IVUNICIPAL PASSENGER TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION ANNUAL CONFERENCE
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Breaking down the barriers
AT LEAST eight barriers had to be broken clOwn to improve the operation of public transport services in the future, Dr Tony M. Ridley, director-general of Tyneside Passenger Transport Executive, told delegates at the annual conference of the Municipal Passenger Transport Association on Wednesday.
The barriers he described included one between municipal and company busmen; between busmen and railwaymen; operators and planners; operators and scientists; management and unions; one local authority and another; professionals and the public; and between the MPTA and the P RTA.
Dr Ridley was delivering a paper entitled "The Passenger Transport Executives—will they make any difference?" Although he did not really furnish the answer, his previous service on the traffic engineering and planning side of transport enabled him to speak with the experience of someone who has served on both sides of the fence.
In his introduction the speaker referred to the "excellent statement" of the philosophy behind the introduction of the PTAs and PTEs contained in the White Paper "Public Transport and Traffic" which preceded the 1968 Transport Act and the subsequent extensive discussion of the Executives in the technical Press. He also mentioned his paper presented at the Newcastle University Symposium "Tomorrow's Bus World" in which he discussed the role of the Executives (CM April 17), and Mr Geoffrey Harding's paper to the Scottish Road Passenger Transport Association's annual conference which described "in vivid terms" the early days of SELNEC PTE (CM April 24).
Dr Ridley asked: "What then can I tell this Conference that is in any way new?" Well, many people still wanted to know if the Executives would make any difference, and he added that in attempting to supply the answer he would adopt the theme "the breaking down of barriers". Not that he suggested that the Fra were alone in breaking down the barriers, or that the Executives were the only means of tackling the problems in' urban areas, or that they were necessarily right for all parts of the country. He would start by accepting the existence of the Executives and say how he believed they might break down some of the barriers which (in his view) did exist.
In the Tyneside PTE, Dr Ridley continued, they had set themselves the basic aim of providing an efficient public transport system for Tyneside. In seeking to achieve such an aim they believed they had four basic objectives. These were: 0 To establish the public transport needs of the Area both in the short and long term. O To determine the appropriate level of public transport provision in terms of capital and operating costs, social need and public acceptance.
O To decide how that provision was to be met and by what means.
O To ensure that all services were operated in the most efficient and integrated manner.
Based on these objectives the Executive would be producing a policy statement, jointly with the Tyneside Authority. later this year.
Municipal v. company It was appropriate, said Dr Ridley, that he should start by discussing the barrier between municipal and company busmen.
The MPTA was an association of men who had spent much of their lives fighting, or at least competing, with company busmen. Barriers existed which few had crossed, although he conceded that there were notable exceptions. In a sense one barrier had already gone for most of the delegates were now public servants.
It might be said that the fact of extensive co-ordination agreements in the past contradicted his view that barriers existed between municipal and company busmen. Dr Ridley suggested, however, that these very agreements were an expression of the barriers that existed, and by their very nature implied a lack of integration. They were a means whereby municipal undertakings and companies formalized the territorial division between them and the division of services. Integration in his view
implied going very much farther than mer co-ordination.
With reference to NBC operators insid PT Areas, the Act gave them no power ti take over the NBC services. They had ti reach an agreement. It might be said tha this was a fault of the Act. However, ther were reasons why the Act was framed in th way it was—not least the fact that if all c the services of the NBC within a PT Are were transferred to the Executive, then th remainder or the NBC services would no be viable.
Dr Ridley thought that it was not at a inconceivable that in future there would b joint ownership and joint management of a bus services in PT Areas. However, this wa an end to be worked towards rather than
step to be taken immediately. The first stt was to carry out a joint examination of itl changing demand for buses in relation I resources in terms of bus fleet, depots ar staff of the Executive and the NBC. The' was considerable scope for re-allocation services between operators which previoi co-ordination agreements had not allowed.
With a new approach services could re-allocated without regard to the effect individual service changes on the revenue I each. He did not imply that financi considerations were unimportant. Indee they were crucial. However, it was tl overall financial position which wi important. Financial considerations mu not be allowed to interfere with the mo efficient allocation of services between tl parties. He had every confidence that sut an approach would bring real benefit to tl
ublic in PT Area's.
The Minister of Transport was required. nder the Act, to give his seal of approval to le agreement between the Executive and le NBC, Dr Ridley continued. He was mcerned, under the Act, to see that the xecutives were successful—he was also ancerned to ensure that the newly anstituted NBC was also successful.
istorical accident Beyond this point it was difficult to see 'hich way they should go. The operation of idividual services, the ownership of assets, le siting of depots, and the division of territories" was an historial accident. In the ase of Tyneside they were responsible for le operation of buses based on Newcastle nd South Shields-12 miles apart and no nk between them.
Dr Ridley could not believe that in the ing term this was sensible. Thus he nticipated that they should give very rgent and serious consideration to the assibility of joint management and joint wnership of assets.
Turning to railways, Dr Ridley said he ould submit that the barrier that existed etween busmen and railwaymen arose first om loyalty to individual organizations, but erhaps even more so from the view that tere was something particularly sacred bout public transport movement by one leans rather than another. The Executives lust be entirely neutral here, he said.
On Tyneside at the present time the lovernment spent about £ 1m a year to ibsidize local rail services. From April next ear the financial responsibility would pass
the PTA. The Government would, awever, pay a sliding scale of grant over :yen years to alleviate this burden. They lust reach an agreement with British .ailways which would specify which it-vices would be retained, what the quality I these services would be and the price to it, paid for them. If the Authority endorsed teir agreement then it must find the money pay the cost.
,elative merits
The relative merits of public passenger an sport service by bus and by rail would ave to be examined very carefully. It was !rtainly desirable to give the public as iuch choice as possible. but with the cost r providing public transport escalating at a alarming rate there was every reason to risure that self-defeating competition etween the two modes was removed.
He asked whether they should mcentrate less of their resources on the rovision of bus services in order to subdize rail services, so that these were still vailable to them when they were perhaps !sperately needed in the future as traffic mgestion on the roads increased. Evidence the United States suggested that many ties wished they had concentrated more of ieir resources on rail transport in the past. In answering these kind of questions the xecutive Would gradually develop an tegrated network of bus and rail services serve the whole area. Dr Ridley anticipated that when this was done the level of service provided in any corridor would be of the same order, whether or not the services were by rail or by bus.
Planners vital to future
Many operators had a poor opinion of planners who, they believed, had no understanding of the real world, Dr Ridley suggested. Planners, on the other hand, criticized operators for being so concerned with day-to-day matters that they paid little or no attention to the future. The truth, of course, was that both the planners and operators were essential to the proper provision of public transport.
One of the Executive's tasks was to produce a plan for public transport in its Area. They must specify the future network, its operating and capital costs, and do it in the light of the changing patterns of the Area. Thus they were brought, inevitably, into close contact with the town planners.
It was of no value to propose a public, transport system to support a highly centralized urban area if, in fact, the planners were preparing for a decentralized area. On the other hand, if the planners' view of the future was in the Executive's opinion unable to be sustained by public transport in the manner in which they imagined, then this should be brought home to them. He was very encouraged by the relationships they were building up with their planning colleagues in the Tyneside Area.
There was no doubt that in general terms the planners fully recognized the importance of public transport to their task, but they took the view that it was only one element in the total transport picture of an area and its total planning needs. This was a view which he accepted and it had always been the case, he said.
Speaking of land-use and transportation studies, Dr Ridley described them as lengthy, complex and extensive. They frequently did not seem highly relevant to the world in which the operator was living. But he believed they were essential to the satisfactory development of a total transport system. One of their main values was that they provided a forum in which highway engineers, town planners, bus operators and railwaymen could together consider their common problems. This opinion he gained not only from his experience on Tyneside (where a study commenced at the beginning of 1969) but also in London. They themselves made a major contribution in breaking down the barriers to which he had referred.
This led the speaker to the subject of scientists, a term he used very broadly. He included systems analysts, computer programmers and researchers who were trying to develop new technologies and new technical aids for the transport industry.
Little mutual regard
Until recently the operators and scientists had had little mutual regard for each other, Dr Ridley admitted. The operator had been thought of as narrow-minded and unaware of the possiblities of new technical developments. The scientist had been regarded by the operator as being wholly impractical. But this barrier was beginning to break down and the "Tomorrows Bus World" symposium was a welcome indication of this fact.
What was required was not that operators should turn in desperation to scientific gimmicks, but that they should recognize that the scientists had a part to play in helping to solve their problems.
Equally the scientists must be aware of the real practical problems of implementing their new ideas.
"Of all the mutual suspicions which exist in our industry perhaps that between management and unions is the greatest", said Dr Ridley, while discussing management /union relations. He continued: "Management frequently assume that the unions have no concern at all for the undertaking which employs them. They are out for as much as they can get and wish to give as little in return as possible.
The unions are equally convinced that management is determined to hold down their wages to the lowest possible level and maintain working conditions which are unduly onerous. But just as municipal and company busmen, busmen and railwaymen have a common enemy, the car, so should management and unions recognize that they must work together if the public transport industry is to survive and remain healthy."
He alluded to the very difficult period of industrial relations the country was passing through. While this was regrettable, they had to accept the fact of life. The indications he received suggested that there was genuine concern among their staff that the Executive should be a success. To this end he was sure that every opportunity should be taken to explain to the staff what the PTE's role was and what part they had to play as individuals, however small that part might be.
Local or national?
There was a great deal of debate at the present time about whether wage negotiations should take place at national or local level. "Shop floor bargaining" was a term in vogue. Dr Ridley was certain that a national council for the whole of the platform staff in the industry must be created. But within this framework there must be the maximum possible flexibility and opportunity for local negotiation and bargaining.
At the moment, so far as the platform staff at least were concened, the PTEs were negotiating with their unions outside of national organizations. This was very necessary in view of the complexities involved in amalgamating the different municipal undertakings that were transferred to them. As the relationship grew between the Executives and NBC companies in their Areas, he was sure that there would be an increasing need for a national organization for platform staff which negotiated on a wide range of matters of mutual concern for the whole industry.
Turning to local authorities, Dr Ridley claimed that in every urban area in this country barriers and antagonisms existed between local authorities. Yet these same authorities were dealing with problems that transcended their present boundaries, and this was particularly true in the case of transport. One of the significant facts about the creation of the PTAs was that they were, in a sense, forerunners of the proposed Maud Report reorganization (now under review due to the change of Government). For the first time outside London single authorities were responsible for public transport in the whole of their Areas.
He was quite certain that the existence of the Authorities and Executives would help to bring unity in their urban areas much sooner than would otherwise have been the case, This did not mean that local loyalties and pride would be lost—indeed, it would be sad if they were.
A real problem did exist in that a local authority which previously ran its own bus undertaking might well say that it was not interested in a uniform level of public transport service over the whole of the PT Area. The Executives must always be alive to these local views. But the rail problems of the metropolitan areas simply could not be solved on a borough by borough basis.
No love lost There could be very few professionals in the transport business who felt loved by the public, Dr Ridley continued. Members of the public were very quick to tell them what they thought was wrong with their services; very rarely did they ever tell them that there was anything right with them. No one should resent criticism, but it was always more easily accepted if it was tempered by intermittent praise.
As a result of many years of struggling with this situation many professionals had now become very, very thick skinned, and had become virtually impervious to any public view of the services they provided. This was perfectly understandable but unfortunate. There was a particular need for the Executives to go to the public to explain what they were doing, why they were doing it, how the public would be affected, and in return to listen tb the public view of their plans and the services being provided.
In the final analysis the public might not wish to accept their ideas of the public transport system of the future. If so, the Executives must accept their decision. But if the Executives believed that particular courses of action were right, they must do their utmost to sell them to the public.
Another field in which Dr Ridley felt that the transport industry in general was not doing an adequate job in relation to the public was in the provision of information about services. One only had to try to use a bus service in an unfamiliar town, or try to persuade one's wife to park on the edge of her town and then proceed by bus to know how inadequate this information could be. However inadequate their services might be at the present time, they were certainly better than they appeared to be to the public, lacking information.
One final point about the relationship between professional and public really did not concern Executives alone. How many bus operators really knew what the services were like that they provided to the public? How many of them actually rode on their own buses?
In his conclusion, Dr Ridley said that one relationship he had not discussed was that between professionals and politicians. It was certainly true that the relationship between the political representatives on the PTAs and the professional Executives was of a different order from that which applied to members of transport committees and their operations staff. As the complexity and size of the problems in urban areas increased there would be a growing need for political representatives to make major policy decisions of a far reaching nature. Nevertheless, he was convinced that there must be the closest relationship between professional and politician.
Associations merge?
This brought Dr Ridley to what he considered the final barrier—that between the MPTA and the Public Road Transport Association. Three directors-general had accepted an invitation to sit on the council of the MPTA and all four sat on the council of the PRTA. All four had expressed the view that it was most desirable that there be a single Association which represented the whole of the bus industry. A large number of the topics which were discussed by the two Associations were identical. Surely the two must unite.
He was well aware of the lengthy discussions that had taken place on this subject, and the major difficulty of the position of the layman. The position of the layman was starting to undergo a fundamental change with the re-organization of local government. His first concern would be with major policy matters. The two Associations were primarily concerned with professional and technical matters.
"It is therefore with the greatest possible deference to the many outstanding laymen in the MPTA that I express the hope that a way will be found of ensuring that the issue of lay membership will not prevent the early uniting of the PRTA and the MPTA", Dr Ridley declared.
Finally, the speaker remarked that as his paper went to print the country had a new Government. It was difficult to know what precise impact this would have on the tasks they had before them. What was certain was that the problems they faced were unchanged and that the need remained for co-operation and the removal of the barriers he had discussed.