image source, Reading Borough Council
- author, Becky Morton
- the role Political reporter
Buses are the most widely used form of public transport in England, but routes have been disappearing at an alarming rate in recent years.
Bus use plummeted during the pandemic, but even before that it had been steadily declining in areas outside the capital.
One area that is bucking the national trend is reading. The city – 40 miles west of London – has been hit by Covid restrictions like everywhere else, but local bus journeys were also growing before the pandemic.
Reading is one of five boroughs in England where the local bus company is owned by a council.
Robert Williams, chief executive of Reading Buses, says this means profits can be reinvested in the service.
“We can take a longer-term view, we’re not waiting all the time to make sure our profit margin is at a certain level, because our job is just to provide the best possible service,” he says.
“You have local people living and breathing the area, running the services and designing what needs to happen. It’s not a central head office, hundreds of miles away.’
It also means that when the council invests in things like bus lanes, it sees a direct return – better services, more passengers and more fare revenue that can then be reinvested.
An extra £3m a year is going to the city’s bus network because it does not pay dividends to private shareholders, according to campaign group We Own it.
The council says this means it has been able to invest in one of the greenest bus fleets in the country, including 66 biogas buses and 24 electric buses.
Until the 1980s, most bus services were run by state-owned companies, often run by councils, but in 1986 services outside London were deregulated and privatised, leading to a massive sale of the city’s bus companies.
A system of franchising was introduced in London where Transport for London determined the routes, timetables and fares and operators offered services for a fixed fee.
This has helped to increase bus use in the capital, with services less affected by the cuts than in other parts of the country.
In 2017, metropolitan mayors in England were given the power to franchise buses, but at the same time councils were banned from setting up their own bus companies from scratch.
If it gets power, Labor says it will give all boroughs the same chance to franchise as metro mayors, and allow regional councils and mayors to set up their own bus companies.
Mr Williams is a fan of the council-owned model, but doubts how easy it would be to replicate it more widely.
“You have to be able to buy a depot, buy machines, employ people,” he says. “Setting it up from scratch is not a quick job.”
In Reading, he points out, the council has owned a local bus company for more than 100 years.
Labor says its plans will not require additional public funding.
But Mr Williams is skeptical that councils facing huge financial challenges have the cash to set up their own bus companies.
Investments are also needed to improve services, he said.
He says the bus service in Reading receives very little subsidy from the council as it benefits from its location as a busy city.
“If we tried to replicate this in rural areas, we obviously wouldn’t be able to maintain the same network,” he adds.
image source, Getty Images
Paul Sweeney, director of research and policy at the Center for Cities think tank, says there are easier ways to reap the benefits of greater control over bus services than full public ownership.
When a company is state-owned, the taxpayer bears the risk in the event of bankruptcy, he emphasizes.
Instead, the think tank supports the expansion of the franchising system that operates in London and has also been adopted in Greater Manchester.
Mr Sweeney says that under the franchise model, councils and mayors still have control over bus routes and can ensure they are integrated into a cohesive network with other modes of public transport such as trains.
They can also maintain fares and decide to subsidize less profitable routes that are still vital to certain groups.
While he says it won’t necessarily make single journeys cheaper, it’s easier to introduce daily limits across the network.
The only difference from full state ownership is that services are provided by private companies.
Mr Sweeney says past experience shows some level of government subsidies will still be necessary.
In London, for example, the Tube generates additional revenue that is used to subsidize buses that run at a loss.
Other options for councils include generating money through congestion or parking charges.
Mr. Sweeney also believes that funding will be needed to create new franchise models.
Greater Manchester Combined Authority has estimated that it will cost £134.5m to bring the region’s buses under public control and has used central government funding under a devolution deal to pay for it.
The process was implemented in stages and is due to be completed in 2025, but Labor mayor Andy Burnham says there have been immediate improvements, including more frequent buses, later and earlier services and better connections to trains and trams.
Transport for Greater Manchester says the latest figures show its buses have become more reliable and passenger numbers are up.
However, not everyone was enthusiastic about the idea of increased public control over buses.
During the recent mayoral campaign, then West Midlands Conservative mayor Andy Street attacked his Labor opponent’s plan to return buses to public control, saying the party had not said where the money would come from.
Labour’s Richard Parker, who won the competition, promised to build an “integrated London-style transport network” to make buses more accessible, reliable and frequent.
In Reading, council ownership has not insulated bus transport from the problems faced by other parts of the country.
It has suffered a drop in ridership during the pandemic, and as more people work from home, the number of people taking the bus to the station to get to London has fallen.
“It just highlights the risks involved in running a bus company,” says Mr Williams.
“Anything can affect your ridership, whether it’s within your control or beyond. When councils get it wrong, deliver the wrong level of service or don’t get the growth they expect, the taxpayer has to pay for it.”