Sustrans Cymru response to SWWITCH Regional Network Strategy
September 2013
Sustrans is a leading UK charity enabling people to travel by foot, bike or public transport for more of
the journeys we make every day. We work with families, communities, policy-makers and partner
organisations so that people are able to choose healthier, cleaner and cheaper journeys, with better
places and spaces to move through and live in. Our aim is to bring about change such that four out
of every five trips under five miles are made by sustainable means by the year 2020.
Overview
Sustrans Cymru welcomes the work undertaken by SWWITCH to explore how best to use new grant
funding to deliver a workable bus network in the region, beginning from April 2014.
We support the objectives set out by SWWITCH as part of the consultation – notably that bus travel
is an important means of reducing social injustice and can help to reduce deprivation. We also
support using the Grant to incentivise key quality outcomes.
However, we are concerned that the draft consultation strategy doesn’t provide enough detail in
these areas, instead focussing on extreme options for how to split the available grant funding.
We would also support a commitment to using the bus network to form part of an integrated
transport system within Wales – and in particular would welcome moves that develop the
technology needed for integrated ticketing.
Our response is based around the questions asked as part of the consultation.
High level objectives
Sustrans Cymru broadly supports the high level objectives set out within the draft Regional Network
Strategy. In particular, in evidence given to the Silk Commission, alongside the Bevan Foundation,
we highlighted that bus travel was “particularly good at dealing with inequality, providing transport
for the elderly, lower earners, young people and the disabled. However, this relies on a
comprehensive and affordable bus service that can be relied on.”1
We fully support a strategy that seeks to make bus travel an accessible and available form of travel
that will allow more people with the SWWITCH area to use the bus as a primary mode of transport
for accessing employment, local services and amenities.
However, we are concerned that managing a ‘balanced service’ that seeks to ‘maximise market
growth’ may be too contradictory to be achievable. Instead, we would support an approach that
ensures services link communities to key amenities, and that is accessible to all and incentivises
operators would work best to deliver the service that is desired.
1
Sustrans and the Bevan Foundation, written evidence to Silk Commission, March 2013
http://commissionondevolutioninwales.independent.gov.uk/files/2013/03/Sustrans-and-the-BevanFoundation.pdf
We would also welcome an objective that the bus service should become part of a fully integrated
transport system. However, integration is often considered too late in the process, as we
highlighted in our submission to the Integrated Transport in Wales Enquiry held by the Welsh
Assembly’s Enterprise and Business Committee2.
Part of successfully integrating public transport is the integration of ticketing between both different
bus operators and different modes of transport. While the powers to achieve full ticket integration
do not yet exist in Wales, there should be a clear priority to move forward with integrated ticketing,
and developing the technology needed to operate smart-ticketing.
Funding , Quality Standards and a Two-Tier approach
We think the focus on offering two ‘extreme’ options for delivering grant funding going forward
provides an unhelpful comparison. Instead, we would prefer a focus on using grant funding to
incentivise operators to deliver improved services.
We recognise that the SWWITCH area has some heavily populated areas, notably Swansea and Port
Talbot, where fully commercial services may be viable. However, larger rural areas may need grant
to be offered in a more traditional way to ensure vital services are able to run. Therefore, we would
not in principle oppose a two-tier system of distributing grant funding, which takes into account the
diverse nature of the Consortia area.
Using Grant to provide an incentive to operators to improve service could work in a number of ways,
including increasing grant levels for:
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Offering discount tickets for young people over the age of 16
Installing technology to deliver smart ticketing
Purchasing low-carbon buses
Operating on evenings and Sundays
Joining cross-Consortia promotional campaigns
This could have the potential of making bus travel a more appealing transport option to a wider
number of the public, and help improve the service as a whole. However, we accept it may only be
appropriate to offer grant in this way within the more urban areas.
Other comments
It is vital that bus service links with other public transport interchanges, but also connect
communities with key community facilities, in particular high streets, amenities, and employment
areas – in particular the Local Enterprise Zones.
In putting together the Network Strategy and deciding how grant is to be allocated, Sustrans Cymru
supports and approach that makes travelling to these key areas as practical as possible, with more
direct services more communities and higher frequency, in particular at peak times.
2
http://www.senedd.assemblywales.org/documents/s17569/Report%20on%20Integrated%20Public%20Transp
ort%20-%20May%202013.pdf
Bus travel plays an important role in particular in helping low income earners accessing in
employment, and with 65% of households in Wales have one car or no car, a viable bus service is
crucial in tackling social injustice and deprivation.
Therefore, in deciding how to allocate grant, Sustrans Cymru would welcome assessment of key
routes, and the potential for routes that meet these key criteria to be given a favourable grant
settlement.
Links to Active Travel
Journeys do not begin and end at the bus stop or stage, so it is important that bus journeys link up
with other forms of transport, including making it easy to walk and cycle to bus stops and stations.
Increased levels of walking and cycling substantially increase overall journey time reliability, both for
individuals (since walking and cycling journey times are significantly less variable) and for towns as a
whole (by abstracting journeys from the road network and reducing congestion). Evidence shows
that walking and cycling can also reduce waiting times associated with multi-stage journeys.3
Improving cycle access offers increased passenger catchments (typically up to four times the
catchment area for the same journey time as walking), and the potential for rail growth without the
land-take and management issues associated with car travel. Cycle parking is ten times more space
efficient and over 20 times more cost efficient than car parking per space.
Evidence suggests that a major shift towards cycling has benefits to public transport providers
through increased patronage (attributable to more multi-modal staged trips involving cycling and
public transport), reduced congestion, reduced need for parking space at interchanges, expanded
catchment areas, and improved transport network resilience. Some of the possible negatives are
perceived rather than evidenced. However, in both cases the evidence does not allow for ready
quantification and impact modelling in most instances.
The future strategy should more closely explore how active travel – in particular cycling – can link
with bus services, firstly though improved access and storage at key interchanges, but also looking at
key bus corridors in more rural areas – where people may not live within easy walking distance of
their nearest stop, but would be able to cycle there. More secure storage at rural bus stops could
help facilitate confidence in the end-to-end journey.
With the Active Travel Bill being taken forward by the Welsh Government, the Regional Network
Strategy could also play a role in identifying routes for the Integrated Network Maps, which would
provide safe routes to key bus corridors and stops.
Given the large number of households in Wales without access to a car, and those with only one, it is
important that bus stops are in safe, convenient and accessible locations. Where possible, bus stops
should be well-lit, overlooked and easily accessible –e.g. near pedestrian crossings. As part of the
strategy, a review of bus stop locations would be welcome, to assess if they meet these criteria.
3
European Commission 1999 Cycling: The Way Ahead for Towns and Cities
Conclusion
Sustrans Cymru supports the key objectives set out by SWWITCH, but would welcome further detail
in the Regional Network Strategy about how it intends to achieve their delivery.
Given the diverse nature of the SWWITCH area, we accept that a two-tier approach to offering grant
funding may be necessary and expedient. In urban areas in particular, we’d recommend that
SWWTICH look at using grants to incentivise operators in one of more areas.
As bus travel can play a key role in tackling deprivation and social injustice, it’s important that
supported routes are those which deliver the greatest benefit for the area, in terms of connecting
communities to employment areas – including Local Enterprise Zones -, high streets and local
amenities.
Sustrans Cymru recommends further study in how active travel can be linked with the Regional
Network Strategy, and how the Strategy can work with duties outlined in the Active Travel Bill.
Sustrans Cymru
123 Bute Street, Cardiff, CF10 5AE
029 2065 0602
[email protected]