Minutes:
Question
Looking at the Bus Service Improvement Plan - our new housing estates are filling up with residents and we have bus shelters along the main roads, but as of yet, no bus services to these neighbourhoods.
Understanding that this Council has declared a Climate Emergency, we need good public transport to be an alternative to persuade people out of their cars and that cycling and walking does not work for everyone, especially in bad weather. To be useful, the bus service needs to run in the evenings and at weekends and they were supposed to be available when people started moving in. So, when are we likely to see a regular bus service in these new estates?
The Bus Service Improvement Plan as you will have seen from tonight’s agenda is a high-level strategy, it is not intended to provide detailed amendments and delivery dates for every bus service in the Borough, but you can see from it how much we do actually spend on bus services. It is a considerable amount of money in order to try and encourage people to use bus services and provide appropriate services for them.
Development in Shinfield and Spencer’s Wood has already been provided with additional bus services to serve new homes in Croft Gardens and the Thames Valley Science Park. In North Wokingham the 121 service was amended to re-route the bus through Mulberry Grove using S106 funding to cover the costs. Both bus services have developer funding until 2026 to try and establish commercially sustainable services, although the pandemic has had a significant impact on passenger levels and growth.
Currently passenger recovery rates are 65% of the pre-Covid level, bus services need to recover before new services are added. Adding new services when passenger demand is low results in high operational costs and low on-board revenue. Ultimately, where passenger demand is low there is a risk that developer funding will be exhausted before the service can be established so we need to try and introduce it at the right time so that it has got a chance to be established before we run out of developer funding because the last thing we want is to have to withdraw a service because it is not viable at the end of the developer funding.
Bus services for new developments will be addressed as part of the Enhanced Partnership agreement. The Enhanced Partnership agreement will provide greater detail on the frequency and days of operation of bus services along with commitments to delivery dates. The agreement will be available on 1st April 2022. As you will see we have some pretty ambitious targets in terms of improving the bus services, improving integration, improving fares, improving ticketing and really actually making the bus services as good as we can.
Supplementary Question
It is good to know that you are at least thinking about bus services and I realise that it is not a complete thing yet and it is good to know that they are improving.
The thing we have in Wokingham is that there really isn’t a very good evening bus service, everything sort of stops about 8pm. I believe the last bus to Woosehill leaves town at 19:05 and if you were a commuter coming out from London that is a little bit early for you. Also, if you are living on Finchampstead Road there is no bus service. In Barkham, I think, the last bus is about 8pm.
If we want people to leave their cars at home this is kind of crucial to the climate emergency; to provide an alternate public transport service that people can choose so that they don’t use their cars. I would really like to know what is the plan, particularly in the run-up to Christmas and when there is poor weather? What are the alternatives we are providing for people other than using their cars, particularly in Wokingham?
Supplementary Answer
I agree with you Imogen, my profession is transport and one of the things that is very clear from transport theory and reality is that the more frequent you have services and the more convenient they are, for where people want to go, the more people use them. That is undoubtedly correct, but we do have to get to a position where the bus services are viable and economic.
As you see the Bus Service Improvement Plan will roll out things we have been talking about. Things like the bus service to Winnersh Triangle station which shuts off too early for anybody using it for commuter purposes. Those sorts of things are important to try and see if we can work with Reading Buses, and other bus providers, to make sure that we get services that match, as much as possible, the desire so that they get more passengers, we get more usage and in the end we provide a bus service that is viable. I think that is the key message.
So, I am on the same page as you as far as frequency and timing is concerned but we cannot afford to spend unlimited amounts of money on buses unfortunately. We already spend £810k a year on supporting bus services. We spend almost £1m on concessionary fares and we also spend over a £100k towards community transport and volunteer services. We also spend about £400k from S106 on supporting bus services. These are very significant amounts of money. John has given a very good summary of where the finances of the Council are. We need to get these bus services frequent, and we also need to get them viable so that they are operable and provide the bus companies with a revenue that means that they can continue to deliver them.