TAS Welcomes National Audit Office Report in Local Bus Services in England outside London
The TAS Partnership Ltd (TAS) has welcomed the publication of the National Audit Office (NAO) report Improving local bus services in England outside London. This appears to be a well-balanced report highlighting both shortcomings and successes, pointing out that a reduction in funding from both local and national government has contributed to an overall decline in patronage which the report states has been going on for 70 years.
It is particularly encouraging that the NAO has used TAS data, regarding the vicious cycle of decline for bus services to highlight the need to tackle congestion, in order to create successful urban public transport services. The report also rightly focuses on the fact that the current planning system does not support attractive public transport provision for new housing developments.
The key conclusion is that those authorities which have a clear long term strategy for supporting bus services and who work in partnership with operators, have seen the most success. This is backed up by a call for long term, sustained central government funding for service and infrastructure improvements.
The call for the DfT to work more closely with other government departments, local authorities, professional bodies and operators, both in relation to sharing expertise and wider funding solutions, is a strong one. However it ignores the varied and sometimes complex distribution of power and responsibility across different authorities, where even one Combined Authority differs to another in its responsibility for transport. Without tackling this issue the NAO’s desire for transparency and accountability cannot be met.
It is disappointing that the support for partnerships is only included in the body of the report and not stated in the Key Points at the start. This is prominent in the statement that deregulation means that operators are not accountable to either national or local government, but fails to acknowledge that a successful partnership will make operators and local authorities more accountable to each other.
Notes to editors
- The TAS Partnership Limited was founded in 1989 and is now the UK’s leading specialist public transport consultancy, with a turnover in excess of £500k and over 25 full-time staff and associates. Clients include national, regional and local government and public transport operators throughout the country, including all the major groups.
- TAS expertise covers bus network analysis and design, concessionary fares, rail services, light rail and bus rapid transit, rural services and networks, plus market research and analysis. The company has worked extensively on franchise bids for rail and have expertise in all forms of scheduling. In addition, TAS is an acknowledged expert in the fields of community and accessible transport, social service, health and educational transport services.
- TAS maintains extensive databases on the financial and market performance of the bus, rail and light rail industry, and run industry-wide models covering costs, revenue and patronage for UK bus and rail operations.
