Great Western Coffee Shop

One of the biggest influencers on rail is government policy ... and we have an election coming up in May that's said to be one of the most open in years.  In our "frequent posters" club - that's an area that's open to members with 10 (*) or more posts to their name we already have ongoing discussions, but additionally it may be worth running a "thread" here in which members post selected policy statements and comment from the politicians to help inform our wider audience too.

Starting off, a much reported interview from the Labour shadow transport secretary


This quote from Sharecast (http://sharecast.com/news/labour-to-scrap-rail-franchising-promise-more-public-control/22493616.html?)

Chris Grayling, a former Conservative Shadow Transport Spokesman, writes:


That's on his web site [here] (http://www.grayling.co.uk/Uploads/Documents/GraylingManifestoInfographicPart2_20140423163017.pdf) and includes the interesting attached diagram comparing parties - a light bulb is "idea", a tick "pledge" and an equals sign a "priority".

Looking around for a Liberal Democrat policy statement on transport / speech by a spokesperson, in an admittedly brief look I've found it to be wrapped within wider issues through log documents rather than produced stand alone, and would welcome a follow up on this thread to redress the balance. Both Norman Baker and now Baroness Kramer have been / are ministers at the Department for Transport, and their activities give some indication of the way the Liberal Democrats work / think, though of course their activities also reflect the policies of their partners in coalition.

For UKIP, I was able to find their Policy Statement (http://www.ukip.org/policies_for_people) which includes a Transport section:


The Green Party's Transport policy can be read [here] (http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/tr.html) - an old document but updated late last year. 

With Members of Parliament representing Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland parties likely to be returned to Westminster, possible new coalition partners, and with votes on matters that effect English transport (including in the Thames Valley, South West, and South Wales) we have further potential policies and political activities which bear looking at.


* - Threshold may vary without notice

..................and in common with virtually all their other policies (Health, Education etc) Labour give absolutely no idea how it's all going to be paid for.

The Conservatives haven't exactly been forthcoming with reasons for how the country can afford HS2.

And, according to that diagram/chart thing, they seem to be very private-transport focused. Both Labour and Lib-Dem have in their sector of the chart either a freeze on rail fares or an end to above-inflation rises. The Tories' section says "Extend the Fuel Duty Freeze & maximum fines for parking expenses" and "Commitment to invest in road infrastructure". The same Tory disregard for the climate is true on energy as well, both Labour and Lib-Dems apparently have as a priority "2030 decarbonisation target" but the Tories do not. That said, I'm generally unimpressed with Labour's policies regarding the climate; I believe they still support airport expansion for example.

I would be interested to know roughly how much would it cost to provide free bus travel to everyone nationwide (assuming current service levels, patronage etc. to make the calculation simple).

There are some figures on page 7 of this document for 2009-2010
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmtran/750/750.pdf

If I read it correctly, outside of london operating revenue for that period was ^3.4bn with ^1.8bn covered by the farebox (so an extra ^1.8bn would have made the buses free for everyone in that period).

AFAIK The current political appetite is to reduce the subsidy paid to operators, not increase it (hence the general chopping of bus services seen recently) so it's never likely to happen. It's an idea I would like to see (even if I haven't thought it out properly!).

You certainly haven't.....the majority of taxpayers would be paying for something that they'd never use.

Buses are limited (very) in where they can take you at a speed you'd actually put up with.

The cost to each taxpayer would be more than the fares likely to be paid by the majority without increased subsidy - hence actually increasing the cost to most.

Most of us currently contribute towards a rail system that few outside the major conurbations use regularly and primarily subsidise season tickets (compare price per mile for a commuter season ticket, versus a long distance service). I saw some figures recently, which I will not quote as I can't recall the exact numbers, and it was a shockingly low proportion of commuters do so by train, given the amount of public money that is pumped into a (largely privately operated) system.

Taking your point regarding bus subsidy, maybe it's time to remove all subsidy from the TOC's?!

That's a better argument :-)

If one were to be able to put up with the resultant road congestion, especially in London, it's a valid point of view. But the congestion would win.

Actually, it depends how the service is tended, and perhaps on the details of specific bus services. Ironically, it may be cheaper for taxpayers to provide free bus travel for everyone than continue with the current suituation. See the Chester 'Free Bus' suituation, articles here (scroll down to the article 'More on the Chester station bus fiasco') (http://www.nwrail.org.uk/nw1111b.htm), here (http://www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/news/chester-cheshire-news/councillor-hits-out-loss-free-5185636) and here (http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/new-charge-chester-shoppers-bus-2680030). In short, the council used to pay ^38,000 to provide a free service. Then a bus operator started a commertial service charging passengers replacing the free service, which the council estimated would cost them ^100,000 a year in reimbursment for concessionary travel passes.

So why not keep the free bus running at the lower cost?....

Maybe a little more scepticism is in order about things you read in the press or on line...

Note that the news is from 2011.

^38,000 isn't anything like the full cost - so most of the previous subsidy for the free service came from the rail operators. That is what has been withdrawn, and an increase in government subsidies, to partly replace that loss, is not surprising.

In the absence of the full cost figure, let's resort to the back of an envelope. The latest average cost per mile of operating a bus outside London was about ^3. This service ran 10 one-mile circuits per hour most days, which would be ^30. However, such a short urban service is bound to cost more than that average - maybe ^40-50 per hour. Note that's for two buses.

Over ten hours per day and every day of the year that comes to about ^170,000, though with a wide margin of error. Now ^1 for a five-minute half-mile trip always did seem a bit steep. It would be interesting to know what has happened to ridership since the change - I'll bet paid trips are nothing like the number implied by that 450,000 (12 per one-way trip on average) less concessions. As it's still running it must cover its costs, even if it is done mostly with concession refunds.

The "estimate" of ^100,000 for concession subsidy looks more like a wild guess, even if it did come from CWCC. Note their words:
If they are talking only about Borough residents, that's not ENCTS - which is paid by central government (at least in theory). In most places people use their ENCTS pass unless it's in the peak hours when it's not valid, as the local add-on is more limited or cumbersome to use. However their local one works, that figure does look high - as well as suspiciously round.

In any case, such a short trip (half a mile) which most people could walk in 10 minutes could only be called important for those who do find that difficult - i.e. bus pass holders (or some of them). So once a third-party subsidy for all comers is withdrawn, a government subsidy targeted at pass holders is going to cost a large fraction of the original cost.

If I'm reading the story correctly the new service was registered commertially by the bus operator. In such circumstances, the local authority is forbidden to subsidise a competing service.

That said, stuving makes some interesting points which I was not aware of (the TOC funding in particular).

You are, and it is. There would, though, be nothing to stop the other parties to the former subsidy agreement - the TOCs - from running a new free service at their own expense, at least AFAIK.