Bus services under the spotlight as bill revealed

14 November 2007

Bus operators have been given ‘a veto’ over quality bus partnerships, after the Government watered down the promised new powers to improve bus services in the Local Transport Bill.

Councils would only be able to specify timings, frequencies and fares under quality bus partnerships, seen as the main tool for improving services in much of the country, if there are no ‘admissible objections from relevant operators’.

The Department for Transport said that the change was in response to concerns from bus companies that councils would use QBPs to impose ‘unreasonable terms’ on them. But Jonathan Bray, spokesman for the passenger transport executive group, said that this change ‘gives operators a veto which they didn’t have in the draft bill. Their lobbying has been effective’.

The result was that QBPs would be ‘no more attractive than they are now’. The only QBP to be established in England and Wales since the Transport Act 2000 created the powers to introduce the legally-binding agreements is due to start running services this weekend in Sheffield. The County Surveyors’ Society was also concerned about the change.

Colin McKenna, chair of the CSS integrated transport group, said: ‘It appears that operators will have the upper-hand in the negotiations over quality bus partnerships. Some operators are quite helpful, but others dig their heels in.’ But only when the regulations were published would it be clear how receiving ‘admissible objections’ could prove a great hurdle to establishing a QBP, said McKenna.

Bob Saxby, chair of the Association of Transport Co-ordinating Officers, said that, even in areas with co-operative operators, ‘one little operator could undermine everything we want to do’. The devil would be in the detail, he stressed, urging the draft regulations to be presented to MPs considering the bill. There were other changes to the legislation that were welcomed, including a proposal to allow ‘registration restrictions’ in QBPs, to prevent rival operators undermining partnerships by undercutting fares – something the CSS had called for.

McKenna welcomed the fact that ‘the Government has listened on this point’.

But Saxby also hoped that the regulations would allow traffic commissioners to act on ‘aggressive registrations’ which undermine voluntary partnerships, with operators cherry-picking the most popular routes. In more sparsely populated areas, voluntary partnerships are likely to be the main way for local authorities to improve services, because there would be little that highway authorities could bring to QBPs in terms of improving infrastructure.

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