EXTRA Frequently Asked Questions

Questions asked in the last few days ...

• Is this just a consultation response web site?

No - the team are here for the long haul! Based on our prior expereince, we can split down the activities we'll be involve in to four stages:
  1. Make decision makers aware there's a case to look at (for option 24/7)
  2. Get that case thoroughly looked at and evaluates, and agree what's appropriate
  3. Work to gain whatever is appropriate
  4. Work to retaain that appropriate service
The first two phases are just for starters. There will be signifcant work to be done when we (that's council, technical advisers, bus company experts and community) specify services and ticketing regimes and operational methods - and then market and implement them. And there will be another large and ongoing task in "snagging" the services initially, and in marketing, maintaining and growing them and continuing to tune them to developing requirements, road loadings and perhaps changing safety and legal regimes.

• How much have you looked at the details?

A detailed set of suggestions was presented to Wiltshire Council as part of the preconsultation and it can be found (with update notes) [here]. Financials were also reported on [here]. We have added a footnote on the technical paper to reflect systemic and background developments in the last six months which have made (in our view) the scheme more attractive and practical.

• Will you use smaller buses for smaller loads under option 24/7?

Modern buses are expensive capital resources, and it's far lower in total cost for a bus operator to use a single vehicle all day than to swap between two of them - and with steadily better / more efficient engines, the modern bigger buses are surprisingly efficient to run.

Under a "network wide" approach such as we're advocating, there is some scope for switching vehicles around during the hours of operation so that the larger vehicles are on the busier network-wide services. However, the busiest times the to coincide on all routes, so that doesn't provide a magic solution. Busiest times, by the way, tend to be school runs, and runs just after 09:30 - made a much sharper peak by Wiltshire Council's change from an 09:00 to 09:30 start to concessionary pass acceptance. There are some surprises too - it's reported by a bus operator to me that Sunday bus loadings are up to the extent that some are full and standing at times.

One "trick" in makes the buses efficient to run - again something we could do under option 247 - is to market a network for use when vehicles are not otherwise filled. If the bus is already running, then only the cost of marketing needs to be offset against the passenger income; if it's a bus service outside current running hours, then you've got driver and additional running costs, but not full capital costs, to consider. We did this for trail period with some success in 2014 / 2015 with the Rail Link bus, using a town minibus in the morniing peak (before school runs) and early evening (after end of normal duties) with great success - on one street this became the busiest bus of the day - BUT it requires the structure and combined marketing for such a service to run permanently.

Both public and private transport have a staggeringly high proportion of empty seats. From our rail experience, people tell us that trains are overcrowded, and yet averaged out over the day 20% of seats occupied is rather good. The TransWilts community rail service does rather better at over 30%. People don't realise just how low these figures are, as they're all crowded onto the busiers services. Most private cars have five seats - but more often than not have just the driver in as they go around, especially on commutes to work. Our observations have shown 1.3 passengers per private vehicle locally in Melksham on the journey to work - a 26% loading. Filling seats at quieter times - perhaps by offering a discount - is an option much used on rail, but brings an added complexity and false peaks much like the concessionary pass dones after 09:30.

• Are commercial services safe under options 1 to 6?

No. Commercial operators can decide at six weeks notice to change or withdraw a service which is not subsidised. Where that's a service which is a longstanding one that's drifted be being unprofitable, whether it's an experiment that hasn't been as popular as was hoped, or whether it relates to a policy change by the operator doesn't make any difference. It's then up to the council to decide whether to subsidise the service to keep it running, to negotiate with other operators to see if they can fill in any wholes left, or to leave passengers to find alternatves. Such changes can rarely be forecast a long way ahead, so any decision to subsidise a service that ceases to be commercial will effect the council's abiity within their budget to subsidise other services.

Case in point ... August 2015, the last commercial service of the day at about 18:30 from Chippenham to Melksham and Trowbridge that took commuters home was withdrawn. Although it conveyed 'several dozen' passengers, no replacement subsidised bus has been provided; the next bus from Chippenham to Trowbridge doesn't tun until 8 O'Clock the next morning.

• What about cutting the salaries of county "Fat Cats" to save money?

You ask about Wiltshire Council salaries. Not my area of expertise, and I would suggest you raise that with your elected councillor (or candidates when the next local election comes up) . But whatever these people are paid, and however the decision to cut bus funding has come about (an interesting question in itself) it remains very much worthwhile us all working together to make for a system that's better tuned for the customer, worthwhile and encouraging for the operator, and will have a minimised requirement for external subsidy funding if any at all.

• Can the Council introduce a small charge per journey for concessionary bus pass holders?

Your frustrations with the distortions imposed not he bus network and system by "bus passes" is widely shared - indeed I can quote Wiltshire Council's FAQ concerning options 1 to 6 which addresses that point:

Q: Can the Council introduce a small additional charge for concessionary bus pass holders (e.g. 50p for each journey) or an annual administration charge for each pass (e.g. £10) or make them means tested?

A: This is not allowed by Government legislation. A number of local authorities, including Wiltshire Council, and other bodies have lobbied the Government on this matter but have been informed that there are no plans to review the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme at this time.

My pragmatic view is that we can't call for this scheme to be changed in our current responses unless we want them to be thrown straight into the "no can do" rubbish bin. We need to ensure that we come up with something that CAN be achieved in and by Wiltshire, works very much with then as far as possible .... and if it has one eye to a future where bus passes are different, then so much the better.

• If the buses were not subsidised and buses run by independent company's how much would the price of a bus ticket be?

For example from pig & whistle to Melksham town asks questioner

I would expect little change in the typical fare level, but overall a simplification of the fare system and a great interchangeability. I think there are different fares from the Pig and Whistle to the Town Centre at present - 1.10 or 1.50 depending on who's bus you catch, and return fares available on one but not the other. That's the sort of "silly" to get sorted!

• Re: cost of fares without subsidy: Route 2 between Devizes and Salisbury is fully funded by Wiltshire Council. If I understand the table published by the Council, each passenger journey cost the Council £1.70 (except, to paraphrase Mrs. Thatcher, it is not the Council's money it is Wiltshire council tax payers' money). So if fares went up by £1.70 I assume the service would break even. Not sure how 'cost' of free bus pass journeys are factored in but as there is no income on the route from concessionary customers I would assume, if we were to pay the fare increase would be reduced.

Route 2 subsidy ... 127,475 journeys, subsidy £216,995 = £1.70 per journey. But there's a hidden extra cost to council and potential saving. 46,666 of the journeys were made on ENCTS ("bus passes") where the council pays around 45% of the single adult fare to the bus operator. A Devizes to Salisbury adult single is £5.50 / lets work on a £4.00 average fare because people don't go all the way, so you're looking at an extra £84,000 - so a grand total of about £300,000 paid by the council. You can argue whether to call that extra 84k a subsidy or not, but the fact remains that if the Salsbury - Devizes bus was totally withdrawn and no alternative offered, the council would save around 300k.

On this route, the proportion of card holders is quite low - on some routes it's over 90% of passengers. And that's a great encouragement to push the adult single fares as high as can be justified, so that they get 45% of a higher figure for card holders. This helps to explain why single fares are high, but returns and all sorts of other tickets are far better value.

• But doesn't everyone have a car?

No. From the 2011 census, the percentage of households without cars in some council wards that don't have a railway station in their town:
Amesbury West 21%
Calne Central 19%
Calne Chilvester 19%
Corsham Pickwick 18%
Corsham Town 17%
Cricklade 12%
Devizes North 35%
Devizes and Roundway South 17%
Ludgershall 15%
Malmesbury 13%
Marlborough East 22%
Marlborough West 15%
Royal Wootton Bassett 16%
Tidworth 13%
Wilton 20%

And for wards in towns with a station te figure is even higher:
Bradford on Avon South 20%
Chippenham Lowden 26%
Frome Market 23%
Melksham Central 22%
Pewsey 17%
Salisbury St Edmunds 34%
Swindon Central 40%
Trowbridge Adcroft 28%
Warmister East 26%
Westbury North 20%

• If the subsidised service is withdrawn, how much extra would the operator need to charge the council for the mandated school service?

Many Wiltshire bus services - both subsidised and commercial - make special runs and cease their normal routes to cater for school journeys, contracted and paid for by Wiltshire Council and something they legally must do. On subsidised services, the capital cost / depreciation of the vehicle is split between the school contract and the subsidised service.

It strikes me that making a saving on the public bus subsidy budget could lead directly to a significant increase in the school bus budget, but I have never seen any figure on this ... does anyone know? Has it been worked out / estimated?

• please give An example of what option 24/7 would encourage

From Facebook

An idea. Reroute the Salisbury to Devizes bus to go from Shrewton to Winterbourne Stoke via the new Stonehange Visitor's Centre. It would add journey opportunities for tourists to use the bus as well as for local residents and help provide a total transport plan. It would bring some more people to Stonehenge by more sustainable bus and a few less by car. It would reduce delays getting out of the road from Shrewton at Winterbourne Stoke. Has anybody at Salisbury Red or Wiltshire Council (who subsidise this service) looked into the possibiliity of it calling at Stonehenge under the current system?

Feedback ... That suggestion is similar to the one I proposed and other Shrewton residents who completed the Pre Consultation document did also. We asked that Wiltshire coincided looking at a service, possibly self funding, doing a circular route taking in Amesbury, Solstice Park, Durrington, Larkhill, Shrewton and the the the Stonehenge Visitors Centre. As you say Amesbury and the industrial/retail park are expanding, as is Larkhill with the Army rebasing. Amesbury is well served by a frequent bus service from Salisbury via the train station. So as Amesbury as our local hub, tourists could get from there to Stonehenge on public transport and Shrewton residents, and residents of the other settlements on the proposed, route could get to work, shop and socialise!

These are EXACTLY the sort of integrated / network thoughts we need to have but - beware - we/you still have to do it within a very tight budget / resource at least initially. If / when the restructured network proves itself it can be enhanced. Ask yourself if the No. 2 from Devizes runs via Stonehenge how it would then integrate with the Stonehenge tourist bus(es) to Salisbury and Wilton. At the moment I can't answer that but I can play Devil's Advocate, ask the question, and ask how we ensure that everyone - be they campaigners with a strong voice but a small group, or a silent majority, get a service that best considers them.

• "I used to be able to walk to my local shop. But is closed and now I have to use the subsidised bus to get to the nearest town. What will I do when the bus no longer runs?"

There's a suggestion with a lot of these cuts that people can / could / should use community buses and the link scheme. However, community buses are already stretched for suitable people to drive (and volunteers only have a few years between retirement and mandatory ceasing to drive a public service vehicle) and although the link scheme covers 98% of the county (we are told) it only covers it very thinly and could't cope if it had to take up a significant proportion of the 2.5 million journeys.

The solution suggested is that the "option 247" approach of a true quality network be adopted, and that will then NOT leave huge holes for the link schemes - just smaller holes they can cope with.

• Are you campaigning against the council?

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