All new governments have a tendency to change departmental names to signify change. Civil servants at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, for example, have seen changes in the title over the door in 2006, 2018, 2021, and again this year. The Department of Transport has taken a different approach with new Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh, introducing a new motto for her department: move fast and fix things.
The new ministerial team are certainly showing signs of moving fast, heralded by the Transport Secretary's launch of a 'bus revolution' which I attended in Oldham earlier this month and the announcement of a Better Buses Bill in the King's Speech. But what things are they trying to fix?
So far the new government has been much clearer on changes to the regulatory framework than on the outcomes it wants to achieve. Local leaders and their communities will be allowed to 'take back control' of bus services whether through franchising or public ownership. We can expect some reasonably rapid change to shorten the franchising process and to make it available to all transport authorities. The role of public ownership is less clear and, indeed, the spread of franchising could put at risk our existing publicly-owned operators.
Meanwhile, there are some clues to the outcomes the new government wants to achieve: The new Transport Secretary has talked about saving and creating bus routes, about improving reliability and - in Labour's plans for the rail industry - about the need to persuade many more people to shift from car to more sustainable modes. In other words, it seems like the new government wants pretty much the same outcomes we in the industry do: more buses, operating more reliably, attracting more people to take the bus. It's a good basis upon which to build an industry-government partnership.
CPT believes there are some crucial elements to achieve the outcomes which both we and the new government are striving for. Faster buses, with more reliable journey times are a win-win, delivering an immediate passenger benefit and an efficiency saving which can stimulate growth in supply. Long-term funding will help local authorities and partner operators adopt a longer-term perspective and approach where initiatives to grow the network and attract more passengers are much more likely to succeed.
Keeping fares both simple and low can also encourage people to give bus a go. Subsidising fares for young people could be particularly successful in creating a sustainable shift in travel behaviours as well as supporting access to education and employment for those that need it the most. Conversely, the shock to passenger confidence of an abrupt end to the £2 fare cap on new year's eve is an early beartrap the new government will need to avoid.
Regulatory change can also help deliver positive outcomes. Early experience in Greater Manchester shows that local leaders with skin in the game are much more likely to deliver bus priority, to get to grips with the management of roadworks and – perhaps most important of all – to talk buses up rather than portray them (and, by extension, everyone who works in the industry or uses our services) as 'failing' or 'broken'.
There are of course a variety of ways to give local leaders more influence, control and capacity to build the type of locally-led networks the government wants to see. Different shades of franchising are available and the enhanced partnership framework encompasses a huge breadth and depth of partnerships which are only now being explored. Different approaches will be right in different places – otherwise, what's the point of devolution? And it's critical that the government supports local leaders to succeed at 'fixing things', in a wide variety of ways, and fast.
