep, and politically it is off limits. It might even mean reducing people’s tax burden to start with. How can we come up with a new way of paying for road use, where people actually opt into it?”

Reliability

Announcing his final question would be “slightly different,” Graham said: “The problem about congestion for buses is unreliability. I’ve not seen the most recent figures in terms of reliability and what is congestion. What are the latest figures on that?”

Professor Begg responded: “There’s been a big swing towards road network conditions. For some cross-city routes, journey time has actually doubled in Manchester, for example. What I picked up in my research was that congestion is something that goes back 50 years, but there has been a dramatic acceleration in the growth of congestion just in the last five years. It’s not really the number of vehicles on the road; it is probably shrinking road space for a whole number of different reasons, and the behaviour of delivery vehicles. One delivery vehicle causes a lot more congestion than a car on the basis that it is just stopping and starting. It is the dramatic deterioration in reliability of the road network just in five years right across our conurbations in the UK that I find particularly alarming.”

Peter agreed, adding: “On congestion, it is variability as well. A bus company will always keep to its timing points. You have to schedule to what you fear the conditions might be. If on the day, they are better than that, the bus will wait at its timing point. It will not run early. There is variability in congestion. We would like to see better bus speeds and less variance in those bus speeds.”

However, Professor Begg was keen to stress: “I have one statistic to show why congestion is so important in a regulated environment, as well as in a deregulated environment. In 2003, just after the congestion charge, bus speeds in London were 24% quicker than they are today. If we got back to the bus speeds of 2003, you could wipe out the subsidy that goes to London buses. That’s how important it is.”

On that note, the Chairman declared: “That is quite a good point to end on. Thank you very much.”[/wlm_ismember]