Investment in Public Transport: £2 is a start but it isn’t nearly enough!

Taken a bus recently? If you have, there’s a fair chance you would have paid the bargain price of £2. I took to the road to undertake a quick consumer test, travelling from our office in Maidstone, 20 miles south to Sandhurst in the Weald of Kent. Based on average UK driving costs this would have set me back just shy of £20 for a return trip in my car.

 

By taking the bus I saved £16 which is a significant amount in a cost-of-living crisis, but the £2 fares come to an end on the 30^th June, so what else is on the cards for public transport and how are we going to encourage more people to ditch the car? 

 

It is well documented that there has been a big drive by both local and national government to invest in public transport and encourage society to travel more sustainably. The topic of ‘Sustainable Transport’ has been at the forefront of Transport Planners' minds for many years, with a need for new developments to be made sustainable and cheaper.

 

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) recently released a report urging ministers to increase investment in public transport in England and Wales to tackle climate change and boost the economy, but this is against a backdrop where almost one in ten local bus services have been axed over the last year.  Whilst there are big ticket items such as High Speed 2 (HS2) and Every Hour Bus Networks on the Government's agenda, these will take years to be established - so what’s going to happen in the short term? 

 

The Department for Transport has touted its “Bus Back Better” scheme which will see additional government investment of £3bn in bus services by 2025, including over £1bn to improve fares, services and infrastructure, however we have yet to see the details and much of the onus appears to be on Local Authorities implementing local Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs).

 

Whilst the rhetoric is positive, this still doesn’t save me £16 a day and encourage me to utilise more sustainable modes of transport. In the meantime, our focus as Transport Planners is to look at existing routes; how can these be expanded, made more efficient and serve more people, rather then bringing in new routes which require significant subsidy.