Overall transport planning
Page 74
Page 75
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Despite differing views as to its ultimate value, closer working of all authorities concerned with public transport is being officially sponsored. Here are extracts of the Ministry's opinion on this debatable subject.
DUBLIC transport is so closely connected with the life of the nation that it has been virtually inevitable that throughout the development of road passenger services it should be closely involved, and to some extent controlled, through local and central government.
While there have been, since 1930, the obvious controls resulting from the p.s.v. licensing system and the statutory regulations affecting the operation of buses and coaches, other controls or working arrangements have also been evolved. Though some of the latter are of a voluntary nature, they have had—and continue to have—an important bearing on the efficient operation of passenger transport even if the travelling public is unaware of such arrangements and the resulting interworking involved.
While the effect of such control and inter-working is common knowledge to those employed in the industry, recent and sometimes cryptic comments by politicians as to the need for public transport based on conurbations have left many in doubt as to just what was intended. Additionally, following such announcements, the layman might well be excused for thinking, by implication, that little or no intelligent planning and interworking had been evolved during the 50 years or so of development of the bus industry as we know it today.
Successive statements by politicians as to their intentions regarding conurbations have been reported in COMMERCIAL MOTOR, and it is opportune to give here some extracts from the written evidence of the Ministry of Transport presented to the Royal Commission on Local Government in England. It has a direct bearing on the provision of public transport within conurbations and elsewhere.
At the outset of its evidence the Ministry recognizes that the evolution of the transport system is one of the most vivid examples of technological change. While local government has always had transport functions, the nature of the tasks involved have changed fundamentally. But the structure of local government is still the one established in the 19th century when the only transport problems were those of the age of the steam railway and horse van.
Most important change Far and away the most important of the fundamental changes, the Ministry states, is the emergence in present day conditions of a need for the transport system to be developed as an integral part of the country's economic and social development as a whole. Not only must there be an integrated policy for the whole transport sector but such a policy must be an integral part of the physical and economic planning of the country. The same applied to local government.
In practical terms, it was important not only to co-ordinate the various local authorities of transport services one with another but also the planning of highway construction and traffic control. Public transport services must be based on a full appreciation of plans for land use and the programming of transport investment geared to the needs of other approved development.
Relative to change the Ministry states that today the "catchment areas" of towns, defined in terms of journeys, and of sphere of attraction for shopping, entertainment, professional and educational services did not usually correspond even approximately to the territorial jurisdiction of local authorities.
Because of this change the Ministry regarded certain services now provided by some authorities as not essential to local government. These included the function of agency for the design and supervision of motor trunk road works, control of seaports and vehicle registration, together with vehicle and driver licensing.
Bus services Dealing specifically with bus services, the Ministry records that the adequacy of public services has long been recognized as a matter of direct concern to local government. But the operation of buses was not a necessary function of local government in the sense that the administration of highways and regulation of road traffic could be so regarded.
The objective of ensuring an adequate system of public transport remained, but its attainment had been made much more difficult as a result of lost traffic due to the growing use of private cars, traffic congestion and rise in labour costs. During the last decade, over the country as a whole, it could be said broadly that traffic had fallen by 20 per cent while fares had risen by 65 per cent.
As to the effectiveness of local authorities in operating public transport, no study had been made of its efficiency. The Ministry could only go on such indirect evidence as was, for example, provided by their accounts. These showed that very few municipal undertakings relied at present on subsidies from the general rate fund. But the surplus of receipts over expenditure was much smaller in the focal authority undertakings than in the companies run through the Transport Holding Company and other operators.
These figures, however, might be affected by most municipal undertakings borrowing much of the capital required for acquiring buses and other assets, instead of building up reserves out of operating profit. Because local authorities were not primarily profit-making bodies they were justified in seeing their undertakings run at a lower profit level than a private commercial company might feel acceptable. In addition,_ municipal authorities would be more reluctant to seek fare increases except where the bus undertaking was actually losing money.
As regards the area over which municipal bus undertakings operate, historically it was usually the administrative boundary of the municipality. There were undoubtedly cases where the areas were no longer desirable (if they ever were) from an economic or managerial standpoint. Here the Ministry instances the multiplicity of municipal bus undertakings in South Lancashire, the Midlands and the North East.
While admitting that local authorities had not been backward in making agreements for joint operation, the Ministry contends that at the present time the pattern of bus operators and division of areas between municipal and other undertakings was effectively controlled by statutory divisions in the Road Traffic Acts and was largely frozen. In the absence of any major change in national policy towards public road passenger transport, municipal bus undertakings would have to continue broadly within their present areas of operation.
One feature of the existing local government structure which would appear to have considerable influence on the efficiency of some municipal undertakings was the relationship between the managerial staff of the bus undertakings and the local council or the council committees which supervise their activities. There was obviously a danger that council committees might interfere excessively with day-to-day management or might hinder or frustrate imaginative developments in services or the adoption of more efficient methods of operation. Such dangers could be mitigated by good personal relationships.
On normal organizational principles, however, the Ministry considers the present committee structure of local government ill-adapted to control the details of the operation of a large public transport undertaking of a kind that urban conditions now demand.
Future structure
Regarding the future structure of local government for transport functions, the Ministry admits that the operation of bus services could be carried out equally well by commercial undertakings or by independent bodies established specifically for the purpose.
The structure of local government today was the survival of a pattern of life based on a real distinction between town and country and on very limited means of private travel. Neither of these conditions now held and this had led to the deficiencies of the local government structure in providing transport services.
If local authorities were to deal effectively with their rapidly growing transport problems, the following organization was needed. It must effectively co-ordinate the planning and execution of their transport functions both one with another and with other related responsibilities. It must co-ordinate the various transport functions over a geographical area that was based on pattern of travel and it must command adequate technical and financial resources.
Further extracts of the written evidence of the Ministry of Transport to the Royal Commission on Local Government in England will be given in this series next week.