INSIGHT: PUBLIC MASS TRANSIT SERVICES

to ride core routes, often typically last mile public health and congestion impacts. and flexible policy, efficient partnerships trips after a public journey.” Revisiting the provision of mass and public/private investment.” In CoMoUK’s latest bike share survey, transport will be key. Philip Beer, partner at 19% of respondents used bike share in con- Burges Salmon, adds: What junction with the and 28% with the train. CONVENIENCE “You have to make it “At the same time, relies VS SPACE easy for people to on shared transport to fill the gaps and offer The key elements understand pricing the flexibility that enables drivers to switch of public mass with clear infor- to a low- lifestyle,” adds Roberts. transit systems mation about is the “If we are ever to make a success of digi- are those of If we are ever to make a success of journeys and tally integrated transport travel packages, scale and of digitally integrated transport travel interconnected there must be partnerships with shared sharing space. services. You mobility to ensure convenience and flexibil- The attrac- packages there must be partnerships have to make it ity that competes with private car use.” tion of high with shared mobility to ensure easy to find the New mobility depends for its success on a capacity public cheapest way to core of public mass transport. transport for convenience and flexibility that get from one side urban planning competes with private car use of a city to another HOW EFFICIENT IS is clear. For users, in the quickest, PUBLIC TRANSPORT? the attraction is more easiest way.” ANTONIA ROBERTS, COMOUK From the point of view of cities trying to variable, which local maximise their land use, mass transit ena- authorities need to take AVAILABILITY for public bles huge numbers of people to be moved in into consideration if they are to The availability of public relatively small spaces, far more than . persuade greater uptake. transport has a huge impact on While a 3.5m-wide lane can carry 1,500- Public transport implies giving up use. While it may seem obvious that both 2,000 people in cars per hour, in this private space. In the best cases, this is a origin and destination must be served for a jumps to a potential 5,000, rising to 9,000 trade-off for faster journey times and the journey to be possible, this is often forgotten with segregated bus lanes. ability to do other things while travelling. when it comes to providing public transport. mass With fixed rails, this increases several The classic example is the train travel- Services are generally regular and frequent fold: light rail/trams can take 18,000-20,000 ler working or relaxing when moving at in urban cores, however, many people people in the same space and time. Trains 100mph. In less ideal scenarios, it can be travel from or to suburbs and outlying between 40,000-90,000 people per hour. expensive, unreliable, slow and uncom- districts. By comparison, active travel sits between fortable. Buses can be caught in conges- Shrinking privatised bus services mean transit the two: a 3.5m lane can take up to 12,000 tion, with poor connections and multiple many people are unable to access public people on bikes or 15,000 pedestrians per changes and long waits between them. 80 transport when and where they need it. hour (although the distances travelled are However, in contrast to perception, public If people bridge the gap with a private car, much shorter). transport users tend to have a positive view there often seems no reason to stop and It is both mathematically and experien- of their experiences, according to Transport change mode – the simplest (and usually tially the case that using urban space for Focus. Its research shows buses to have a cheapest) course of action is to continue to services? public transport enables tight urban cores satisfaction rating of 90% and trains 91%, their destination. %of a and centres of dense social, cultural and compared with 82% for road journeys. economic activity. Those experiences are shaped by avail- household’s COST How must they evolve to meet the However, the wider context is that UK ability, speed, cost and convenience. transport spend Car travel provides a fairly constant cost per different needs of the 21st century households spend roughly 80% of transport Consumers’ top priorities for mass public is on privately- mile, while public transport fares vary wildly. outgoings on privately-owned cars and just transport are value for money, punctuality owned cars The difference between peak and off peak traveller? asks Beate Kubitz 20% on public transport. The vast majority and reliability. They also want productive fares and the relative expense of first- or of journeys are made by car. journeys with door-to-door solutions. last-mile local travel (which tends to Public transport in the UK is largely com- “People will only change their mode if oday’s traveller demands convenience, accessibility and control mercially provided, but it still attracts large the offer is excellent,” says Linda McCord, at a low cost. Digital interfaces and new micro- from public subsidies which mean that its value Transport Focus passenger manager. ABOUT THE AUTHOR e-bikes to kick scooters are in the ascendant. But set aside the is continually questioned. A quirk of the This requires more than the evolution Beate Kubitz is a writer, researcher hype and there’s a basic element these innovations depend on: system is that, despite subsidies (apart from of mass transit services; it requires local T and consultant in new mobility. She “There is a symbiotic relationship between public and shared transport. London), local and national government authorities and city planners to create is the author of the Annual Survey of Making the shift to car club membership means reducing car use – and have limited powers to specify which areas policy frameworks that encourage people to in the UK, as well as to make the sums add up, it requires reliable and extensive public trans- are served and how – particularly by buses. change their modal preferences. reports on car clubs, bike-share, open port to replace core car trips such as commuting,” says Antonia Roberts, Transport policy has started to recognise AECOM’s Dave Wildger says: “We have data and transport innovation. She is deputy chief executive of shared transport organisation CoMoUK. that it is essential to reduce reliance on to link places where people work with the director of policy and communications “Similarly, bike share thrives where there are clusters of people able private cars to reverse their environmental, places where they live. This requires liberal for TravelSpirit and previously worked for CoMoUK. INSIGHT: PUBLIC MASS TRANSIT SYSTEMS

CASE STUDY: be more expensive per mile than long Lothianbridge Viaduct, Newtongrange at the London School of Economics THE JERSEY BUS FRANCHISING distance journeys) creates a complexity that © VisitScotland/AirBourne Lens concluded that the 20% of places most tends to mitigate against relying on public exposed to rail cuts between 1950 and the MODEL – NETWORK-LEVEL transport. The sunk cost of car ownership 1980s have seen 24 percentage points COMMISSIONING also tips the balance in favour of car use. less population growth than the 20% least Jersey has its own government – the States exposed along with a brain drain of young Assembly – which is able to set its own legislative SPEED and skilled workers and an ageing of the framework unrestricted by UK transport legislation. Train and tram journeys are largely population. Faced with severe and rising congestion, the unaffected by road congestion, but bus Conversely, the positive impact of rail- assembly launched a Policy speeds have been affected as traffic has ways on social fabric – and on people’s in 2010 to address traffic congestion by increasing of tendering asked two shortlisted organisations slowed in city centres. Analysis by Professor assumptions about place and connectivity bus ridership. to use their expertise to propose a network and David Begg in 2016 found “a direct correla- – is reflected in the increase in land values It recognised that its existing model would not schedules that met the strategic objectives set by tion between operating speeds and patron- around stations. People pay a premium to enable this shift and devised a new network-level the assembly – a year-round network for modal age: a 10% decrease in speeds reduces live close to a railway station or tube stop . contracting framework for a competitive tendering shift. patronage by at least 10%”. Only lately has a change in attitudes to process to run the Jersey bus network in its entirety. The States awarded the contract in 2013 to HCT rail been reflected in new schemes (see This process was multi-stage, calling for initial Group. The new service launched on schedule on CONVENIENCE CASE STUDY: BORDERS RAILWAY Borders Railway case study, left). expressions of interest and shortlisting candidate January 2, 2013, under the LibertyBus brand. Many journeys necessitate changes either operators via a pre-qualification questionnaire Since it began, passenger ridership has increased between routes or between modes. This – BUILD IT AND THEY WILL RIDE OPTION 2: LIGHT RAIL AND TRAMS proceeding to an invitation to tender and price a by 32%, and the levels of subsidy have reduced adds journey time and often an additional The UK’s longest new domestic railway for 100 million trips and it has since exceeded 1.5 million. The success of the Edinburgh tram shows model network. by £800k per year. Customer satisfaction has layer of inconvenience. There’s no auto- years was opened on September 6, 2015. Initial evaluation found that the re-opening of the its potential in the UK. Despite being late This provided a level playing field to assess the increased by 5%, five new routes have been intro- matic co-siting of bus and train services to The Borders Railway runs over a 30.3 mile route railway resulted in significant modal shift from the and over budget, the system has been quality and relative costing of bids. The final stage duced and key corridor frequencies have improved. make connections simple – these services between Newcraighall (in south-east Edinburgh) car to public transport – 57% of users who previ- popular and reached profitability two years are run in a free market environment in and Tweedbank (between Galashiels and ously made their trip by another mode stating that ahead of schedule. which the operators are, effectively, in com- Melrose). The journey times reduced from a mini- they used to drive all the way to their destination. Since then, both passenger numbers and petition with each other. mum of 83 minutes on the bus from Galashiels to The Borders Railway has also affected residen- revenue have exceeded targets. OPTION 3: OPEN ACCESS ROUTES OPTION 4: BUS The lack of cooperation between services central Edinburgh to 55 minutes or less. tial and workplace choices. More than half of users Transport Focus reports high levels of Novel approaches to rail include Open The decline in bus use has created a nega- is further encoded in legislation and regula- The reopening was the result of 15 years of cam- who moved house and over 80% of those who passenger satisfaction with tram networks Access Routes in which operators take the tive spiral. Operators make cuts to ensure tion. For instance, a bus cannot legally wait paigning. Initially, the business case was downbeat moved employment since the line re-opened said – Edinburgh recorded a high of 99% in 2017. full commercial risk for running a service, profitability – which pare services back to for a late train. Timetables are enforced by – an early assessment was based on 23,500 return the railway was a factor in their decision. Trams have the advantage that they buying access to the track to create routes profitable trunk routes. Local authorities the Traffic Commissioner and ‘anti-com- trips per year, later revised to 650,000. Consequently, it has resulted in a significant are commissioned by local authorities, between franchised services. are unable to subsidise the other services. petitive practices’ by the Competitions and However, from the moment it opened, the economic uplift in the area. It has also opened up enabling them to design and control the These increase the number of services Outside London, network oversight is Markets Authority. Borders Railway exceeded expectations. The smaller towns for investment and boosted the network. They take priority over other road and destinations from regional stations, almost impossible. Competition regulation eventual first year patronage was more than a number of tourist trips. users, speeding up journeys. such as the Grand Central Service from prevents operators from working together. TRENDS IN PASSENGER TRANSPORT However, the capital requirements have smaller West Yorkshire stations to London, It’s also commercially difficult to justify loss- AND MASS TRANSIT proved beyond many local authorities, which has expanded from one route to two, making services that provide access to core There has been a shift to rail over the past usually requiring a combination of local and from two trains per day to five, due to routes. This gives rise to local authorities decade, as more people opt for the rapid Car driver trip rates are higher on aver- OPTION 1: RAIL and national money, and the number of UK demand. They can reduce journey times paying to run an ever-decreasing minor- access into and between cities it provides. age in outer than inner London, but, notably, In terms of the volumes and speeds at cities with trams is in single figures. and improve connectivity. ity of unprofitable, but socially necessary, “Regional rail patronage (which includes rates are lower among residents in outer which people can be transported, rail is routes – effectively subsidising access to the city regions outside London) has grown London with the best public transport access enormously efficient. It potentially offers a (profitable) trunk bus and rail routes. by 36%,” notes a 2018 Urban Transport than residents in inner London with the least great customer experience with good pro- In addition, bus routes are subsidised Group report on transport trends. access to public transport. ductivity outcomes as people can engage in through the Bus Operators Grant which “The UK’s expanding urban tram and Travel trends in public transport are meaningful activity while travelling. Vantage bus on a guided bus repays some fuel duty incurred by opera- light rail networks have also boomed with also set against a backdrop of changes in The rail network exists in the dual state of route from Leigh to Salford tors, who are also recompensed for conces- patronage growth of 44%.” society and work patterns that has reduced being both profitable for (some) operators sionary travel. In 2017-18, central and local However, buses, which nationally account the amount we travel in general – both for and directly subsidised by Government to government paid £2.18bn in subsidies to for 70% of all public transport journeys, are work and leisure. the tune of around £5 billion per year. private bus companies in England, of which in decline. The decline in London follows a Cost has been one of the key drivers in £1bn was for concessionary travel. long period of high growth; elsewhere bus RE-EVALUATING PUBLIC ‘rationalising’ the railway. Until recently, the use has fallen over a number of years. TRANSPORT NETWORKS 36 assumption has been to create efficiencies CASE STUDY: RETHINKING BUS SERVICES Bus use in the city regions outside London The positive impact of public transport by trimming the network and focusing on TfGM-GUIDED BUSWAY In September, the Government announced has fallen by 11%, from 1.1 billion journeys provision is known, but the barriers to devel- a more limited and intensively used trunk it would bring forward a National Bus in 2009/10 to 937 million in 2016/17. opment – cost, legislation and political will route system. Local railways were cut (most – INCREASING SPEED Strategy and commit additional funding to Meanwhile, urban centres with good – have meant the benefits are not universal. significantly as a result of the Beeching Congestion is a major barrier to providing However, since opening in 2016 it has achieved an new networks and innovations. public transport provision have seen a This is the crux: if a service is not available, % Report), but radial routes from London efficient – and therefore attractive – bus services. The annual ridership of 2.6 million with 20% of passen- The move was largely welcomed, with decline in private car use. people cannot use it. Improving the public is the growth remained – leaving a network largely Leigh-Salford-Manchester Bus Rapid Transit is a gers switching from car travel. The full route of 15 Jonathan Bray, of Urban Transport Group, Transport for London (TfL) finds: “There transport network and the user experience in regional rail focused on the capital. guided in-carriage busway designed to provide a fast miles takes 55 minutes in peak and around 40 min- saying: “It’s good that senior politicians is a strong relationship between car use requires investment as well as innovation patronage Rail shows that cuts in transport networks and frequent link between Leigh and Manchester. utes in early morning and late night. Currently, the are now in a bidding war over who is most and access to public transport, with car use to provide the reliable, long-term solutions have much wider impacts. Researchers Initially, the busway was controversial as it was route is served by up to eight buses per hour. In addi- pro-bus, something that would have been rising as public transport accessibility falls.” required to convert people from cars. at the Centre for Economic Performance perceived as removing road capacity and unlikely to tion, Transport for Greater Manchester reports traffic inconceivable only a few years ago. improve services. times have returned to levels prior to construction. INSIGHT: PUBLIC MASS TRANSIT SYSTEMS

CASE STUDY: ZEELO CASE STUDY: – USING DATA TO ARRIVACLICK – BUILD NEW SERVICES AREA-WIDE FLEXIBLE Zeelo is a personalised bus BUS SERVICES service which uses travel data ArrivaClick is an on-demand bus to design and operate services service which operates across a when and where people need service area and is booked via an them. app. It operates ‘corner to cor- Services include commuter ner’ and uses a smart algorithm transport between Bristol and to maximise efficiency and mini- Newport and smart buses for mise the travel times for users employees at Gatwick Airport. sharing the service. Users are It also provides a service for guaranteed a seat on the service’s mini-buses (including bookable wheelchair and buggy spaces). automotive companies Jaguar The latest area to launch is Lubbesthorpe, a new 4,250 home development to the west of Leicester. Land Rover and Aston Martin at The Drummond Estate, which owns the land on which the 1,000 acre development between Enderby Gaydon near Leamington Spa. and Leicester Forest East is being built, signed a five-year contract with Arriva as part of its planning Zeelo head of marketing Cale obligations to support the local community. Pissarra focuses on the col- The service connects the area with Leicester city centre – with bookable destinations including the city’s laboration that services such university campuses as well as railway and bus stations, Leicester Royal Infirmary and other employment as Zeelo need to be able to and leisure destinations. create an attractive offer: ArrivaClick’s introduction was simultaneous as the first new residents moved into the initial 500-home “People talk about the death wave of the development and is expected to grow with subsequent waves. Within the first three months of car ownership, yet more than 5,000 people downloaded the app, growing by 700 each week. The service is exceeding passenger growth 65% of the UK population say forecasts with 3,500 journey requests being made each week. they would struggle to get to The Click model works across an area rather than sticking to set routes so can cover a wider operating work without their car. We are area with competitive operating costs – as well as creating a more coherent network for users. working with businesses and Lubbesthorpe is the third ArrivaClick scheme following launches in Kent and Liverpool. municipalities across the UK to address such problems. “We are seeing great results. 80% of our riders have switched MAAS – BRINGING TOGETHER PUBLIC According to TfGM intelligent mobility from using their cars for every TRANSPORT AND NEW MOBILITY officer Kit Allwinter, users have different single journey to work. Mobility as a Service (MaaS) solutions have needs – students, families, workers, execu- “The average Zeelo takes 30 the potential to provide seamless multi- tive travel, disabilities – so this approach cars off the road. But we can’t modal journeys, mixing public transport facilitates specialist applications. do this alone. It is a problem we with bike share, ride-hail and car clubs. “We want to avoid the private sector having need to tackle together.” This multi-modal network could reach 44 a monopoly, or siloes where one app is used more people, enabling them to access the by only one bus operator, or barriers where fast core routes more easily. It can, through there is no bike share on an app,” he says. the use of technology, also open up more “Different users have different needs and “The real prize is long-term bus fund- flexible MaaS transit solutions, such as on- we have an opportunity for different provid- ing reform to provide simpler, substantially demand buses which can fill the hole on % ers to offer different services.” enhanced and ring-fenced revenue funding unprofitable routes (see panel above). growth in urban Allwinter concedes that a full service is for bus services. However, while the technology is increas- tram and light “five-to-10 years away” and notes several “A national bus strategy could also help as ingly available to enable people to book and rail network challenges to resolve, including questions of long as it doesn’t degenerate into second- pay for journeys, as PAYG or subscription, who owns the customer, how revenue, prof- guessing from London on what is a hyper collaboration is required at a national level. patronage over its and/or subsidies are divided and govern- local . It should focus At a regional level, there is evidence of the past decade ance over data-sharing decisions. on funding reform, improving bus safety, a progress among city authorities. Collaboration between stakeholders will base level of consumer protection and pro- Manchester is creating a ‘repository’ of be essential to any successful MaaS project. moting more research and development.” data which includes real-time updates, re- Cale Pissarra at Zeelo (see panel) says: Case studies demonstrate a wealth of routing, wayfinding and journey planning “We see MaaS becoming smarter by private regional experience that could help build a for bus, tram and cycling, with integrated and public organisations working together better future bus service. ticketing via an online app. to share data, create multiple mobil- Note Oxford City Council, which has been A trial found that 73% of the 626 journeys ity options for people and incentivise the working with Oxford Bus Company to solve included two or more transport modes. change from private car ownership. the issue of commuting from residential Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) “There are many stakeholders in the eco- areas to the east of the city. It launched Pick plays the role of portal keeper. It controls the system, including municipalities, employ- MeUp, an on-demand ride-share mini-bus central data repository and allows private ers, property developers, public and pri- that collects from virtual bus stops in the sector companies to take feeds and create vate transport organisations. If we all work travel zone within 10 minutes of a booking. their own apps. together we can make a real impact.”