How the transport select committee can refocus on the projects that matter

Today in many parts of the country our transport network is too hard to use, fragmented & often a service lottery. Large future projects, such as Northern Powerhouse Rail, are much needed and much argued over. Proponents correctly highlight the positive economic impact of connecting people & freight better.

These arguments are equally valid for the here & now but seem to get less focus. Who in central government is going to achieve a promotion doing the hard technical thinking which connects a bus service with a rail service with a new cycle scheme so they work as a whole for a community? Who in local government has the power & capacity to do the same when funding pots sit in Whitehall or Combined Authorities?

We need to do more to Join up the Dots of our current services as well as focus on the longer term, central government should facilitate local leaders be that through technology, planning or powers. Doing so, often with smaller schemes and lower financial investment costs can unlock major economic and societal benefits. Mayors & combined authorities properly empowered are part of the answer but we lose too much time waiting for further deals. We need better focus now.

There is innovation to be celebrated and built upon, the Restoring your Railways programme was hugely oversubscribed with positive cases made in every corner of the country. It’s a credit to the DfT and the Government, let’s see more of this and stop trying to outsource small to medium sized transport infrastructure projects to DLHUC via levelling up fund bids while we’re at it.

As schemes like the above show, working together local leaders & MPs have potential solutions to these problems. Perhaps there is a freight line which could be a huge boon to locals if converted to passenger services as well. Like the Robin Hood line extension. It’s not a huge conversion cost and links communities into Nottingham as the regional hub. Why wait for the yet another period of lengthy strategic decision making? Let’s get public and private capital working together better and crack on.

Could we replace a Beeching line rail cut with a shuttle bus service? Less stops and more direct, think National Express on a sub regional scale. And for our existing bus services they are often unusable as there is a black hole of uncertainty about when/if it will turn up.

If the takeaway food delivery sector can track their riders to your door, why can’t we work in partnership with the private sector and do the same. Lets retro fit tracking technology to our current fleet, and I bet you a pound, service use will increase because people know when the service is going to be there. Let’s enhance on request bus services which are successfully starting in some local council areas with the same tech too.

Government can and must bring greater focus to bear on the here and now, not just the big sexy infrastructure projects which attract the finest minds and the biggest budgets. There is much to do to solve our problems in the near term. This thinking is hard, technical, less capital intensive, more people orientated and frankly not supported enough locally or nationally. Crossing arbitrary local authority boundaries is something we do with people, ideas, goods and money every day as businesses seek to grow, let’s get better at doing it for transport too.

I want to be both practical and strategic to serve all our communities best. That’s why I want to chair the House of Commons Transport Select Committee.

 

 

Deeper Dive: Why Buses?

🚍 Better Buses are the answer.

👉 We need to use them innovatively to create point to point fast service connections which join up our existing dots

• Between commuter areas & rail stations
• Between trading estate & employers
• Between Port, airports & their customers.
• Across county, council, combined authority & city borders. Too often these government administrative boundaries mark the end of a service, when local economies cross over them.
  • Crossing Local Transport authority borders can be disjointed on public or personal transport – these are artificial barriers we need to use government to bridge not re-enforce

👉 We need to transform the usability of local existing bus services outside of London with technology & build on the good start of the Bus Service improvement plans (BSIP)  

• Push technology to make local services more useable & reliable.
• Retro fit technology to track bus locations & enable apps telling people when their bus is due & where it is. Reliable knowledge is the key to usability
• Drive integrated ticketing across different bus providers, across county / city administrative borders & include local rail

👉 Better highlight the strong Value for Money (BCR) Benefit Cost Ratios that buses present

👉 Drive decarbonisation further by building on the Zero Emission bus schemes and reducing road traffic to improve local environments