Official Report 280KB pdf
Welcome to the 22nd meeting of the Local Government and Transport Committee this year. Today we continue our inquiry into the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001, in particular the impact that it has had on public transport and the provision of bus services throughout Scotland.
I will do so, but they will not be extensive.
Thank you for your written submission. On quality partnerships, you say that you are involved in a number of voluntary agreements. Could you tell us a bit about your views on formal quality partnerships? We know that you are not involved in any, but do you think that your not having them has had a detrimental effect on passengers? Could you explain your thinking in that regard?
It would be difficult for our company to assess whether there has been a detrimental effect on passengers, because our local bus operations in the Strathtay area have experienced passenger growth. I am unable to say whether we would have greater passenger growth if we had a formal quality contract. We do not have one because, from the business perspective, there has been no opportunity to develop or introduce one.
Might there be improvements to the quality of service if there were a formal quality partnership?
At the margin, there is always room for improvement.
In relation to what?
In relation to the quality of vehicles and bus priority measures for access, for example. We do not operate in the same sort of environment that can be found in Glasgow and Edinburgh, but access into and out of Dundee at peak periods is becoming more difficult. A significant number of our services are interurban. There is scope for improvements such as infrastructure and vehicle improvements at the margin. However, they would require funding.
Your submission says that local authorities tend to choose the "cheapest option" when awarding tenders for socially necessary bus services. Could you expand on that? Specifically, what impact does that have on the quality of the buses and the service that you provide?
Basically, we have a set number of buses that we operate on the main core routes—to make life simple, imagine that the frequency of such services is hourly. At times such as the peak periods, a bus will come on to make the frequency of such services every half hour. However, that bus will previously have been used on a school contract, which dictates the size of bus, the type of bus, whether it has seatbelts and so on. That may not be ideal for some old biddy who wants to get on the bus. In order to get round that, we need to keep two buses—one for the school run and one for the extra, enhanced peak service, which will require funding. At the moment, where we use one full-spec, high-quality bus, two will be required, and we will still have to do our school run. Some of the vehicles that are run off-peak are used as school buses during peak periods. They are not the buses that one would want for an all-day service. It is a case of balancing the two. A new bus has to be funded at some point. We are still then left with providing—
But you feel that if you did not tender purely on the basis of providing the cheapest service, you would not get the contract. Is an element of best value built into the contracts, so that quality can be retained in the service?
Latterly, that has been the case. We have put in alternative bids. We have put in bids for school buses and bids with low-floor buses to be used on a certain amount of journeys. The councils have on a few occasions chosen the best-value bid, which has not necessarily been the cheapest one.
So contracts are not necessarily awarded purely on an economic basis.
Not necessarily, no. Right at the start, they were awarded purely on an economic basis, but now everybody realises that by working together services can be enhanced at the cheaper end without going overboard.
In your submission you state that 52 per cent of your operating bus fleet is less than six years old, but that 76 per cent of your commercial bus fleet is less than six years old. Does that mean that your non-commercial, contract buses are of a poorer quality and older than those in your commercial fleet? If so, is there a reason for that?
I would not say that they are of a poorer quality—they are all the same quality—but they are elderly.
Is there a reason for that? Is it cheaper to provide older buses?
It is due to a combination of the issues that Jim Gardner raised. The history of the situation is that predominantly school buses tend to be used off-peak to enhance local bus services, whereas the commercial fleet is quite new and modern.
Is it the case that you renew your commercial fleet, and every so often you bump vehicles from it down to the non-commercial fleet so that you can buy new ones?
Yes, there is a cascading effect.
So the council is getting the older fleet.
No. The council has an alternative. The council has the scope to specify the use of brand new vehicles, but it does not do so.
In your submission you refer to the impact of poor management of road maintenance, including roadworks, and congestion on your services. Could you expand on that and on the accountability issue, and outline what you think might be done to ease the problems?
Thank you for raising that point. Last week at Strathtay was unbelievable because BEAR Scotland, which is responsible for the trunk road network, opened up the A90 approaching Dundee from the west. Nobody had any advance notice of that and it caused delays of up to three hours. It was ironic that we had arranged to meet members of Perth and Kinross Council public transport unit at our premises in Dundee, as they arrived an hour late because they were unaware of the roadworks. The committee will know that bus companies are legally obliged to run to timetable, but the situation was chaotic.
Is there no mechanism to raise such issues?
We get hit with legislation—statutory bodies just arrive and dig up the road. I appreciate that water pipes burst and emergency situations arise, but that is not always the case. For example, two years ago on the western edge of Dundee, a set of completely unmanned traffic lights was in place for eight months to allow eight executive houses to be built. When we phone the council, it says that Scottish Water is a statutory body and has extreme powers. From a bus operator's point of view, there is a void of responsibility and accountability on roadworks. I appreciate that it might be selfish to see the issue from an operator's point of view, but we are here to provide bus services and we are in a difficult situation.
Is there no forum in which such issues are discussed?
BEAR Scotland is supposed to provide that. I do not know whether this happens in all the divisions, but whenever there are to be roadworks north of North Water bridge, which takes us into Aberdeenshire, there is always a meeting three weeks beforehand, so that we can find out which junctions will be closed and so on. However, on the occasion in the Perth and Kinross division area that Charlie Mullen mentioned, nothing happened. The first that anybody knew about the roadworks was when the road was coned off. The contractors went away but, unfortunately, they could not take the cones with them because they had dug so many holes. We had to live with that for about three or four operational days. We had to use extra resources to ensure that the buses on one side of the city were not affected by the roadworks on the other side. If we had known up front, three weeks beforehand, we could have done a bit of preparation and worked out what to do, but we did not get that opportunity.
How do roadworks impact on the public's attitude to using buses? Are people not more inclined to go on the bus if they think that the whole route will be snarled up?
People in Longforgan probably decided that they were not going to sit on the bus for 45 minutes and took their cars instead, but that just added to the congestion. They might have used the back road through Kingoodie, but that also becomes blocked and the situation became a nightmare. If roadworks are planned up front and the public are told what is going to happen, people might make other arrangements, perhaps by getting two or three people in one car to help out. People might get the bus if they thought that it would get priority. However, on the occasion that I am talking about, our buses were stuck in the queue along with the rest of the traffic.
On the general point, are you saying that if people think that there will be serious congestion, they choose to take their car to sit in for the hour or whatever?
Sadly, that seems to be the case and it just makes things worse. At least they can sit with their music or with someone they know, but if they are on a bus with a load of noisy school kids, that can be off-putting.
The facility that the car offers is, to coin a phrase, that it allows people to adopt their own rat run and avoid the congestion. Obviously, buses have to stick to their registered route.
You may be aware that the forthcoming transport bill will include provisions to try to get greater co-ordination on street works and roadworks between local authorities and utility companies.
Excellent.
In your perception, who creates the greater part of the unplanned roadworks problem? Is it the trunk road users, the local authorities or the utility companies, or a combination of all three?
It is a combination of all three.
So you do not perceive any of the three groups to be worse than the others.
There seems to be a complete void. When we complain to one organisation or attempt to get action to manage the situation, we end up almost bouncing round in an eternal triangle. It is completely frustrating. We appreciate that roadworks will exist and that roads have to be maintained, but it is the managing of the situation that we would like to see improved. If you are providing legislation to assist with that, that is fantastic.
I would like to raise a couple of questions about concessionary fares. You said in your evidence that you were reimbursed between 45 per cent and 63 per cent of the cost of carrying passengers who pay concessionary fares. What is the impact on the service that you can deliver as a result of receiving a reimbursement of only up to 63 per cent?
The evidence is slightly historical, but the impact obviously restricts development. The committee has received previous submissions on that, and we concur with those submissions. In some regions, it means that buses have to carry two-and-a-bit passengers to receive the value of one passenger, which leads to problems with capacity and replacement of assets that are not properly funded during their commercial life. That is what we are talking about. Balanced against that, we accept that travel is generated because of the free discount that is offered.
What do you believe the reimbursement amount should actually be? You said that it is up to 63 per cent, so you are obviously concerned about that. However, we should take the volume aspect into consideration, because the only reason you receive income in the first place is that the scheme is in operation.
We fully understand that, but we are also providing a service for that income. We have a mix of services. We are talking predominantly about the city of Dundee, where we have interurban services, but we also have some rural services where the loading could be only four passengers—they could be four concessionary passengers. In some rural communities, there is no generation of income and such services are a lifeline, but the scheme is applied uniformly. It is assumed that the income generated in some hamlet in Angus will be the same as that generated in Dundee, which is crazy. That degree of underfunding obviously has an effect on the level of service and on the style and type of vehicle provided.
Is there an issue in the transport industry about taking the good with the bad? That is a question that I have asked other witnesses. I appreciate some of the difficulties that you may have in rural areas, because of the way the statistics stack up, but I take it that you are making a significant profit in urban communities. Does one not balance the other?
I can speak only about Strathtay, but I cannot believe that we would make a profit on any single route based solely on concessionary usage at those reimbursement levels.
I appreciate that, but it is important to acknowledge that there is additional volume overall, whichever way you look at it.
We are not denying that.
We still do not have a figure for the percentage that you think should be reimbursed.
Believe me, it is not an exact science. I think that that is why bus companies have great difficulty in assessing the level of reimbursements, because without them the flow to the bottom line does not necessarily track through every route in a similar manner. Usage on one route is not the same as it is on another, so it is a difficult and complex subject.
One of the Executive's commitments is to introduce a concessionary fares scheme for young people. What are your views on how that would operate? Do you foresee any difficulties in the operation of that scheme?
We would fully embrace any extension of concessionary travel if it was appropriately funded and if the company was reimbursed.
Do you have the same concerns about the reimbursement percentage?
Yes. However, if it is a national objective, we will have to address those concerns. The 16 individual schemes have caused problems in themselves. The move to a national scheme might eliminate many of the unnecessary problems that are associated with concessionary fare reimbursement.
Would introducing such a scheme result in more users making greater use of public transport in future generations? Would it encourage a greater take-up of public transport, as has been the case with the concessionary fares scheme for the elderly?
I would certainly like to think so, although I appreciate that young people are different in that they will move on to become a bit more affluent and may have higher aspirations. However, I do not think that the introduction of such a scheme would be a negative step.
The young will become older and the middle aged will soon be entitled to concessionary fares.
Excellent.
I presume that I am in that bracket.
That is true in the Strathtay area, if you are talking about services without council subsidy. I cannot speak for Scotland as a whole.
I understand that. What would happen if there were no concessionary fares? Would that make some routes less viable, with the result that the volume of service that is provided would shrink?
Yes. If there was less demand for enhanced services and they were not being used, I am sure that, under best value, the councils would cease to want to subsidise them.
I know that concessionary fares are causing you difficulties as regards the amount of revenue that you are attracting, but as well as increasing capacity and volume, they are maintaining services at a level that would not otherwise be maintained. Can I just confirm that that is what you are saying?
The operation of those services is subject to the support of council subsidy.
We have had discussions with other bus operators about whether concessionary fares for the elderly should be fully subsidised or partially subsidised. How should a future national scheme be administered? Should that be done by the proposed new national transport agency or should control stay with local authorities? What is Strathtay's perspective on that?
Our view is that if the scheme is national, it should be administered nationally to reduce the admin. It seems to be the view of our industry body that there should be a single rule. That should not be confused with the fact that we think that local buses should be managed locally—the councils have a role to play in local bus management. We pride ourselves on being a local company whose members live and work in the community that we serve.
I have a final question on concessionary fares. When you talk about being reimbursed at a rate of between 45 per cent and 63 per cent for each journey, are those figures percentages of the full adult single fare?
No. They relate to the value of the journey. We track the value of every journey that is undertaken by an old-age pensioner. Setting up a system for doing that caused us a lot of grief. There is a subtle difference. We are not talking about the average adult fare, but about the value of the journeys that are undertaken by concessionary travel users in our company.
Are you comparing the level of reimbursement with the full fare?
Yes.
The question that follows from that and from Bruce Crawford's questions is whether that is a fair comparison, given that many of the passengers in question would not be making their journey if it were not for the concessionary fares scheme. As they are using spare capacity—in other words, empty bus seats that would otherwise not be filled during the day—they are making a contribution to the profitability of the routes.
We do not deny that they are making such a contribution. With spare capacity, the question is: why operate a single-decker bus when you can operate a minibus? As a company, we carried 6.1 million people on local passenger journeys. That represents a phenomenal number of individual transactions. In our business, it is very difficult to track the needs and demands associated with each transaction.
My point is that you have buses that are, I presume, designed to carry your peak capacity in the morning and evening peaks and therefore, because you cannot turn all your buses from full, single-decker or double-decker coaches into minibuses at 10 o'clock, you have to run buses that are of too great a capacity for the number of passengers on many routes, but some of the seats that would otherwise have been running around empty will be used by some of the old-age pensioners who take advantage of the concessionary fares.
Yes, the industry accepts that fully, but I wish that you would not talk about empty seats rattling around, because a passenger boarding a bus involves a cost. It is not that there is no cost to the company: there is a cost in braking, in stopping, in operating and in the interior of the vehicle being used. Although passenger numbers have gone up, so have insurance claims, and you must consider the fact that some of those who now have access to public transport really need to travel with carers, which means that delays are experienced and our insurance costs have gone up. It is not a cost-free environment.
I fully appreciate that some fixed costs and some marginal costs are involved in a passenger boarding your bus, but the point is that at least some of the costs that are incurred are fixed costs that your company incurs because it owns the bus. I accept that there will be some variable costs because of the cost of braking, for example.
The industry, the politicians and the local councils fully acknowledge that the concessionary fares scheme has generated travel and that a contribution is made towards the cost. I do not think that any bus company in the world is looking for 100 per cent reimbursement.
That is what I am trying to get at. We all recognise that there is a balance to be struck.
Strathtay is no different.
The reimbursement will not be 100 per cent of the adult fare, and the issue is how to reach a fair balance that allows for investment in services without the public purse paying over the odds.
It is not an easy solution to find. You should believe me, because I have dealt with Fife councillors.
Those are all the questions that committee members have for the moment. I thank Charlie Mullen and Jim Gardner for the evidence that they have given today and that they gave in advance in their submission.
London Buses is part of Transport for London, which is part of the organisation that the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, set up to deliver transport in London. In that role, I am here simply to give information on how things work in London and inform the debate without having any axe to grind on any aspect of it. My presence is an opportunity for the committee to find out what it can use of London's experience in the Scottish context.
We welcome that opportunity, because we recognise that London has had a considerable degree of success in the development of public transport in recent years. We hope that we will be able to learn some things that will be useful in the Scottish context.
Your submission indicates that there has been a fairly substantial growth in passenger numbers since 1999—a 30 per cent increase. What, in your view, are the main reasons for that?
It is about putting together a package of things; it is not about any one thing. It is about bringing together attractive fares, attractive services, good information and good publicity. Transport for London is charged with delivering all that and it is able to do so because it is a single body. We also have a degree of control over the road network and we have introduced congestion charging, which is a huge fillip to the use of public transport.
In the London context, you are in a regulated bus market. To what extent has that contributed to the increase in passenger numbers? Would such an increase have been possible in a purely commercial environment?
The regulated environment that we have allows us to plan systematically on a city-wide basis and to ensure that we are consistent throughout the city in terms of value for money. What we do not have—and what I do not think would ever have worked in London—is on-the-road competition. We are able to allocate resources where they are needed in a consistent way. There is a consistent message in information for passengers—we know that people are keen on that—and we have consistent fares and consistent marketing. We can do those things in a regulated environment; in a deregulated environment, they are much more difficult.
Do you think that that is the case only in cities of the scale of London or could the experience be replicated in other congested urban areas and metropolitan cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh?
There is no reason why that could not apply to other major cities. London has all the same problems. It is just that they are on a bigger scale.
Surely the flip side of that is also true: if we in Scotland have a market that is pretty much deregulated as far as our cities are concerned—apart from the situation in the Lothians, which is a bit different—why could competition not work in London? Is it not the case that innovation is stifled and efficiencies are not found because of the way in which the service is run?
We have competition and we have ways to achieve innovation. Transport for London is one of the bodies that achieves that innovation. What we do not have is on-the-road competition. We have a competitive tendering environment that allows us to get the price benefits of competition without having competition on the road. Given that the road network is constrained, I suggest that if there was on-the-road competition in London there would be severe congestion in some areas and no bus service at all in others. The regulation that we have avoids that situation.
Will you explain how that off-the-road tendering works so that we can understand it?
There is a competitive tendering process. All bus services are tendered on a five or seven-year cycle. We select an operator on best value and value for money. The selection is not—and never has been—done on the basis of the lowest bid. We take a range of quality issues into account when we award contracts and we are specific about what we want from a service. We set the frequencies for the service and specify the type of bus and when it should operate. Within that, operators can suggest alternatives, but generally speaking we set the standards.
Forgive me—I do not go to London often, but when I do go I see a lot of old bus stock running around that we do not seem to have in this neck of the woods. It might be that my perception is a bit out of date and that you will tell me so, but there seems to be a great deal of older stock on the road that we in Scotland would replace in most places. Is that fair?
No, that is not true.
Tell me the truth, then.
The average age of London buses is about 4.8 years. That does not include the Routemasters, which are 40 years old, but we will have phased out our remaining 300-odd Routemasters by the end of next year. Our bus fleet is the most modern bus fleet in the country. The buses that we have bought over the past few years have kept the UK bus industry going. About 90 per cent of our buses are now fully accessible low-floor vehicles with powered wheelchair ramps.
Does that 90 per cent statistic include the Routemasters?
Yes. We will hit the 100 per cent level as soon as we get rid of the Routemasters some time next year.
Thank you for putting me right.
Do come again.
You described how the tendering process results in there being buses on routes. Will you give practical examples of how Transport for London ensures that the contract bus services provide good value for money?
First, we can achieve value for money because we plan all the routes. We take decisions beforehand about the structure of the bus network, so we can consider whether our proposed structure achieves value for money. We have our own economic models and transport planners who will consider, for example, whether we should increase the frequency of a particular bus service on a Sunday. They work out what such a proposal would cost, what revenue it would bring in and what the social benefit would be. On that basis, we can decide whether it provides value for money. That is how we plan the network.
Once the operator is delivering the service, how does TFL monitor the service to ensure that the operator delivers to the tender specification?
We use quality-incentive contracts, which contain provision for a sliding scale of bonus payments or deductions to be made according to the extent to which the operator exceeds or fails its performance targets. Essentially, we have an army of people by the side of roads—eventually, the process will be automated—to work out how the operators are performing against the schedule.
Is that necessary to ensure service levels? Does the threat of penalties encourage operators to deliver the tendered-for service?
We need to do those things anyway because we need something against which the operators can be measured.
How much public revenue does the service receive as a proportion of the overall income that is generated from bus services in London?
I preface my answer by saying that a huge impact comes from the fares levels, which are in the gift of the mayor. Over the past few years, he has made some specific changes to the fares structure, essentially by reducing fares. In round numbers, the network costs about £1.3 billion and it generates about £800 million in revenue, so the service currently receives a subsidy of about £500 million.
Under the contract, do the bus companies keep their fare revenue and receive a subsidy net of that amount?
All the revenue is returned to Transport for London. During our 20 years of running the service, we have had various types of contracts, some of which allowed the operators to keep their revenue. However, we now work simply on the basis of incentivising the operators on the fixed price, so all the revenue is returned to TFL.
I have a quick question about the gap between the running costs and the income that is generated. Does the mayor's office pay that gap of £500 million?
The vast majority of the revenue comes from Government grant and the rest comes from precepts.
How many bus journeys are there for that £500 million?
We have 1.8 billion bus journeys, so it is a subsidy of about 30p a passenger or 10p a passenger mile.
I will follow on from Michael McMahon's point about contracted bus services. First and Stagecoach have told us about the bureaucracy involved in the tendering process and in the contracts generally. You mentioned that the contracts have changed over the years. Do you feel that the contracts have become less bureaucratic? If so, how has that been achieved?
We have tried to focus the contracts on what passengers want from them. When we started out, they were very simple: they were what we call gross-cost contracts, where we ask operators to give us a price, we pay that price and revenue returns to Transport for London. That was a fairly simple, unbureaucratic, system. The bureaucracy that the operators complain about relates to accountability in a city the size of London. We do a lot of monitoring of all sorts of issues to do with performance. That is part of the bureaucracy that First and Stagecoach mention.
You mentioned the different local authorities. How does the tendering process operate?
Bus route tendering is all handled by Transport for London. We have a structured process of consultation with all the local authorities, particularly in relation to any changes we want to make. If we want to make a change to the bus network, even if we want to do something such as change the types of buses used from single deck to double deck, or from Routemaster to articulated buses, we formally consult the local authorities and take their views on board.
I return to regulation. Other witnesses from whom we have taken evidence have told us that a fully regulated bus system would stifle innovation in public transport provision. Based on your experience, do you agree with that view?
I do not, as I represent the body that is charged with creating the innovation.
How do you think innovation could be harnessed in the environment that we have?
In an environment in which there is tendering or in which contracts are being offered, a requirement for innovation can be specified or innovative ideas can be taken into account and companies can be given credit for their innovation. However, unless you have some specific regulatory environment in mind, it is difficult to say how that innovation could be achieved.
Are those arrangements informal or are they set down? As you are aware, we already have quality contracts and partnerships.
At the root of it, there is a specific bus route contract. However, in cases such as that which I have just given as an example, concerning an innovative vehicle type, we would simply work with the operator on an open-book basis and agree to pay, say, half the operating cost on an annual basis.
In that context, there is an informal, bespoke agreement.
Yes, it is bespoke each time. It is not necessarily a written agreement. We simply negotiate the price change with the operator and write that into the route contract. We then carry on with the experiment.
Can you give us some idea of the percentage of the routes in London that are run purely on a commercial basis? You have touched on that, but can you give us the exact percentage?
No services are run purely on a commercial basis?
None at all?
No, we operate all the bus services. If you are asking what percentage of them have a positive cost recovery, the answer is probably about 40 per cent. However, we would not look at services on a route basis: it tends to be the case that services at certain times of the day, in certain local areas or at certain times of the week are not commercial. Because we operate as one big network, we do not look specifically at making one route commercial.
I reiterate the point that that makes it difficult for commercial activity. Is it not difficult to invigorate commercial activity if you are given £500 million investment for the network? Is it not difficult for an operator to come in and say, "I want to run a service," when services are already being significantly subsidised?
In our regulated environment, that opportunity does not really exist, anyway. Those situations do not arise, especially as the mayor is responsible for the fares. An operator cannot come in and say, "I'll run this service commercially and I'll charge this amount." That is not what the regulated environment allows.
So there is no scope for that at all?
Very little. There is provision for it but, increasingly, operators are withdrawing such services because their costs are going up but their revenue is not. They are withdrawing from any commercial services that cross the London boundary. They might start outside London and be commercial in that environment; they might then want to come into London, which we can allow them to do, but such services have reduced dramatically over the past few years. Transport for London has had to step in to provide replacements.
I want to ask another, similar, question, although it is not entirely related. In some parts of Scotland, and in my constituency, there are significant complaints about the level of services. Do you hear similar complaints from bus users in London? Do they raise similar issues to do with the cherry picking of certain routes that make money?
There is no cherry picking. We contract for every service and therefore ensure that everybody has access to a bus service. We have planning rules that mean, for example, that we try to ensure that everybody is within 400m of a local bus service. We plan specifically so that everybody has their local service. We try to make that service seven days a week and at least 18 hours a day. There is no cherry picking.
Are there bus user action groups in London, or anything like them?
There are lots of action groups that complain, but they do not complain about any commercial cherry picking. They complain about reliability and frequencies. They will ask us about additional links to local hospitals. Where we can provide such links, we work with the groups to do so. However, we do everything centrally—making the decisions on whether a service is worth providing because of its social benefit rather than its commercial benefit.
Some weeks ago, we heard from an operator that decisions would be taken by the transport convener on a purely political basis—for example if a by-election was coming up. Have you seen any evidence of such political decisions being taken in London?
There is very little of that because we have an open economic case that every bus service has to meet. We therefore try to counter any approach along the lines that you suggest, because a huge number of politicians might want to get involved in the London network. Through planning consistently, we try to ensure equity across the city.
I am interested in how your concessionary fare schemes operate. I note from your submission that they are funded by the London boroughs, but I presume that Transport for London determines what those schemes are.
No—the scheme has always been determined by the relevant legislation. It is not for Transport for London to determine what the scheme is; it is for the local boroughs. The boroughs decided among themselves to have a free-fare scheme. The process by which that is administered is in the legislation.
What would be the position if one or two boroughs decided that they did not want to keep spending money on concessionary fares? Are they obliged to spend the money by the majority?
At present, they are obliged by their own organisations to continue to take part.
I presume that, because they receive no fare revenue, the boroughs are funded by Transport for London. As you may have heard in the earlier evidence, an issue that arises is the generation factor—the amount the bus companies receive in compensation for carrying concessionary fare passengers.
Although a scheme is in place, there is still a degree of negotiation. For example, we have to calculate how many journeys are made and how long those journeys are. We also have to consider the mode, because TFL also takes responsibility for splitting services between the tube and the heavy and light rail systems. Most of our considerations are about revenue forgone.
So it is nothing like the adult equivalent fare.
No, it is about half the cost. Most people in London do not use cash fares; more than 80 per cent purchase some sort of off-bus ticket.
I have a question about integrated ticketing. Obviously, you have control over the bus services and the underground services in some areas of the city, including the Docklands light railway. You said that you also have integrated ticketing across national rail companies, which means that you deal with a range of organisations over which you do not have direct control. What degree of difficulty did you experience in reaching agreements with the various national rail companies? What level of Transport for London subsidy was required to encourage those companies to enter into integrated schemes with you?
The integrated scheme existed before the split in the rail industry. Part of the legislation under which the split was introduced provided for the continuation of the schemes and that is how the train operating companies are brought to the table. Transport for London does not finance any of the costs of the scheme; it is part of the requirement on the companies. Because the requirement is contained in the legislation, it has been written into the formulae for fare increases.
I have one final question on the concessionary fares element. Are concessionary fares part of the £500 million Government grant that goes in to help run the service?
No.
So, what is the actual amount that you receive from the Government?
I should have mentioned that figure. Because it is made as a transfer of money between the local authorities and TFL, we treat it as income. The figure is about £130 million; it is included in the total revenue figure of £800 million that I mentioned earlier.
In terms of the bus companies with which you tender, do they complain about not getting the percentage levels that are required to make the scheme wash its face?
The bus companies in London are not concerned about revenue. They tender on a cost basis and we take all the responsibility for the revenue.
I am sure that that reply leads to another obvious question, but I cannot think of it right now.
That brings us to the end of our questions. I thank Clare Kavanagh for her evidence to the committee this afternoon and for her submission.
Thank you.
We will move straight on to our next witness.
I thank the committee very much for inviting me. In some ways I am one of the behind-the-scenes regulators, so it is excellent for me to have an opportunity such as this to meet the committee, share some of my experience and give insight into my office. I am most obliged to the committee for that.
No, no.
I hope that that was useful to you. As far as bus punctuality is concerned, all the bus priority measures that were envisaged in the quality partnership arrangements and that are being taken so effectively on a voluntary basis throughout the country are very welcome. If an operator does not run the buses to time and if I—or my colleague traffic commissioners south of the border—find that its excuses are not reasonable, we have the power to take action against the licence. In the most extreme cases, we could revoke or suspend a licence. We could enforce a condition preventing an operator from running any further registered services. I did that recently in the case of a west of Scotland operator—I took him out of running local service buses. He can still do his private hires for trips round the Trossachs and he can take chaps to football matches and so on, but he cannae run buses on a bus route as a registered service.
We will move to questions now, but thanks very much for those introductory remarks, which have been useful in setting the scene with regard to your powers and the steps that you can take to enforce action in the industry.
I will go straight to the point that you were about to introduce, on complaint handling. We have taken evidence from across the country. In every area, the issue of reliability has been to the fore, if not the ultimate priority among bus users. You have given us details of the sanctions that you can impose, but how, practically, would you handle a complaint that had come from representatives of a particular community?
We will handle that better in future. I am being frank with you. I see this as an area in which our office will be raising its game—not least because I take the bus myself. From my perspective, the excellent news is that the Scottish Executive has committed the necessary funds for having six bus monitors in Scotland come the new year. That is more than anywhere else in the country. I think that that means that there will be targeting of the worst areas and the worst offenders.
Your attitude is refreshing. Unfortunately, my experience with your predecessor was not quite so refreshing.
I will not talk about a matter that has been the subject of litigation, as you can imagine, but I will talk in general terms. In a more lightly regulated environment in which I am obliged to accept all registrations, it is difficult for me to regulate larger or smaller operators, or competing smaller operators, to prevent them from operating on each other's routes. As long as the operators are properly registered, they can go ahead. Of course, in such circumstances we receive complaints from one operator against another and it is sometimes difficult to know who is telling the truth. In anticipation of today's meeting I checked my impressions with those of staff. A number of the complaints that we receive about operators are made by fellow operators—that is the nature of the territory.
You referred to section 39 of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001, which deals with operators or companies that fail to run their services to acceptable standards. Are you satisfied with the sanctions that are available to you? If so, what action have you and your predecessor taken to implement those sanctions? One of the excuses that we hear from Strathclyde Passenger Transport concerns the ineffectiveness of the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001 and the ability to implement it. If you are satisfied with the sanctions, how effectively have you and your predecessor used them? If you are not, tell us what you want us to deliver.
I told you that I have not been satisfied with the enforcement regime hitherto, but the fact that we can now start to use the powers gives great cause for hope. The section 39 penalties, which go up to £550 multiplied by the number of vehicles, are good news in that the Transport Tribunal, which is the appellate body, has said loud and clear in a range of recent English cases that traffic commissioners should not impose penalties at the lower end of the scale. The Transport Tribunal does not expect us to impose penalties at the £50 or £60 level, and I must say that that news was music to my ears. I have certainly been looking at a penalty of £250 to £350 for the first appearance of an operator that has not run to a significant extent. In a recent case, which went to the Transport Tribunal, I imposed a £4,800 penalty on a small operator. Should larger operators come before me, the penalty would be quite a skelp of money.
Would it? FirstGroup and Stagecoach made record profits last year. Do you really think that Brian Souter or FirstGroup would be concerned about a fine of £4,800?
I am in a bit of difficulty, convener. At the start, I alluded to the fact that there might be certain questions that I would prefer not to answer for regulatory or judicial reasons. I have a good reason for not answering a question in which those particular companies are named and, if you do not mind, I will reply generally rather than in the terms in which the question was asked.
To simplify the issue, let us say that we had the opportunity to revisit the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001. Are you happy with the sanctions that are available to you? Can you assure the public that you will make the most effective use of the sanctions and additional monitoring powers that you have been given but that, if need be, you will come back to us at a later stage? Are you now in a position to flex your muscles to deal with the operators? If you find that the sanctions are insufficient to deal with certain operators—you do not need to mention any specifically—will you come back to us to ask for increased powers? Are you happy with the powers that you have?
I want to use my existing powers by having more cases presented to me. Obviously, the six monitors will work to targets, but I do not want to see the issue only in terms of the number of cases that come to me. In some ways, that number reflects our failure to improve the operators' game, so I want there to be a parallel move towards best practice. I want to try to ensure that operators provide a better service. Buses should not be put on routes without prior testing and operators should not register more services than there are drivers available. I want to promote quality by encouraging other agencies such as VOSA and the industry itself to ensure that we deliver a better service for the travelling public. In some ways, my regulatory powers should be used as a power of last resort.
I am sure that the Subordinate Legislation Committee looks forward to seeing the further order-making powers that are to come.
You anticipated me there, as I did not think to bring with me the statistics about driver-conduct hearings, but we will certainly provide those.
Yes.
You mentioned in your introduction the rule that buses should be no more than one minute early and no more than five minutes late. When a bus passes my road end and it is two hours until the next one, early can be as bad as late. How do you monitor that rule? Do you have any statistics on how Scottish bus operators are meeting that target?
I do not have evidence across the board. Two studies involving the Department for Transport are under way and we will have more information with which to answer such a question fairly soon. That is just the sort of question that needs to be answered to give us some idea of what is happening. We will have to watch when that information comes in, because there is a divergence between what is happening and what is possible. I will be concerned, in the travelling public's interest, to consider whether enough is being done to achieve a high level of punctuality. As I mentioned earlier, there will always be excuses; the critical factor will be how the excuses are treated.
To what extent do you work with local authority transport officers to find out how they monitor bus services in their area? Do you have good links with those officers?
Eminent representatives of the Association of Transport Co-ordinating Officers (Scotland) are present. I have the highest regard for the association, and I am not just saying that because they are in the room—members will know that from my written submission's description of ATCO's publication as excellent. My office has regular contact with local authority transport officers, not least because we rely on them to give us local knowledge and to help me exercise my discretion about short notice registrations and suchlike.
Do you think that the registration regulations are stifling innovation in the provision of public transport, particularly demand-responsive transport?
Not as they are interpreted by me in Scotland. We have used the regulations to the maximum effect. The regulations allow flexibility because there has to be specification and flexibility itself can be a specification. As long as what is on offer to the travelling public is described, we can register it. In England, particular regulations have been made to deal with flexible services and in the early months of those regulations there is growing enthusiasm in England for using them. I will be interested to see how the situation develops, to ascertain whether having specific regulations brings added value, whether by making the application process clearer or administratively easier for operators, or in relation to the enforcement regime. If I consider that our regulations need to be more specific in recognising the new animal, I will approach Scottish Executive officials and, ultimately, your good selves.
The evidence that we have heard indicates that the future of bus services in rural areas might be based not on the traditional model of an empty bus running back and forward but on services that are more demand responsive or community transport oriented. Will your regulatory environment allow such services to develop?
It is already doing so. I looked at the draft registration for the Aberdeenshire services and I am reasonably happy with what is happening. I am very supportive of what is envisaged for rural transport needs. Technology will take us even further, because the timeframes between making a booking and using the bus will become narrower. We must be in a position to support such innovation.
That leads very nicely back to taxibuses and the service that is provided by Stagecoach and AA Buses Ltd. The service is certainly innovative and there is demand for it, but to say that there was some misunderstanding and confusion around it—particularly in relation to taxi drivers in the Fife area—would be an understatement. The service led to conflict and there are still vexed issues; when I scrape away at some of the regulatory framework, I am not surprised. The service runs on a registered route, but it can be phoned and will pick someone up at their house, so it feels and looks a bit like a private hire—that is certainly what it looks like to a taxi driver.
We considered the matter in some detail. As members might imagine, advice was taken and we looked at what the taxi operators said through their trade association, individual representations and, in some cases, representations through their elected representatives. We looked at the issue in detail and although we were respectful of the opposite views that were being put to us, ultimately we were satisfied that the service could be operated under our regulatory regime and that it was not private hire.
I do not suggest that you should have refused, but I simply point out the considerable level of misunderstanding that exists. Have the traffic commissioners submitted proposals to the Scottish Executive consultation on licensing on how the process might be improved and be made more transparent so that such conflicts can be avoided in future?
The work on the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 predated my arrival. Issues to do with other aspects of that, such as small buses and private hire, have certainly been put to Scottish Executive officials at some length, mostly by my predecessor and by one of my members of staff. To be scrupulously honest, I am not sure that the particular points that the taxi operators raised about that application have been expressly fed into the work that is being done on the 1982 act, but I will advise the Executive officials that you have raised the issue with me today. In that way, it will at least be drawn to the attention of those officials that you have a concern, which I respect.
I will go in a slightly different direction now. Quite rightly, you have talked up the fact that you now have extra bus compliance officers on board. I am glad that the Scottish Executive has paid for those, but why were they paid for by the Executive rather than by the Department of Transport, which is the responsible authority?
Aspects of bus transport are devolved—for example, section 39 penalties are made under a statute that was passed by the Scottish Parliament. However, VOSA, which is a UK agency, has been made the repository of the bus monitors because its vehicle inspectorate division has great expertise on road safety. As the supreme road safety enforcement agency in the country, VOSA can examine MOTs and suchlike and it has the power to prohibit vehicles. As you know, VOSA inspectors can inspect school buses at the school gate and stop them there and then. They have enormous expertise. In Paisley, as I described, I saw that there were issues not just to do with buses turning up on time but to do with the quality and presentation of the vehicles. I hope that the expertise of VOSA's vehicle inspectorate division will enhance the role of the bus monitors. A lot of value should be added by the fact that the bus monitors will be so close to their colleagues who work on other aspects of traffic regulation and vehicle examination.
I am delighted as well. Are the bus monitors responsible and accountable to the Executive, because it has put in the money, or to the Department for Transport?
They are, and those who are to be recruited will be, employees of the vehicle inspectorate division of VOSA. Ultimately, VOSA is an agency of the Department for Transport, although I keep mentioning the vehicle inspectorate division because everybody knows what it does. There is a service-level agreement with the Scottish Executive whereby VOSA has to report—I cannot remember whether the reports are monthly or quarterly—on what it has done with the money. It also has to report back to me because I asked to be told about that as well.
I am sorry that I was not here at the beginning of the meeting. I want to raise one matter with Joan Aitken. When the owner of a taxi business obtains a bus licence and decides to desist from running a bus service in the evenings in order to continue to operate taxi services—I am describing a general scenario rather than an individual case—who has the power to deal with the matter? You describe this year as the year of the bus, but for such an area it would be the evening of the taxi.
Extremities of the day are a problem for those who rely on public transport, whether they are in rural or urban areas. You are right to highlight what we do about the travelling public at the extremities of the day. Low-paid shift workers and young people are the groups that occur to me when I think about that.
That brings us to the end of our questions. Thank you for your comprehensive presentation and interesting answers to our questions this afternoon.
Thank you for inviting me. The door to my office is open to you and your colleagues. As I said in my submission, one member kindly invited me to one of his public meetings so that I could hear the voice of the public. I hope that I will engage with you and your colleagues again soon.
I am sure that some of my colleagues in both this committee and other parts of the Parliament will take up that opportunity. Thank you.
On behalf of ATCO (Scotland), I thank you for giving us this opportunity to speak to the committee. I will keep my opening remarks fairly brief so that we have time to take as many questions as possible.
I will start off. Your written submission draws attention to the fact that local authorities in England often receive more resources for the development of local transport networks than do authorities of a similar size in Scotland. As an example, you compare South Somerset District Council's rural transport funding with the funding received by North Ayrshire Council, which has a similar size of population. If Scottish local authorities were to receive such levels of support, how should they use those resources? Should they expand contract services or should they develop quality contracts? Alternatively, is there another way in which that funding should be used? If additional resources were made available, to what degree should those be ring fenced for public transport services to prevent them from disappearing into other parts of local authority expenditure?
Additional money could be used for a whole range of options, from service provision to infrastructure, to provide quality services. As our written submission points out, the provision of services on a wholly tendered basis occurs only in certain areas, so we are not able to provide quality services, such as low-floor buses or services that have the frequency that we desire. The provision of additional resources would allow us to address those sorts of issues.
The submission suggests that a medium-sized local authority would require an additional £1.5 million. If public transport funding for Scottish local authorities were to be put on a level playing field with funding for English authorities, what would that equate to in the total Scottish budget?
We suggest that an additional £1.5 million is required for an average-sized local authority, so that would amount to about £50 million for Scotland as a whole. That is probably a reasonable figure.
What would the comparable figure be for the existing level of total available funding—both support for the concessionary fares scheme and other forms of support for local government transport expenditure?
We would like to come back to you on that one.
If you do not have that figure to hand, it would be useful for us to get it in writing afterwards.
We would like there to be a national standard, or a national minimum, so that a settlement of a certain size would have the guarantee of, for example, a daily or hourly bus service. If someone lived in a certain size of community, they could be guaranteed a certain standard of service. That is how we have approached the matter. Certain communities of comparable size have very different service levels. It is a source of great frustration to people living in those communities if they see provision in one part of their area that is different from that in another part of that area, or in another area of Scotland. It is those anomalies that we would like to iron out a little bit, so as to establish a base level of service provision.
I had meant to ask this as a supplementary to my opening question. West Lothian Council has been in discussion with the Executive over the question of quality contracts, and I believe that other local authorities have also had some exploratory discussions on that. What degree of encouragement or support have local authorities received from the Executive thus far in setting up quality contracts, in either logistical or financial terms?
I am not aware of any other authority having had much consultation with the Executive. West Lothian Council, which is the exception at the moment, is looking to pursue those contracts further than other authorities are.
We have been encouraged about the method of introducing quality contracts. The financial aspect of it is another matter, of course—there are costs involved. The Executive needs to do a lot more work on those contracts before it can even consider allocating additional moneys. At the moment, we are very much at the learning stage on quality contracts. Nobody has done one yet, so we are very much feeling our way.
I am aware from the evidence given to us by First that it has taken on board some of the criticisms that have been made about bus services in West Lothian. Do you feel that the major bus operator in the area, in reacting to concerns, will make progress in enhancing bus services?
It is fair to say that that has reached chief executive level at FirstBus: Mr Lockhead has visited the area on two occasions. There is a genuine willingness on the part of First, as major bus operator, to try to get things right. There are problems with reliability and quality of service.
You are concerned that there is no dedicated Scottish Executive funding stream for bus infrastructure improvements. How would you see that working in practical terms? What, specifically, is required to allow improvements to benefit from funding in the way that you would like?
In previous years, local authorities have been able to bid for public transport fund moneys. When they wanted to set up partnership arrangements with operators, they would bid to the Executive for funding for various schemes. For example, some of the bus priority and park-and-ride measures in Aberdeenshire and, I think, the Ferrytoll scheme came about through public transport fund bids to the Executive, because local authorities did not have funding available in their budgets to pay for the infrastructure provided. However, there is concern about the bid process. Local authorities are encouraged to produce local transport strategies that identify what the authorities want for their areas, such as the encouragement of modal shift from cars to public transport. In a bid process, there will be winners and losers, so local authority aspirations will not necessarily be fulfilled.
A criticism of any bidding system has always been that an awful lot of work is required but the bidder might not end up with any money. Would you like such issues to be removed from transport funding, so that there would be direct access for local authorities to a certain amount of funding, regardless of the size of the fund?
I draw an analogy. There is no bid process for allocation of the rural transport funds that the majority of local authorities receive. It is safe to say that all local authorities spend that funding wisely, because 100 per cent of the money can be used to benefit the travelling public, without the requirement to bring in consultants to draw up reports.
That sounds like ring fencing.
I was going to say that. The money is ring fenced—that is the big issue.
That is always an issue between local authorities and central Government, but I take your point.
We have heard evidence from a number of witnesses during the past weeks that, in the existing concessionary fares schemes, local authorities do not provide sufficient reimbursement to scheme operators. What is ATCO's view on that?
Local authorities are obliged to ensure that operators are no better or worse off as a result of providing concessionary travel schemes. That is the basis of the negotiations that we have undertaken with operators. Until there are challenges and reimbursement levels are tested, it is extremely difficult to say whether we have got the sums right. However, there is general concern among operators and local authorities about the extensive negotiations that must take place on reimbursement and about the number of schemes in which operators participate. For example, you heard from witnesses from Strathtay buses, which I think is party to five different travel concession schemes and five different reimbursement rates.
In your submission, you identify some of the problems with the current local schemes, such as
I found it difficult to get a seat on the bus to the railway station today, which is increasingly the norm in my area—I come from Angus. The witnesses from Strathtay said that the operator is experiencing passenger growth in the area that it serves. That might not be the case in all areas of Scotland, but in some areas the number of people travelling on buses has increased, and capacity is an issue. If we want to encourage someone to get out of their car and travel on a bus, it is not attractive to them if they have to get on a full bus and fight their way to find a seat. Some free seats have to be provided to encourage people to make use of buses. Having to wait for the next bus to come along so that you can get a seat is not acceptable.
I would like to take that further, and move on to the national concessionary scheme, which the Executive's budget shows will cost more than £100 million a year to implement. How do we ensure that that £100 million is used in a way that enhances the service for everyone, not just those who use concessionary schemes?
We are concerned about the funding of services. A number of rural authorities get more money from the Executive to pay for travel concessions than is actually spent on concessionary travel. My own authority spends more than £100,000 on duplicate services in its area. We have put a lot of money into additional services, such as providing services on more than one day a week for people in rural areas and enhancing frequencies to meet the demand.
In your submission, you express concern that when the national concessionary fares scheme comes in,
At the moment, we are using concessionary travel moneys to provide local bus services. If our grant-aided expenditure for concessionary travel was taken away from us, we would have a massive shortfall in local bus service funding, and would have to take away existing tendered bus services. We could see massive cuts in rural areas.
So there might be a mismatch of resources. For example, in urban areas local authorities might spend more money on concessionary schemes than they get in grant. Are you suggesting that, when the scheme comes in, we might need to examine the formula for local authorities?
It is an interesting question.
If the Executive takes away all the money for concessionary schemes, Angus, as a rural authority, will lose out, the net effect of which might be that another authority gains. As part of bringing in the national scheme, do we need to examine the formulae to ensure that that does not happen?
That is correct. Our local bus service money needs to be guaranteed. You have to realise that there is a link between local bus service subsidy and concessions. The concessionary travel scheme has been successful. The figure in our submission that compares the last quarter in the first year with the equivalent quarter the year before shows 40 per cent growth. The number of people who are travelling on public transport has increased dramatically. If the concessionary scheme for young people generates additional travel, we will need additional services. The issue is how much of that local authorities will have to pick up and provide through the tender process.
So your concern is that if the national concessionary scheme is not set at the right rate, it will result in bus companies not being able to provide commercially additional services to address capacity issues.
That is correct. There is no guarantee that the operators would provide services on a commercial basis. It is a bit like asking us about ring-fenced money for the operators. There is no guarantee that they would put the money back into service provision.
It is felt that, with a national scheme, people will travel further, which will put even more pressure on bus operators. Our colleague from Highland region comments that there is now huge demand in Thurso and Wick for free travel to Inverness. That does not help the economies of Thurso and Wick a great deal, but additional resources require to be provided to allow people to travel distances. If that is extended throughout Scotland, there is huge potential for people to travel great distances at no charge. That is where the costs need to be carefully monitored. Bus companies will reach a point at which they just cannot provide more resources at a reasonable cost, because it would mean bringing in extra vehicles and drivers and the cost per head would be phenomenal.
Additionally, there are the shorter journeys—passengers who just go one or two stops—which would not normally be covered by concessionary fares. Those lead to additional costs for bus operators, such as wear on the brakes and seats and so on. All those additional costs have to be taken into account.
Will you explain why the creation of the national concessionary fares scheme would have an impact on locally tendered bus contracts? I think that you mentioned something about that in your evidence.
Only from the funding aspect, which is really the answer to the previous question. As Roy Mitchell says, the provision of a national scheme will raise expectations for journeys to be available. To be parochial again, in my area, if free travel were available, many people would want to travel from Angus to Perth. There is a once-a-month shoppers service between Forfar and Perth that will not meet public demand. I am convinced that my postbag will be full of requests for a service that is at least daily. We will have to consider those new links, and they will come at a new cost. I do not think that operators will necessarily rush to provide those services on a commercial basis in the first instance. Authorities will probably tender them, and as the service begins to build up, they might change to adopt a commercial remit.
I am listening with great interest to the answers that you have all given to Iain Smith and Paul Martin because they seem to indicate that, if there is to be a national concessionary fares scheme whereby senior citizens obtain free travel on the buses, there will be a number of consequences that would perhaps not be immediately obvious to those who, unlike you, lack the detailed knowledge of how things work in practice. That includes real pressure on existing services, perhaps driving full-fare paying passengers off the bus and back into their cars, which we would not want, and putting real pressure on the overall costs.
Yet.
Indeed.
There is a concern that the scheme is restricted only to buses. In island communities, ferries are the equivalent of buses. As our submission states, we want a truly national scheme in which every cardholder receives the same benefits, so it must cover registered buses and ferries. We agree whole-heartedly that ferries should be included.
I have forgotten—it was far too long.
I remember now. It was about whether people would be willing to pay. Research shows that there is a willingness on the part of senior citizens to pay. In fact, the first indications were that people were surprised that travel would be free. Some people felt that they would like to pay a nominal amount, although nothing terribly excessive. For national travel, we do not see a problem with a charge. From the professional viewpoint, the difficulty is how to define when we would start to charge. Would journeys of more than 10 miles be charged? How would we create a limit past which people had to pay that was easy for bus drivers to understand? The difficulty is to find an option that will work. In principle, we agree that the option should be pursued, but the issue is to find a system that is clear to everyone so that there is no ambiguity on the buses. We do not want situations in which a person says, "I am going 10 miles," and the bus driver replies, "No, madam, you are going 11 miles." We do not want arguments or to make bus drivers defend the scheme; we want a scheme that is clear and easily understood.
One option might be to charge all scheme users a quarter fare for every journey, which would be simple to work out and understand. Rather than free concessionary fares throughout Scotland, there would be quarter fares throughout Scotland. That would be easier for drivers to understand than if the scheme involved free fares for 9 miles and half fares beyond that, which, as Lesley Millar rightly said, might result in people arguing about how far they are going. Whatever scheme is devised, it must be simple enough to allow everyone—drivers, users and local authorities—to understand it.
Simplicity should be a key priority for any scheme, although it might be difficult to achieve.
Until there have been negotiations with the rail companies on reimbursement, it would be difficult to judge the costs. However, the suggestion is worth considering.
In recent years, the use of public transport, particularly buses, has increased, which is encouraging after about four decades of decline. Does ATCO have any analysis of the background to the increases? For example, what proportion is a result of concessionary travel, what proportion is because more people are in employment and what proportion is a result of people trying to avoid congestion by not using private cars?
We have not done such an analysis. There are a range of reasons for the increase, some of which you gave, but we have not done any research on the matter. The Scottish Executive could consider that as a research project. To get down to that level of detail, bus travellers would have to be interviewed. The answers might be interesting.
One concern that operators raised when the original concessionary scheme was introduced was about the lack of a protected window during the evening peak. The operators were concerned that that would mean that full-fare paying passengers might be squeezed out because they would not rush to travel on buses that were full. Is there any evidence that that has come to pass?
I am aware of instances in which individuals have stopped travelling by bus because they were fed up with buses passing by full and having to wait for the next one. However, that is anecdotal evidence; we do not have concrete statistics. It is true that, in many local authority areas, the peak time for bus journeys is the evening peak, not the morning one.
That brings us to the end of our questions. I thank Lesley Millar, David Taylor and Roy Mitchell for their evidence. I also thank colleagues and members of the press and public who attended all or part of the meeting.
Meeting closed at 16:55.