‘Significant long-term challenge’ facing public transport, warns Bowles

Bus services across the region face the axe because social distancing is stopping them filling with passengers, West of England mayor Tim Bowles told MPs.

Operators will have to rely on government funding for a “long time” even as the coronavirus lockdown eases because routes cannot pay their way, Bowles said during evidence to the House of Commons transport select committee on the impact of Covid-19.

He said even if social distancing was halved from two metres to one, it would mean only one extra passenger on each bus.

The rules mean double-deckers can currently carry about 20 people instead of the usual 75.

Bowles, appearing remotely along with Greater Manchester metro mayor Andy Burnham and his Liverpool counterpart Steve Rotheram during the 90-minute session on Wednesday, called for greater control of devolved transport budgets to put them in charge of their regions’ bus networks.

The Government is currently paying operators directly under an emergency Covid-19 fund.

Bowles, a Conservative regional mayor, also criticised the Government’s messaging during the crisis and urged it to work closer with combined authorities so they could  “react there and then” to announcements from Whitehall.

He told MPs there had been a huge reduction in bus patronage in the West, which dropped to less than ten per cent.

“We would expect our bus services by July 5 to return to about 80 per cent of the routes,” Bowles said.

“Tough calls were made by operators around which services had to be mothballed so there will be discussions taking place around the viability of those routes as they return.

“Clearly we have had big ambitions in increasing bus services through our bus strategy. We are really committed to seeing bus and train usage increase.

“But mothballing had to take place and we are slowly returning those, but there will be a very big question around a lot of those routes for the future.

“As long as we have social distancing in force it has to apply to transport. You cannot make an exemption in those spaces. Fundamentally, we are not going to have the income through the fare box to keep these services running.”

Social distancing measures mean buses can only accommodate a fraction of their usual passenger numbers – photo courtesy of First West of England

The mayor said passenger numbers were back up to 19 per cent of normal as of Tuesday.

“However, given social distancing, we are still unable to meet demand on some of our routes,” he said.

“Our bus operators are running duplicate buses on many routes, but on those key routes, they are still finding that we are at capacity already in spite of those limited returns due to social distancing.

“We did an exercise with our main operator First Bus on what bus capacity would look like if social distancing was relaxed. If social distancing was relaxed to one metre on buses, we would only get one more passenger onto each bus.”

Bowles said without the Government’s financial support to operators, the region’s buses would not be running “anything remotely” like their current level.

But he said: “There is going to be a very significant challenge for a long time around our bus and public transport network, therefore we must see those bus service support grants being properly devolved to the transport authorities in the combined authority areas.

“We are the people who know what our main routes are, we are the people who know what routes need supporting and we can act at pace and flexibly, as opposed to directly paying operators to continue delivering in the old manner and in the old ‘normal’.

“We’ve got to use this as an opportunity to change the way we work.

“Now is the time to start coming together and look at how we do things better and making sure we give the metro mayors the ability to manage our services at a local level because we are going to be reliant on government support for buses for a long time to keep them operating.

“We must accelerate the process of seeing combined authorities having genuine devolved transport settlements.

“We have to be trusted by government to be able to deliver. Give us the tools and the funding.”

Tim Bowles is calling for greater control of devolved transport budgets – photo courtesy of WECA

Asked if anything should have been done differently during the pandemic with hindsight, he said: “The big thing I would like to have seen was even clearer messaging from government about processes that were going to happen so we were able to react there and then as those announcements were made.”

After the session, First West of England managing director James Freeman said: “In line with government guidance, we are running more services than needed to allow for social distancing on buses.

“We are currently operating 76 per cent of our pre-Covid-19 mileage, whilst our patronage is just 18 per cent of previous passengers levels.

“This ensures that our routes do not reach the reduced average 20-seat per bus capacity, while meeting the demand for essential travel with appropriate social distancing.”

Adam Postans is a local democracy reporter for Bristol

Main photo by Ellie Pipe

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