Agenda Item 5 Select Committee on Public Transportation Tuesday 30th March, 2010 Best Practice 1. Summary Statement 1.1 This report outlines examples of best practice, providing good examples for Transport Authorities and Local Authorities. These are drawn from Local Authority Areas in England outside of Greater London, as their governance arrangements are significantly different to the rest of the country. 1.2 The report focuses on Demand Responsive Transport, Community Transport, Bus Rapid Transit, Express Transit, Bus Quality Partnerships and Air Quality Improvements on the bus network. Further Information attached for your information. 2. Recommendations 2.1 That the Select Committee on Public Transportation consider how the examples of best practice outlined in this report can be used to improve public transport in Sandwell. 2.2 That the Select Committee on Public Transportation express these considerations in its final report. 3. Contact Officer Richard White Transportation Planning 0121 569 4894 4. Best Practice Demand Responsive Transport Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) services provide transport "on demand" from passengers using fleets of vehicles scheduled to pick up and drop off people in accordance with their needs. DRT is an intermediate form of transport, somewhere between bus and taxi and covers a wide range of transport services ranging from less formal community transport through to area-wide service networks. In recent years, the ability of DRT concepts to provide efficient, viable transport services has been greatly enhanced by the use of transport telematics, such as Automated Vehicle Locationing (AVL) systems. These are used to provide real-time information on the status and location of the fleet. In Northumberland the County Council is engaged in two DRT projects; Phone and Go and Click and Go. They are developing an internet-based system for pre-booking DRT (and other transport services) with special reference to health services. The potential of DRT has been further endorsed by the European Conference of Ministers of Transport (ECMT) in its resolution on accessible transport (July 2001). In the UK the Government in its Ten Year Plan for transport has pledged to remove or (at least) relax constraints on the development of flexibly-routed bus services and to promote a greater role for community- based services, whilst recently-published research argues that flexible public transport services, provided by local authorities and bus operators in partnerships with employers, stores and leisure centres would help break down social exclusion. It points the way towards the concept of DRC for a wide user base, including taxis, education, social services, patient transport services and community services. Community Transport With regards to best practice in Community Transport, the Access Alliance Programme in North Derbyshire and North Nottinghamshire aims to link residents with jobs, training and services. In 2008, £400,000 was awarded across 26-projects; and a similar amount is expected to benefit projects in 2010. Charges for community transport vary from scheme to scheme, with some services having a membership charge and others charging per mile or per trip. Historically community transport services have had to be very enterprising in order to secure funding to maintain services. This has included some operators registering as social enterprise schemes and others taking on contracts to provide services for local authorities. Co-operation with local authorities is an important source of funding for many non-profit-making transport providers and this model of working is encouraged. The potential benefits both in cost saving and improved services should make the inclusion of community transport at the very outset of planning local transport a very real consideration. Another example of best practise in Community Transport is in Devon. In the past, ambulance and health trusts provided transport for non-emergency patients; however, these transport provisions became less able to respond to ‘social’ needs as medical requests took precedence. Devon County Council has been working in partnership with health trusts and the community transport sector for a number of years. They found that some people were being transported in ambulances when they could have gone in cars and other eligible patients were being declined passenger transport services due to capacity problems. It was concluded that there should be a better way of providing cost effective and efficient passenger services and eliminating waste. The Council’s solution promoted co-operation with health trusts transporting patients eligible for ‘medical’ tier transport (who may require medical intervention during the journey), while those not meeting the ‘medical’ tier were transported by community transport operators, subsidised by the health trusts. This resulted in a more efficient use of capacity and funding. A Transport Innovation Partnership comprising East Riding of Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire and York City councils along with the local ambulance trust and community transport providers underlines the importance of community transport and demonstrates how effective a resource it can be when looking to improve a regional transport infrastructure. Community Transport acted as the vehicle by which a partnership working between Yorkshire Ambulance Service and East Riding Council could flourish, supported by a joint call centre as well as joint transport delivery. By working in collaboration on patient transport and operating a call centre, the Council and the Ambulance Service have achieved cost efficiencies and service improvements. Additionally, the environmental benefits are significant as the environmental impact of delivering transport services is reduced by more effective service delivery through partnership working. The next stage is to maximise the use of existing vehicles via a common booking system for all vehicles available in the East Riding, regardless of who owns them. This ‘vehicle brokerage’ will maximise each vehicle’s revenue earning potential, by allowing the council and community transport groups to ‘sell’ the time when a vehicle is not normally used. This will in turn contribute further to the key aims of ensuring accessibility to services for local residents by using community transport, whilst achieving cost efficiencies and service improvements for the council and Yorkshire Ambulance Service. In Sandwell a similar proposal has been discussed on several occasions between Patient Transport Services, Ring and Ride, Community Transport and the Council, but these have always failed due to a lack of willingness to share vehicles. Bus Rapid Transit The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway (CGB), branded the “busway”, connects the population centres of Cambridge, Huntingdon and St Ives, Cambridgeshire. Construction and planning took place during the 2000s for 25 km of dedicated guided busway, within a wider 40 km network. The northern section of busway runs parallel to the A14 road, using the course of the Cambridge and Huntingdon railway that closed in 1993. A southern section is designed to connect Cambridge railway station, Addenbrooke's Hospital and a park and ride site at Trumpington. Based on contracts signed with the promoters, Cambridgeshire County Council, bus services would be operated by Stagecoach in Cambridge and Whippet Coaches who would have exclusive use of the route for a period of five years in exchange for providing a minimum service frequency between 07:00 and 19:00 each day. The scheme was budgeted to cost £116 million. It is estimated that 11,500 journeys a day will be made on the busway. The scheme is predicted to cause a direct reduction in traffic on the busy parallel A14 road of 5.6% (rising to 11.1% with the new Park & Ride sites), although as other traffic re-routes to the freed-up road space from other parts of the local road network, the actual net reduction on the A14 is predicted to be 2.3%. The overall scheme is "not intended to solve the congestion problems on the A14" by itself, but will rather have an overall effect across the local road network, and be complementary to the planned road improvements on the A14. The busway is designed for buses travelling at 55 miles per hour (90 km/h), slowing to 30 miles per hour (50 km/h) where it crosses public highways. Guidance is achieved using the guidewheel-on-concrete-kerb method. The 6- metre (20 ft) width of the bus guideway is narrower than the 9.3 metres (31 ft) width of a single carriageway rural all-purpose road built to 2009 standards Two operators, Stagecoach and Whippet Coaches, had committed to buying new buses and running commercial services on the scheme. As with all other UK guided busway schemes in the privatised bus industry, Cambridgeshire County Council owns the infrastructure, and will allow private bus operators to use it on their registered services, subject to quality contracts specifying vehicle and service standards. During peak hours of 07:00–19:00 operators will be charged for using the busway. When boarding a bus on the guideway section, passengers will be required to purchase their tickets before boarding from one of seventeen ticket issuing machines compatible with ITSO smartcards. Cambridgeshire Country Council stated that multi-operator ticketing would be supported, allowing passengers to board the first bus that arrived. Other cities, such as Nottingham, had had tickets valid on all operators' buses since 2004. The project was budgeted to cost £116.2 million. ftr Another example of bus rapid transit, currently in operation in York, Leeds, Luton and Swansea is ftr. This has been introduced by FirstGroup, using Wright Street Car articulated buses in conjunction with infrastructure upgrades by local authorities. SMS shorthand for "future" is ftr. Each Street Car vehicle costs over £300,000, with 42 seats, and has a separate driver compartment at the front. The vehicle itself is a modified conventional bus, with styling similar to contemporary trams (multiple entry points) and greater distances between axles in order to maximise the low-floor area for easily-accessible seating.