Wiltshire Council is currently consulting on the future of subsidised bus services in the county, under the title "Review of Public Transport". "This review is being undertaken to help identify savings from passenger transport budgets" they say in the pre-amble, and they ask the public to comment on whether they support:
Option 1 - Withdraw funding for all supported evening services
Option 2 - Withdraw funding for all supported Sunday and Bank Holiday services
Option 3 - Reduce the hourly services on Mon-Fri to two hourly on the strategic bus network
Option 4 - Reduce rural bus services to 2-3 buses a day on regular routes and withdraw most of the infrequent services.
Option 5 - Reduce town bus services to 2-3 buses a day (buses used by school pupils
within some town retained)
Option 6 - Withdraw all funding from all council subsidised services
I believe that the review is too limited - it looks only at the existing subsidised services each in isolations and not at the bus (or indeed) public transport network as a whole. And yet on some public transport services in Wiltshire, up to 80% of passengers interchange at one or both ends to another piece of wheeled transport. A network-wide approach is needed, where people's total journey requirements are taken into account - not only will that help the people who are making the journeys, but it will also help the local economy, grow service utilisation and help reduce (or even remove) the need for council subsidy. We are calling the network-wide approach, and the practical suggestion and mechanisms to implement it,
Option 247Such a network-wide approach has widespread support, and a proven track record in growing bus use in London - just take a look at this Department for Transport graph comparing London growth (where a scheme such as we are proposing is already in use) to "growth" or lack of it in the rest of England, and note that just 2 extra fare paying passengers somewhere along the route of a subsided Wiltshire bus would provide the 60% savings sought, and three passengers would remove the need for subsidy from most routes completely.
Option 247 service specification takes as a starting point "Where are people travelling from and to - total journey - when, and with what flexibility of timing" and it goes on to ask "how can that best be provided as a total transport solution - providing an efficient system that meets existing customer needs and encourages additional customers".
Mechanisms such as those used in London have been hard to apply for legal framework reasons in the rest of England, but consultation work last autumn and a new bus bill in February are aware of and address the issues. So Wiltshire Council's options 1 through 6 - which have been in preparation and pre-consultation since spring of last year (2015) were limited (to, it has to be said, frustration all around) to a "cut, cut, cut" policy - a decaying spiral where the choice being offered in the consultation is - in essence - about how the ongoing decay is to be managed.
The intent of this initial post is to make you aware of option 247 and not to answer all your questions - we have a dedicate site at
http://option247.uk which contains a great deal more background. Please take a look there - and look too at our
Frequenly Asked Questions there - and if you don't find answer there please ask here, or on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/option247 , or on Twitter via @option247 ... registered members here (please register - it's free) are welcome to send me personal messages too.
If you already know enough about the survey to complete the council's consultation, it may be found at:http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/subsidised-bus-services-consultation.htmI recommend that you complete questions as follows:
Question 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20 - select NO (to reject options 1 through 6)
Question 25 - please WRITE IN "Option 247 preferred - www . option247 . uk" (to support option 247)
Small print on the survey:
Within the "Option 6" section, opinions are sought on "In order to keep as many of the existing subsidised services running as possible Wiltshire Council is investigating if other organisations, individuals and communities might be able to fund, or even operate elements of some bus routes. This might for example include paying for services in villages on routes or helping to fund extra journeys."They also ask about Community schemes: "There are 15 community minibus groups providing services in their area for those who are unable to use ordinary bus services and also over 40 Link schemes which covers 98% of rural households, providing transport in the volunteers' own car."
