Better Transport

After you've identified who to target with your campaign, you'll then want to prepare some arguments.

• Find out what criteria your transport authority uses when deciding whether to subsidise socially necessary bus services
• Find out about the targets your transport authority should be meeting
• Compare your transport authority to other transport authorities
• Prove the need for better buses

Find out what criteria your transport authority uses when deciding whether to subsidise socially necessary bus services

Local transport authorities generally have criteria they use to decide whether to fund socially necessary bus services. These criteria tend to develop and change over time. They may be included in the bus strategy. Ask your authority which criteria are used and whether they are written down anywhere. Look at the papers from previous meetings which covered bus services; these should give you information about how councillors and officers are making their decisions about buses.

The criteria used generally include the subsidy per passenger (cost divided by the number of people using the service) as well as issues such as whether people have other ways to access key facilities like jobs, shops and education.

Look at whether the bus you want meets your local transport authority’s criteria. Think about how you can show the transport authority that it does.

These criteria are a moving target – local transport authorities can change their approach over time. There are no hard and fast rules. If the bus you want doesn’t meet the transport authority's criteria, you can argue that it is a special case. You can provide counterarguments to explain why the bus you want is important. You can use political pressure to make councillors listen. Try to get support for what you want from opposition party councillors.

Find out about the targets your transport authority should be meeting

Your transport authority should be meeting targets that it has set with the Department for Transport and targets that are in its transport plan and its bus strategy, its accessibility strategy, the regional spatial strategy,

• Your transport authority should be aiming to improve buses in order to improve local people's access to jobs and services, reduce congestion, reduce pollution and improve road safety. These are the 'shared priorities' that it works towards together with the Department for Transport.

More about the ‘shared priorities’

• Transport authorities should aim to provide buses which meet people’s transport needs. Your transport authority is required to look at the links between social exclusion and transport in their areas, and to develop transport solutions for people at risk of social exclusion. Authorities should also try to improve integration between commercial, supported and community services.

The guidance your local authority should be following

• Find out what your transport authority’s local transport plan says. Check whether the authority is actually following the plan
• Find out what the transport authority’s bus strategy says, and see whether what its doing fits with the strategy. If not, ask a councillor or officer why not.
• Find out what your transport authority’s accessibility strategy says, and see whether the bus services currently provided fit in with this. If not, ask them why not
• Find out what the regional spatial strategy for your area says. Check whether your transport authority’s approach to buses fits in with this strategy

If your transport authority isn’t meeting its targets you should challenge it. Explain how improving your bus would help them meet these targets.

Look at what other issues your transport authority should be bearing in mind in your area. For example, is there a lot of tourism? Is there high unemployment? Look at the local issues and see how they fit in with your needs for your bus.

Compare your transport authority to other transport authorities

Whenever possible, it is better to compare like with like:

• If you are in a PTE area, compare your PTE with the other PTEs
• If you are in a unitary authority area, compare your authority with other unitary authorities
• If your county council is the transport authority, compare your county council with other county councils (or 'shires')

Some things to compare:

• Find out whether your transport authority spends less than average on funding buses. If it does, you can argue that it ought to spend at least the average amount
• Find out whether bus usage is lower than average in your transport authority area. If so, you can ask what your authority is doing to improve the situation
  Local transport authorities are required to collect this info – you should look in the local transport plan to find out about bus use in your area.
• Find out how satisfied people are with the buses in your area.
  Find out how your transport authority compares in terms of giving people access to jobs and services -- available in appendix E of the Government's accessibility report.
• Compare your transport authority with examples of ‘best practice’. Read the Department for Transport’s guidance which provides lots of examples of transport authorities doing a good job. Compare these authorities with your own.
• Get information on transport, CO2 and pollution in your area, and compare your area with others, through the Audit Commission's area profiles
• Bus Users UK has produced a good practice guide. Ask why your transport authority isn’t meeting these high standards.
• Find out how well your region is doing at road network management. If congestion is bad, you have another argument for why buses are needed as an alternative to the car.
  • East of England (pdf, 333K)
  • East Midlands (pdf, 505K)
  • North East  (pdf, 321K)
  • North West (pdf, 978K)
  • South East (pdf, 358K)
  • South West (pdf, 331K)
  • West Midlands (pdf, 317K)
  • Yorkshire & the Humber (pdf, 321K)

London is not included on this list because Transport for London is responsible for making sure the road network in London is well managed.

Prove the need for better buses
It's not enough to know better buses are needed; you need to prove it:

• Ask your parish council or town council to look at whether your buses meet the needs of local people. (Parish/community councils can investigate the provision, use of and need for bus services under the Local Government and Rating Act 1997)
• Organise a petition to show there is a high level of general support from local people for the bus service you’re asking for. A petition is likely to be more effective if people do not merely say that they want a bus service, but say that they would use it, how often and for what purpose.
• Organise a survey to provide evidence that people would use the bus service you’re fighting for
• Find out the facts about the kind of people who live in your area by using census data. It might be relevant to look at the local population in terms of
  • Car ownership
  • Young people
  • Older people
  • Disabled people
  • People with low income
  • People with low levels of access to jobs and services
• Find out about your local authority, ward or ‘super output area’  on the Government's statistics website. Look at the ‘neighbourhood summary section’ as well as the ‘find statistics for an area’ section. This information could help you to prove that there is a need for the bus service you’re asking for. 

"Councils need to be sure when they make the decision to replace a commercially withdrawn route that the bus will still be used. It is a waste of funds if pressure is placed on the council to put back the bus service to find that very few people travel on it. Campaigns to reinstate bus routes should be able to show that there will be demand for the route and that the funding is justified. If the route is re-introduced and few people use the bus then its long-term future will be in doubt." 
~ Richard Barnes, Public Transport Officer, Bournemouth Borough Council