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A BUS station that can be classified as necessary and desirable
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must not be sited in the way that a typical railway station is located; it must be placed where it will be of the most benefit to the majority of potential users and must provide no more than the essential services required of it.
Door-to-door service is still the most important single potential advantage of bus operations and one that plays a vital part in our cities. Not only must it be the duty of the operator to give a door-to-door service; he must ensure that only the minimum number of travellers will elect to use their own transport by giving a service that is perfectly adequate to passengers' needs. Provision should be made for picking up and setting down passengers where they want to be picked up and set down, not at fixed points determined by architects and local planners.
If planners could not be persuaded of the justice of the operator's case, there was no hope that the operator would win the battle with private cars, which are by the nature of things the ultimate in personal transport.
These views were given last week by Mr. P. C. Hunt, traffic manager of the Pot
teries Motor Traction Co. Ltd., at a meeting of the Institute of Traffic Administration, Birmingham centre. Mr. Hunt dealt separately with coach stations.
In further comments on bus operation. Mr. Hunt pointed out that the growth of C-licensed goods traffic had been phenomenal and that traffic had been abstracted from rail; as the requirements of the public changed, so must bus operators do their best to meet the demand. No useful purpose could be served by reversing the process of door-to-door service by widespread use of central bus terminals that created inconvenience. Not every passenger wanted to travel to the centre of a town or district and this had to be recognized if irreparable damage was to be avoided.
If it were accepted that bus services of a "passing nature" should use the highway if a proper service were to be given, then it was necessary to examine the conditions and circumstances in which a bus station could be useful and desirable. Obviously it was reasonable that terminal facilities should be provided in the case of long-distance services, possibly through waiting rooms, catering services, toilet accommodation and so on. But these facilities had to be in the right place and it was in the selection of sites that so many local authorities made mistakes when planning bus stations. Many local authorities were being swept along "on a tide of enthusiasm for property developers and their wares"; it was unfortunate that the attraction offered by bus stations to potential tenants of shop properties were "almost irresistible". In many instances a new shopping area was developed on the fringe of an old-established shopping and business centre, which involved a great deal of inconvenience to the public and higher busoperating costs. An operator would do well to oppose such a siting of a bus station; there had been a small number of successful planning appeals against developments of this kind.
Notwithstanding the advantages from increased rateable values, local authorities should satisfy themselves that the operator approved the proposed site and should consult the Traffic Commissioners in good time to safeguard the interest of transport and of the public. Unfortunately, very few councils could afford to employ a qualified traffic engineer and a traffic manager to give them advice on planning.
If bus stations were necessary, bus stations must be planned as part of the comprehensive road system in proper relation to the centres they were to serve and must not be placed in an unsatisfactory location merely because the land was cheap.
Operators could not tolerate vast one-way traffic systems involving complicated and time-consuming diversions if proper services were to be given at a reasonable cost to passengers. Competition with rail was fast disappearing by virtue of British Railways concentrating on main-line systems and the two forms of transport were becoming complementary; it was necessary, therefore, that greater use should be made of railway stations as bus terminals.
Local authorities should realize that extravagant facilities were not necessary in most cases and that if they were provided for reasons of self-aggrandisement or civic pride, it was unjust that proportionate charges should be levied against the users.
There was nothing wrong in principle in charging the operator on the basis of departures from the station but in the case of elaborate development schemes, the charge had to be sufficient to cover the cost of loans and so on. If pedestrian precincts were built by a developer, they should be the outcome of long and careful investigation, not a part of a small-scale redevelopment project. It was time that planners removed the parkedvehicle menace and some of the crazy restrictions that strangled public transport. Too many authorities were intent on "getting the buses off the roads" and too many people were just letting it happen.
Test of profitability
In reference to coach operations, Mr. Hunt emphasized that a modern coach station, such as Victoria Station, should provide every type of ancillary such as booking offices, waiting rooms, cafes, restaurants, left-luggage offices, toilet facilities and so on. Providing these sidelines could be very profitable to the supplier; profitability might indeed afford a fair test of whether they were really needed. A major shortcoming of Victoria in the past had been the absence of good, wide, approach roads and an ample parking area.
In the discussion on Mr. Hunt's paper, Mr. D. Skolding, a traffic court advocate, claimed that a bus station "took away the elasticity of bus services" and he reminded members that Birmingham City Transport did not approve of bus stations.
Putting the case for a bus station in towns of about 50,000 inhabitants, a spokesman of J. P. Whittle and Son, of Kidderminster, who operate stage-carriage services and excursions in the area, pointed out that most bus passengers came to centres of this size from housing estates or villages mainly to visit the shopping area; it was, therefore, desirable to have a bus station and to site it near the shopping centre, which was normally of relatively small area.
A member of Wolverhampton Corporation Transport staff agreed that it was appropriate to provide a bus station for rural services but stressed that a station was "the last thing that was wanted" in larger towns where services were based on a frequency of two to seven minutes.
In reply to a question, Mr. Hunt observed that catering for commuter rail traffic was an obvious necessity in some areas. British Railways meant business and electrified rail services in particular were attracting passengers, notably on runs to London.
Proposing a vote of thanks to Mr. Hunt, Mr. D. L. Fytche, traffic manager of Midland Red said that elected representatives on local-authority committees were generally biased in their views of transport operators. Authorities were faced with waning bus traffic and the necessity to invest money in the most remunerative project. They did not know in what to put their trust—the car or the bus. It was common practice for local authorities to refrain from providing busstops within a wide area of a bus station so that passengers had to go to the station to board or alight from a bus.
Was it right, asked Mr. Fytche, that operators should pay for a station erected by a local authority? Should it not be paid for by the authority?