Novel approaches to rural transport provision are needed to plug a gap created by the loss of traditional bus services across the UK, for which public funding has been slashed in recent times. 

 

This is the view of the Campaign for Better Transport’s executive director Stephen Joseph who spoke to TP in May.

 

“There is a big problem with rural transport at the moment,” he says. “We have seen a significant withdrawal of conventional public transport services alongside an increasing dependence on private, often single occupancy cars. 

 

“Having rural transport available is good for the economy and society; it enables people to access jobs and helps older people who might otherwise be housebound to get out and feel less isolated, thereby reducing social services costs,” he adds.

 

However bus services in England and Wales have suffered a 33% cut in public funding since 2010 and over 500 routes were reduced or completely withdrawn in the last financial year alone.

 

What is more, local authorities and transport operators are failing in many areas to think in a joined up way about their transport networks, often leading to counter-intuitive planning and timetabling of the remaining services,

 

Stephen Joseph adds.

 

“The extent to which we see cases of a train arriving just as a bus disappears off into the distance is startling,” he points out.

 

“Even with diminished funding there is potential to do things better by integrating budgets, services, timetables and ticketing and using new technology to improve the planning of services and make them readily available to people.”

 

One place where significant improvements are in motion is Cornwall where the council, using powers under its devolution deal and the upcoming Bus Services Act, is looking to create an integrated public transport system across the county.

 

This will build on planned upgrades to the rail network including signalling works to allow a half hourly service from Plymouth to Penzance. Extending from this core rail spine will be major bus routes linking key settlements, with further spokes spreading out to smaller towns and villages.

 

“The idea is that there will be an integrated timetable and county wide integrated ticketing for residents and visitors,” Stephen Joseph explains. “If Cornwall is successful with this then a lot of other places will follow.”

 

He also points to a recently concluded programme of Government funded ‘Total Transport’ pilot schemes as a source of new ideas for making the most of available transportation in rural areas.

 

“If you go to any rural area you find transport that is bespoke and being commissioned by different public bodies at a total cost that is quite high.” This includes local authority funded transport for non emergency patients and special needs education.

 

“Some services need to remain bespoke but others could be coordinated to achieve big savings and provide quite a good mainstream public transport network,” Stephen Joseph adds. Integrating approaches to rural transport was the key aim of the Total Transport initiative which saw grants awarded for 37 different schemes.

 

One of the most high profile was a project in Northamptonshire which mapped the postcodes of those travelling to some of the county’s biggest ‘travel generators’ including hospitals, schools and colleges and council premises. In doing so the local authority could see how demand for transport was distributed and think about how to provide for it.

 

“This approach takes some of the guesswork out of public transport provision because you can see where there is a market and make the case for new services.”

 

Stephen Joseph adds that mobile phone companies hold aggregated, anonymised data on the journeys people make, presenting further opportunities for transport planners to work out what people are doing and use that as the basis of network planning.

 

“You could structure a system where people from the same area are incentivised to ride share,” he says.

“It might even be worth highway authorities paying good money to employers to subsidise car sharing.

 

“Reducing single occupancy car use is good for congestion and could provide better value for money than upgrades to infrastructure.”

 

Future technologies also have the potential to solve some of the transport challenges facing rural communities, he says. Much has been made of the benefits expected to come with the introduction of autonomous vehicles. “But it feels that the approach popularly known as ‘Mobility as a Service’ will be much more fruitful in tackling our real transport problems.”

 

However he adds that a particular challenge is the availability of a mobile phone signal and broadband to allow people to access new digital services.

 

“And what do you do about older people who don’t have mobile phones, or poorer people who can’t afford them,” he asks. “Those people can’t just be left behind. In some cases they are the ones who most need this kind of service.

 

“The idea that everyone will be able to access everything by apps is all very well, but for some it is difficult.”