VEST YORKSHIRE County Counci ants' advice and is to freeze West ipril next year.
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Council leader John Gunnell nnounced this last week, when ne first stage of the Booz, Allen nd Hamilton management tudy of the PTE was published. CM, April 24). It has highlighted nany ways in which the public -ansport system can be imlroved.
The study shows that, even in leak periods, few WYPTE 76eat standard double-deckers re full, and in Leeds the stenlard peak hour maximum load 3 60 passengers. Off-peak, BAH ays scheduled running times re often excessive.
It says WYPTE and National lus should aim to have as many eats filled as possible, even offleak, and that a revised fares cale be introduced from April 983, when ticket cancellors will )e delivered ready to support a nulti-journey self-cancelling icket system.
According to BAH, this will peed and simplify fares collecion, and will still provide suffiient data to help plan further ervice developments. The best ares scale option will streamline he existing 11 fares to nine, ienerate 3.66 per cent WYPTE/ 41BC revenue, and lose 1,89 ler cent passengers.
BH says that, although VY07E's record of matching everie to expenditure is good, ts er,„gineering costs in particuar are high, and it has highighted several areas for imgovement.
An improved spare parts nventory system being planned it present would help reduce the lumber of vehicles awaiting re pairs, as often parts shortages at some garages are compensated for by unknown surpluses at others.
Vehicle replacement at present is based on 15-year vehicle life, but the peaks and troughs in past buying policies fluctuate maintenance requirements. BAH recommends that future replacement and rehabilitation be based on minimising overall costs, ideally by introducing individual vehicle costing, but more practically by costing vehicle classes.
Further engineering cost saving could be made if the works at Huddersfield and Halifax, and possibly either those in Bradford or Leeds, are closed. There is scope for closing some substandard garages, and BAH points out that closure of Leeds' Seacroft garage alone would release £1.5m for other purposes.
At management level, BAH points out that most initiatives for public transport in the last two years have come from the council and not from the PTE, although changes in PTE management have begun to reverse this trend.
There also has been a lack of sufficient information on which management can plan ahead, partly as a result of the former four division structure, and BAH says it found no one in WYPTE who trusted the information contained in the route costing system.