Better Transport

Local transport authorities are responsible for public transport within their area and are therefore a very important target for your campaigning.

County councils and unitary authorities are transport authorities. In metropolitan areas, passenger transport executives are the transport authorities and in London, it’s Transport for London. Transport authorities can pay for socially necessary bus services, and they must produce local transport plans, accessibility strategies and bus strategies.

Not all local transport authorities are the same:

• Passenger transport executives cover a greater area than other transport authorities and they also have more money to spend on public transport than county councils or unitary authorities. They also tend to have more political will to improve buses. Passenger transport executives are not the local highways authorities in their areas – they are responsible for providing public transport but they have no responsibility for, or powers over, how local roads and traffic are managed. District councils are the highways authorities in PTE areas, so they are responsible for issues such as whether the road network should include bus lanes.

A guide to the powers, funding and duties of the PTE/As (PDF, 2.1 MB)

• Unitary authorities also spend more money on buses, perhaps because they tend to be in cities, where more people use buses. They are also the local highway authority for their area.
• County councils tend to cover more rural areas where people drive more, and population densities are lower. Therefore it can be a bigger challenge for these councils to secure comprehensive bus services. They are the local highway authority for their area.

Despite their differences, they do have some things in common. All transport authorities are worried about lack of money. This is a bigger problem for county councils and unitary authorities because, unlike passenger transport executives, they have to pay for improvements to public transport mainly from their general budgets.

They create bus strategies and local transport plans

Outside London, these authorities pull together local transport plans. (Inside London, Transport for London plans transport.) The current plans cover 2006-11. The plans set out their policies and programmes for transport, and take account of Regional Transport Strategies.
Contact your local transport authority to get the plan or see if it’s in your library.

Local Transport Plans have separate companion bus strategies. Current bus strategies will apply until 2011. After that, the strategies will be part of the transport plan.

Local transport authorities are required to produce accessibility strategies, and to identify transport needs that should be met. They are supposed to tackle social exclusion by making sure that transport plays its part in enabling people to access goods and services.

An example of an accessibility strategy

Bus strategies vary in detail:

• Some are very detailed. Merseyside PTE’s bus strategy has a lot of detail about past achievements, current operations and future policies and programme. 
• Some are very brief. Southend-on-Sea’s bus strategy does not go into detail about how objectives will be met
• Some include an indication of which buses are seen as core services which should be maintained, such as Hampshire’s bus strategy

Local transport authorities can subsidise socially necessary bus services, and they normally use certain criteria when deciding whether or not to subsidise bus routes. Council officers will generally advise councillors as to which bus services meet the criteria, and which do not. They will make recommendations to the councillors as to which buses should be provided and which should be cut.

The criteria they use often include things like:

• Populations in different areas
• Whether people can reach key facilities like jobs, shops, hospitals and schools
• How many people use/would use the bus
• Cost of providing the service

Some criteria examples, from Cornwall, Cumbria, Buckinghamshire and Thurrock

Find your transport authority

Your transport authority’s responsibilities

Through the local transport plan process, local transport authorities agreed to work with the Government to meet local transport needs by:

• Improving accessibility to public transport
• Reducing congestion
• Improving air quality
• Improving road safety