The previous piece looked at roads and independence. This time, it’s buses (including community transport).
The current situation (though arguably it’s deteriorated since then) was overviewed in a bit more detail here:
Hammered by the pandemic and cuts, much-maligned and seeming unfashionable – are buses being unfairly overlooked in discussions around transport...
How Wales Works: Bus Services – Funding & Future
Bus services, community transport and learner transport are (almost) fully devolved to Wales.
The few exceptions are regulatory policies which would likely stay the same after independence anyway:
- Technical standards/specs: For public service vehicles/PSVs.
- Licensing passenger vehicle operators: Administered from Wales by an equivalent of the DVSA, but the hows/whats/whys will likely remain unchanged.
- Professional driving standards, driver hours and licensing: in Part VI, I suggested lowering the age at which to learn to drive a bus (PCV/Category D licence) to 18.
- Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) requirements for PSVs: Independence would allow us to make changes if we want to, but current requirements would carry over after independence anyway.
- Highway code & buses:We could make changes if needed, but it’s likely to remain the same.
- Role of the Traffic Commissioner: Licences PSV and HGV operators; registration of bus routes; investigates complaints. Appeals would continue to be heard by a Traffic & Transport Tribunal (A Welsh Court System).
As mentioned in Part I, a Bus Bill – withdrawn from the Senedd due to pandemic time constraints – is set to be reworked and reintroduced during the 2023-24 session.
Â
A white paper entitled “One Network, One Timetable, One Ticket: planning buses as a public service for Wales” (pdf) was published in March 2022.
As of posting, details of the new Bus Bill aren’t available – though the white paper’s proposals include:
- Bus networks will be developed and franchised through joint working between local authorities, Corporate Joint Committees, Transport for Wales and the Welsh Government. Franchise terms will set minimum service standards (timetables, vehicles, fares etc.).
- There’ll be open tenders to run the franchises. Operators would be paid a fixed fee, with incentives for good performance and penalties for poor performance.
- Franchising would aim to allow small and medium operators to compete on level terms with corporate and council-owned operators.
- Clauses in the Transport Act 1985 banning councils from running bus services will be repealed. Councils will also be allowed to buy existing bus operators, while rules restricting council-run bus company borrowing powers would be relaxed.
- Transport for Wales (or local government) could take over a bus route themselves if a franchise fails (similarly to how rail company failures are managed).
- Regulations covering the decarbonisation of bus fleets, coordinated ticketing, fare consistency, passenger information and integration of buses with other public transport modes.
That’s what’s proposed. We’ll have to wait and see what makes it into the final Bill (as of August 2023; I’ll return to this once the Bill is published).
There appear to be more positives than negatives anyway.
If all of these aims are achieved then it’ll go a long way towards addressing some of the issues mentioned at the start.
The big question is whether enough public funding/subsidy will be available for franchised services? It’s clear from the white paper – and statements in the Senedd from ministers – that it’s more about fitting bus services around what’s affordable rather than making more money available.
So we’re likely to have fewer bus routes overall – maybe a core network of 6-10 routes per county – topped up by longer-distance regional routes. Alongside that there may be higher standards, timetables that integrate better with rail/other buses and more transparent fares.
