Bristol City Council to review bus services

Bristol City Council has announced a major review into bus services in the city – passengers will be asked to provide feedback on whether the existing network of bus routes, many of which have been largely unaltered for decades, are suitable to meet the current needs of customers, particularly as there have been significant recent changes in the demand for travel for employment and for leisure and retail shopping activities, as well as the impact of new housing areas in the city.

Major changes for Wilts and Dorset child fares

Wilts and Dorset have announced major changes to the company’s fares for children and young people. Children between the ages of five and fourteen inclusive can currently travel on Wilts and Dorset buses at a child fare (calculated at approximately fifty-five per cent of the adult fare), except before 0900hrs on Monday to Friday morning. From Saturday 13 February, child fares (calculated at approximately seventy per cent of the adult fare) will be available for young people between the ages of seven and eighteen inclusive – children under the age of seven will travel free. The morning peak restriction will be withdrawn from Monday 15 February and the revised child fares will be available throughout the day, except on Friday and Saturday night buses in Bournemouth and Poole and on certain college services.

Concessionary fares – special grants

The Department for Transport (DfT) has announced changes to the special grants to be paid to the travel concession authorities for the year commencing 1 April 2010, in order to ensure that the grant allocations better match the additional costs incurred since the England-wide ‘free’ off-peak bus travel was introduced for the elderly and disabled in April 2008 – the re-allocation is based on comparing the actual spending incurred by the travel concession authorities for the years ended 31 March 2008 and 31 March 2009. No additional monies are been allocated to the scheme – the changes are simply designed to re-allocate the same sum of money in a ‘more equitable way’. The alterations to special grants paid to the following unitary and district councils in South West England are as follows:-

Bath and North East Somerset	plus £480k
Bournemouth						plus £70k
North Somerset					plus £160k
South Gloucestershire			plus £390k
Torbay							plus £580k

Cheltenham						plus £90k
Cotswold						minus £90k
East Dorset						minus £90k
Exeter							plus £1650k
Mid Devon						minus £120k
North Devon						minus £360k
North Dorset					minus £120k
Purbeck							minus £120k
South Hams						minus £240k
Torridge						minus £150k
West Devon 						minus £100k
West Dorset						minus £190k
West Somerset					minus £180k

South West England				plus £880k

Simplification of bus and coach speed limits

The Department for Transport (DfT) has launched a consultation to vary the existing motorways speed limits for buses and coaches. Vehicles licensed to carry eight or more passengers are currently subject to motorway speed limits of seventy miles per hour if the length of the bus or coach does not exceed twelve metres or sixty miles per hour if the length of the bus or coach exceeds twelve metres – the DfT is proposing an uniform motorway speed limit of sixty-five miles per hour for all buses and coaches, irrespective of length.

Rail safety shows continued improvement

The annual rail safety report, published by the Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB), reveals further improvement in safety on Britain’s railways in 2009 – for the fourth year in the last five, there were no passenger or workforce fatalities in train accidents. There were five passenger fatalities at railway stations in 2009 and thirteen people were killed in accidents at level crossings. The report records that two hundred and sixty-four category A signals were passed at danger (SPAD) last year, the lowest total since records started in 1985. The RSSB considers that more action is required by the railway industry to minimise passenger fatalities at railway stations and level crossings.

Sales of CrossCountry E-tickets rise

The train operating company, CrossCountry, has announced that it has sold over seventy-six thousand ‘print-at-home’ e-tickets since the online initiative was launched in November 2008 – e-tickets now amount to over twelve per cent of online ticket sales from the CrossCountry web site.

And finally,

North Somerset Council has demanded that a local bus operator, North Somerset Coaches, pay six hundred and seventy-nine pounds to the local authority for altering the printed timetable at seventy bus stops for a weekly service between Backwell and Cribbs Causeway – the service generates a weekly revenue of approximately one hundred and fifty pounds. The council has rejected a proposal from the company to print new timetables and display them at the relevant bus stops. North Somerset Coaches is now threatening to withdraw this ‘commercial’ bus service, which was previously provided with financial support from the local authority! <