Great Western Coffee Shop

16 July 2018
The Transport Committee has launched an inquiry into the decline of the bus market in England outside London.

Bus service in decline
Bus service use is in decline in England, according to annual statistics from the Department for Transport (DfT). While bus use per person has increased by 52% in London over the last 25 years, it has fallen by 40% in other metropolitan areas.

Inquiry details
During the inquiry, MPs will consider:

bus service reliability
how services are run in metro-mayor, metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas
how they are financed
examples of innovation and best practice
Submit your views
To investigate the above issues further, the Transport Committee want to hear your views.

You can submit written evidence by completing our online submission form.

The deadline for written submissions is Monday 24 September 2018.

We are particularly interested in evidence on:

the effectiveness of the DfT's bus policies
factors affecting bus use, including reliability, congestion and the ways bus companies are dealing with congestion, and the effectiveness of bus priority measures (for example bus lanes and priority signalling)
how bus services are provided to isolated rural and urban communities and their dependence on services
the viability and sustainability of bus services, including the effectiveness of funding, fare structures and public grants
regulations affecting bus service provision and the quality of guidance to operators and local authorities
 Find out more about our bus market inquiry.

"Buses are a vital lifeline in many communities"
When announcing the inquiry, Committee Chair Lilian Greenwood said:

"There are a number of reasons for the sharp decline in bus use in England outside London over the past 25 years. Congestion, car ownership, an increase in online shopping, and reductions in local authority subsidies all play a part.

Our inquiry seeks to gather evidence about the health and future of the bus market.

We will look at operational factors including the impact of congestion and reliability. We'll be asking about the most effective models for bus companies.

The financing of buses, investment in services and value for money and progress since the Bus Services Act 2017 in metro and non-metro areas will all come under consideration.

Buses are a vital lifeline in many communities but with funding streams falling and fares rising, their availability and attractiveness to the travelling public is under threat.

A successful bus market can cut congestion, reduce social isolation, help the environment and offer a variety of economic benefits. I would encourage anyone with insight into this sector to submit evidence."

Easy - Those services being lost rarely ran at a profit & required subsidy.

Government has been cutting Council funding for a number of years and its stupidly obvious that non-cure funding takes the hit. No subsidies, no bus services that require subsidy.

Little else to report really. Restore ring-fenced funding for bus subsidies and they'd restart.

Dreaming, sorry.

Bus companies are making very little profit, just enough to survive. Force them to reinvest what small profit there is and they'll give up running buses because shareholders aren't getting a return.

So then who picks up the buses (and their non-cheap maintenance) and staff?

And the overall % - because profit levels of under 2% won't keep tythem operating the trains - so there's cross-subsidy going on.

As a non driver part of the problem for me is that the buses don't go where I need them to or do so very infrequently that its not practical. This then means I'm less likely to get a bus and it becomes catch 22. Having one or two buses a day means lots of waiting around and I then generally end up getting a cab or in one case walking the 5 miles back into town rather than waiting 4 hours or so for the return bus.

He quoted the two major bus companies that make higher revenues on trains than buses - so they're train companies with a major order of buses, I suggest.

Try a bus company that dabbles in trains) maybe, and you may prove me wrng. but you haven't so far.

There are other answers.
At the moment we have private companies extracting profit from bus services while at the same time tax payers are supposed to subsidy un-profitable services, how about we use the profit from the profitable services to cross-subsidise the un-profitable services so that we have a proper joined up public transport network. No more private good, public bad.

I understand that bus services are even more profitable than rail services and we may therefore not even need any tax payer subsidy although it would be good to also reduce fares at the same time.

Dreaming, sorry.

Bus companies are making very little profit, just enough to survive. Force them to reinvest what small profit there is and they'll give up running buses because shareholders aren't getting a return.

So then who picks up the buses (and their non-cheap maintenance) and staff?