Report on Public Transport Provision in Rural and Depopulated Areas in the United Kingdom
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics White, Peter Working Paper Report on public transport provision in rural and depopulated areas in the United Kingdom International Transport Forum Discussion Paper, No. 2015-07 Provided in Cooperation with: International Transport Forum (ITF), OECD Suggested Citation: White, Peter (2015) : Report on public transport provision in rural and depopulated areas in the United Kingdom, International Transport Forum Discussion Paper, No. 2015-07, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), International Transport Forum, Paris This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/109194 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle You are not to copy documents for public or commercial Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich purposes, to exhibit the documents publicly, to make them machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. publicly available on the internet, or to distribute or otherwise use the documents in public. Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, If the documents have been made available under an Open gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. www.econstor.eu Report on Public Transport Provision in Rural and Depopulated Areas in the United Kingdom Discussion07 Paper 2015• 07 Peter White University of Westminster, United Kingdom Report on Public Transport Provision in Rural and Depopulated areas in the United Kingdom Discussion Paper No. 2015-07 Peter WHITE University of Westminster, United Kingdom March 2015 THE INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORT FORUM The International Transport Forum at the OECD is an intergovernmental organisation with 54 member countries. It acts as a strategic think-tank, with the objective of helping shape the transport policy agenda on a global level and ensuring that it contributes to economic growth, environmental protection, social inclusion and the preservation of human life and well-being. The International Transport Forum organises an Annual Summit of ministers along with leading representatives from industry, civil society and academia. The International Transport Forum was created under a Declaration issued by the Council of Ministers of the ECMT (European Conference of Ministers of Transport) at its Ministerial Session in May 2006 under the legal authority of the Protocol of the ECMT, signed in Brussels on 17 October 1953, and legal instruments of the OECD. The Members of the Forum are: Albania, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China (People’s Republic of), Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Republic of Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United States. The International Transport Forum’s Research Centre gathers statistics and conducts co-operative research programmes addressing all modes of transport. Its findings are widely disseminated and support policymaking in member countries as well as contributing to the Annual Summit. Discussion Papers The International Transport Forum’s Discussion Paper Series makes economic research, commissioned or carried out at its Research Centre, available to researchers and practitioners. The aim is to contribute to the understanding of the transport sector and to provide inputs to transport policy design. ITF Discussion Papers should not be reported as representing the official views of the ITF or of its member countries. The opinions expressed and arguments employed are those of the authors. Discussion Papers describe preliminary results or research in progress by the author(s) and are published to stimulate discussion on a broad range of issues on which the ITF works. Comments on Discussion Papers are welcomed, and may be sent to: International Transport Forum/OECD, 2 rue André-Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex 16, France. For further information on the Discussion Papers and other JTRC activities, please email: [email protected] The Discussion Papers can be downloaded from: www.internationaltransportforum.org/jtrc/DiscussionPapers/jtrcpapers.html The International Transport Forum’s website is at: www.internationaltransportforum.org This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. REPORT ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT PROVISION IN RURAL AND DEPOPULATED AREAS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM Table of contents THE INTERNATIONAL TRANSPORT FORUM ...................................................................... 2 Discussion Papers..................................................................................................................... 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................................. 3 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 4 2. STRUCTURE OF THE PASSENGER TRANSPORT INDUSTRY IN THE UK .................. 4 Rail industry .............................................................................................................................. 5 Bus and Coach Industry ............................................................................................................. 5 Trends in the bus and coach industry......................................................................................... 8 Evidence from the National Travel Survey (NTS) .................................................................... 9 ..................................................................................................................................................... 11 3. DEVELOPMENT OF DEMAND-RESPONSIVE SERVICES ............................................ 11 4. THE APPROPRIATE ROLE FOR SMALLER VEHICLES ................................................ 12 5. TAXI REGULATION ISSUES ............................................................................................. 13 Main features ........................................................................................................................... 13 Overall trends .......................................................................................................................... 14 Likely factors behind the growth ............................................................................................. 17 The regulatory framework ....................................................................................................... 17 Effects of limiting numbers .................................................................................................. 20 Effects of deregulation on demand ...................................................................................... 22 Other issues in the British case ............................................................................................ 23 Experience of the changes introduced under the 1985 Transport Act. .................................... 23 The Law Commission proposals ............................................................................................. 24 Some broad conclusions on taxis ............................................................................................. 25 6. SPECIFIC INITIATIVES IN RURAL PUBLIC TRANSPORT PROVISION IN BRITAIN25 Postbuses ................................................................................................................................. 25 Volunteer-driven minibuses ..................................................................................................... 26 Enhancement of commercial ‘conventional’ bus services ....................................................... 26 Government funding of service experimentation .................................................................... 27 Car sharing schemes ................................................................................................................ 27 Integration of public school and social services transport ....................................................... 28 7. ECONOMIC EVALUATION OF RURAL TRANSPORT OPTIONS ................................. 28 Peter White — Discussion Paper 2015-07 — © OECD/ITF 2015 3 REPORT ON PUBLIC TRANSPORT PROVISION IN RURAL AND DEPOPULATED AREAS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM 1. Introduction In drawing lessons from experience in the United Kingdom, it is useful to firstly examine some of the overall differences between the UK and Finland, both