Edi n burg h 's s on top
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US PASSENGERS in Edinburgh get the best deal from their munipal bus service, according to Transport 2000, the public transport ressure group.
In a comparison of bus serces provided in 20 of Britain's rgest cities and towns, Lothian egion's Edinburgh city services )me out top when route denty, service frequency, and fares aid per passenger are taken Ito account.
For Transport 2000, Keith Bu-Ian told CM that the survey 'as carried out using informaon provided by the operators nd, in some cases, local uthorities, and was based irgely on 1979 figures. While Ires paid per mile figures might ave been more useful, he said at many operators did not ave this information.
It also takes account of the mount of revenue support proided in each area, with South orkshire PTE coming out far in -ont with 13.3p per passenger, nd Lothian having only 1.6p per assenger, but Mr Buchan ointed out that Lothian and ,eading (fifth place overall, and .7p per passenger subsidy) lave provided substantial capi
tal support for their buses.
Southend comes bottom of the league table, coming last on route density (the distance passengers have to walk to buses), fifth bottom on service frequency, and second top on fares.
But Transport 2000 points out that this is partly because of the effects of large numbers of residents commuting to London, and the summer peak created by holiday traffic.
On the other hand, the figures for Glasgow (Strathclyde PTE) are disturbing. Despite a subsidy per passenger of 7.7p (third in the survey), it comes second bottom in the survey, being second bottom on route density, sixth bottom on service fre quency, and fourth top on fares.
Mr Buchan said the Glasgow results showed the effect of housing and roads policies which ignore public transport, by spreading housing into the outskirts, and building motorways to cater for cars.
Reading, though, did well by providing bus priorities which speed up the service, and by charging comparatively low fares.
Bristol, where bus fares increases led last month to an industrial dispute, has the highest fares paid per passenger, and comes fourth bottom overall.
Mr Buchan said Transport 2000 intends to carry out similar surveys in the future in order to highlight trends, and said he hoped that the figures might
provoke discussion.