Letter to MP about bus franchising in Birmingham

Dear ,

I read a report in the Birmingham Post today:
http://www.birminghampost.net/birmingham-business/birmingham-business-news/businesslatest/2011/06/30/rail-coach-and-bus-sales-drive-national-express-rise-65233-28969859/
which states in very factual terms that National Express have had a
good year and driven up profits 6%. It then goes on to say that they
did this primarily by charging passengers more (increasing the price
of travelcards 20% at a time of great financial uncertainty for the
people who rely most on the bus) and by cutting rural or less-popular
services (again, hitting the poorest hardest).

However, NXWM can get away with this as they run the vast majority of
bus services in Birmingham and commercial competition is practically
zero. Buses are important to people in this city (up to 1 million
journeys per day according to NXWM's own literature) and those without
access to cars, such as students, pensioners, and poorer households,
rely on them the most. Surely the operator of such a vital public
service shouldn't be allowed to hold the city to ransom for the sake
of increasing its profits?

Labour introduced the Local Transport Act in 2008 which allows
transport bodies such as Centro to specify the routes and fares which
should be run in an area, and to allow bus operators to bid for the
exclusive right to run services on these routes. Bad operators can be
fined if they fail on punctuality or fail to bring in agreed
improvements. London was spared the disastrous deregulation of buses
which occured during the Major years, and bus travel has continued to
increase in that time far beyond the growth levels seen in Birmingham
and other deregulated areas. However, Centro have continuously ignored
these powers, preferring to work on a voluntary partnership basis
which has led to a monopoly commercial operator holding the city to
ransom, and frustratingly slow take-up of new technology (which is now
standard in other areas of the country) such as smart card ticketing,
reliable real-time bus information, and audible announcements of the
next stop.

Franchising of bus routes in Birmingham would be fairer for
passengers, and fairer for other bus operators who are currently
effectively shut out due to NXWM's monopoly. I would urge you to look
further into this issue and do whatever you can to ensure the people
of Birmingham can travel to work, college, and the hospital without
being held to ransom by an out-of-control monopolistic operator.

Best regards,

Mark Rowan

Birmingham Oyster cards on their way!

According to Centro the roll-out of smartcard ticketing machines on all the West Midlands buses* is now complete. Currently the card readers can only be used by national Concessionary passes, but plans for paid Oyster-style ticketing are apparently in the pipeline.

Optimistically, it looks as if Centro might even be implementing some of the policies which I called for in my previous post: "passengers [will] pre-load their card with cash which is then deducted as it is used on the public transport network, regardless of which bus company’s service they get on", indicating that the card will indeed be an integrated Network West Midlands-branded product rather than simply directly deducting different amounts electronic cash depending on which bus operator's vehicle a passenger gets on. The other piece of good news is that Centro "are also looking at giving Smartcard holders discounted fares" just like in London, which will be a massive boost for the ever-increasingly squeezed West Midlands public transport users.

Let's just hope the roll-out occurs trouble-free, and before the short-sighted Tory cuts to bus services drives a critical mass of passengers away from public transport forever.



*Except for the smaller companies with rather dodgy-looking and shabby buses who, presumably, are just there to make money off the Concessionary scheme by under-cutting the established bus operators.

Metro Development

After my post on the new Midland Metro extension proposal I asked Centro about their confidence in the new proposals. Judging by their response they seem pretty up-beat about the chances of success this time around. Maybe after 10 years of swimming upstream against Government policies which discriminate against trams it looks like we may at last be on the cusp of achieving a tram network to be proud of in the West Midlands.

Metro Development

Thank you for your email regarding the future Metro development projects to bring more tram services to the streets of the West Midlands.

It was very encouraging to read that you fully support our proposals.  Please follow the link below to our press release earlier this year, which sets out exactly what Centro is proposing:

http://centro.journalistpresslounge.com/centro/news/index.cfm/fuseaction/details/id/
A6C15BB3-13D3-97AA-
2D049A95F30F7EA0/cnt/1/ref/main/type/news%20releases/ses/1.cfm

The decision to give this scheme the go-ahead is due in the new year and this decision will be taken by the Department for Transport (DfT). Centro are confident that the bid is extremely robust and that we have done everything possible to explain the benefits to the DfT of this scheme.  Once a decision has been reached, I can assure you this will be widely publicised and full details will be available from Centro at the time.

I hope the above information is helpful and would like to thank you for taking the time to contact Centro and for your interest in this project.

Midland Metro extension finally to go ahead?

It looks like the Midland Metro Line 1 extension plans are back on the table! The Metro has been running for 10 years but currently suffers from low usage, which therefore makes it appear unattractive to extend it and to give Birmingham a world-class integrated transport system such as Zurich's. This is in no small part because "Midland Metro Line 1 currently terminates at Snow Hill, short of (and beneath) the heart of the city centre. [...] Midland Metro is therefore not seen by many city centre visitors as the preferred public transport option to access city centre destinations. Indeed for many, Midland Metro is not seen at all. Being within Snow Hill Station and down an escalator the stop and the trams, the most obvious visual signal for the system, are out of sight from street level and out of mind for many." (Centro Metro Strategic Case document).


Having spent time in Zurich and other European cities I am firmly convinced that trams should form the backbone of a city's transport network, with buses and heavy rail providing the secondary support network. This is due to the tram's high visibility, which encourages people simply to hop-on and off as needed, as even when a tram is not present the tram lines in the street indicate very clearly that "this is a tram route". This makes it far easier for passengers to plan their journeys, as buses by their nature follow the winding roads of a city and its suburbs and it can be difficult to work out which buses go where, or the best locations to change buses.

With trams, passengers benefit from a relatively low (and therefore simpler) number of high-capacity routes [compare a 200-passenger tram with 50-80 seats on a bus] which are clearly denoted both on maps, due to the non-requirement to follow winding suburban roads, and of course on the streets themselves.

Centro have updated their website with details of the city centre extension we've already heard before, but with a brand new (October 2009) business case and strategy, showing a very clear proposal to bring the Metro right into the heart of Birmingham, thus making it a visible and attractive option for pedestrians and shoppers in the city centre to travel towards Wolverhampton, and indeed fulfilling the long-missing option of a transport link between Snow Hill station and the soon-to-be-redeveloped New Street station.

 
This should hopefully increase usage of the Metro by quite large levels, and in turn make future extensions along the Hagley Road, to the Airport, and elsewhere in the region more commercially viable.

The Strategy document also shows an intriguing map of a proposed "West Midlands Rapid Transit Network". It denotes the existing rail network in green, as well as the proposals for re-opening links through Kings Heath and Moseley. But also, in purple, are new 'Rapid Transit' links which appear to follow the other proposed Metro extensions on Centro's site (such as the Quinton and Brierley Hill extensions). The proposed rapid transit network appears fairly comprehensive and it will be exciting to see a modern metro system finally running on the streets of Birmingham to destinations such as the University and hospital, M5 park and ride, Merry Hill, and the Airport.

All we now have to hope is that Centro can indeed raise the required money from the Government -- never an easy task at the best of times.

(Images in this post courtesy of Centro).

Back in Brum

I'm now back in Birmingham! I've left my engineering office job at BAE Systems in Bristol and moved back after nearly two years to my adopted home city to become a student again and take on a PhD.

It's weird being back after time away. Everything looks and feels familiar in a strange way, and though I still know my way around fine, it also feels like most of my experiences here are distant memories from my 'previous student days'. Hopefully as I re-settle in a bit more I'll find my feet and it'll feel properly like home again, and if/when I travel again to Bristol it'll feel instead like that's the place that I used to live in and have moved on from.

Of course, visiting my family and friends in Wycombe and London will always throw that out of kilter, too ;)

Birmingham bus network map

I recently spent a lot of time searching for a definitive map of the multitude of bus services available in Birmingham, and finally came across Network West Midlands' site, which contains some very useful dowloadable bus network maps covering the entire of Birmingham and the other West Midlands bus networks.

If these are available in hard-copy pamphlet form as well, that would be very useful for planning journeys around the city!

Birmingham Oyster

Following a story run earlier in the year in the Birmingham Mail announcing that "Birmingham commuters [are] to get London-style smart cards", I wrote to Centro to enquire about the current state of this project. This was their response:

Thank you for your further email regarding the introduction of Smartcards within the Network West Midlands area.

Centro is due to implement a Smartcard system across the Network West Midlands area by December 2009 that will record journeys in a similar manner to Oyster Cards used in London, for Concessionary Travel Pass Holders Only. The current arrangement is that we provide a subsidy to operators for each journey concessionary pass holders make.

Once this system of travel has become firmly established Centro will carry out a review of their integrated ticketing strategy which will involve looking at best practices occurring across the globe, and significant market research, in order to assess local demand for this type of product. We recognise the need to introduce a simpler and flexible ticket product and are taking positive steps in order to achieve this goal.

However I must point out that fares in London are set locally by Transport for London who finances public transport in the Greater London area. Birmingham operates within a de-regulated environment and operators receive commercial income from fares charged to consumers. Agreement will have to be reached beforehand with all operators (Bus, Train & Metro) before the introduction of this
style of tickets can be considered.

Although it sounds like the powers-that-be want to see this sort of system eventually introduced to Birmingham's public transport system, I also detect hints that it's a much larger task than initially reported, and it could be years before we see anything on the scale of London's Oyster system, if ever. Although I remain hopeful, I can't help but feel pessimistic about the prospects for a truly integrated system in West Midlands, short of the council stumping up the cash to buy out all of the various operators currently fighting for fragments of the market and imposing it from the top down. Damn privatisation.

Integrated transport in Birmingham

I'm a real believer in fully-integrated public transport systems, like that found in Zurich or even London. In Zurich, trams and trains make up the bulk of people-carrying capacity on a number of main lines, and strategic bus routes link the ends and mid-points of these lines together. All fares are based on paying for the zone in which you're travelling, regardless of the mode of transport used. It's a fantastic system, and it really works, as evidenced by the incredibly low numbers of cars on the roads of the Swiss financial capital. London's system adds the highly-successful Oyster smart-card ticketing solution, meaning you can hop from one mode of transport to another at will and know that you will always pay the lowest possible fare for your journey or journeys.

Move up the road a bit to Birmingham, however, and unfortunately the picture is very different. Although the system of main train lines exists and is reasonably well-used, and bus coverage of the city is practically complete, the two modes of transport are completely separate, even in competition with each other in places.

A student living in Selly Oak has the choice of three bus routes or the train to get into the City Centre and back; at £3.30 return on the bus (with a TWM daysaver) or a faster journey for £1.10 on the train (with a 16-25 railcard; £1.70 without) the choice is obvious; so why is so much resource on the buses being diverted to duplicate the train route on the road? As another example, travelling from point to point in the city will cost more and require different tickets if you have to go by both train and bus for some of the route, if you have to change to a second bus, and if your bus journey is two fare stages or less in length.

In short, the system is totally fragmented and running in competition with itself, to the ultimate detriment of the passengers of Birmingham. This isn't even taking into account the 50-odd different bus operators in the region, none of whom accept each others' tickets. It's a bit of a mess, and the transport authorities realise this (see my next post for an email on the subject from Centro's customer relations executive). Centro are doing their bit for the moment to bring in an 'integrated' ticket which they're calling the nnetwork, valid on buses, trains, and trams in the West Midlands. But even this has its issues -- the one-day nbus card costs more, at £3.60, than the biggest bus operator's daysaver (£3.30), so unless your journey absolutely requires the use of two or more operators' services, there is no incentive whatsoever to purchase it. The ticket for all three modes of transport costs a whopping £6.50 a day. And again, the very fact that the transport system is so segregated into "bus, train and tram" goes against the whole principle of an integrated, well-thought-out transport system as we've seen in Zurich and many other European cities.

Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go in Birmingham to achieve a truly integrated public transport system which will actually tempt people out of their cars.