HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL

Report

1. Purpose of Report

1.1. To provide Members with an update on areas of work addressed in the scrutiny review of Transport in the Community.

2. Contextual Information

2.1. The Environment and Transportation Select Committee initiated a review of Transport in the Community in 2007. The work was undertaken by a scrutiny review group which comprised elected members and a transport specialist. The review group considered all the evidence received and prepared a report on its findings, which included a number of recommendations.

2.2. A response to the recommendations was presented by the Executive Member for Environment to the Select Committee on 20 September 2008 and a timetable for monitoring the responses was agreed.

2.3. On 21 July 2009 the Select Committee requested a report for the October 2009 meeting to provide Members with information on the Passenger Transport Forums, to supply details of costs involved with the Yellow Bus scheme and to provide further information on the Scottish bus subsidy matrix which is being evaluated currently.

3. Passenger Transport Forums

3.1. Seven Passenger Transport Forums are held twice a year across the county, facilitated by the County Council. These take place in Basingstoke, East Hampshire, Hart and Rushmoor, Havant, New Forest, Test Valley and Winchester. Basingstoke and Havant have been introduced in the last year. There are plans for a further two forums be created to cover the areas of Eastleigh, Fareham and Gosport before the end of 2009.

3.2. Passenger Transport Forums give an opportunity for a wide variety of organisations to meet together to discuss passenger transport issues and needs in their local area and learn about those in other areas in case they identify local relevance and application.

3.3. In the latest round of forum meetings, following the recommendation of the Select Committee, each forum has selected the `themes' it wishes to see covered in forthcoming meetings. Forum members are encouraged to suggest themes, submit questions or proposals and invite relevant non-members. These meetings also offer the opportunity for organisations to present a local transport issue for discussion of possible solutions and identify joint working opportunities.

4. Pilot Update - Yellow Bus

4.1. The Yellow Bus pilot is one of four Home to School Transport pilots implemented in 2006/07. The others are BusIT using local buses in Eastleigh and dedicated school buses on the Waterside and walking and cycling in Farnborough. The key aims of the pilots were to:

(i) reduce congestion associated with the number of journeys to school by car; and

(ii) improve attendance and deliver children `ready to learn'.

4.2. The Yellow Bus pilot comprises three vehicles which operate in Basingstoke and serve five schools: Aldworth College, Kempshott Infants, Kempshott Primary, Park View Infants and Park View Primary.

4.3. The budget for the current 2009/10 financial year is £132,000 which equates to a subsidy of £3.97 per trip.

4.4. The Yellow Bus operation in Basingstoke was visited by the Yellow School Bus Commission and its report in September 2008 described the scheme as very successful. For Aldworth and Kempshott the service is now full with a waiting list. A survey of Yellow Bus in the participating schools found:

(i) 740 respondents

(ii) 14% travelled by bus

(iii) 96% aware of scheme

(iv) 61% previously travelled by car

(v) 60% feel journey has improved

(vi) 10% non-users would consider in future

(vii) `fun way to travel to school' - Aldworth pupil

(viii) `gives child confidence and independence' - Kempshott parent.

In terms of the congestion and carbon reduction impact, analysis showed:

(i) 73 trips are removed from outside the Basingstoke schools between 08:20-08:30;

(ii) time saving per family is 18 minutes per day (66 hours a day or over 12,000 hours per year);

(iii) journeys saved, approximately 300,000 kilometres per annum (or seven times around the earth); and

(iv) CO² saving 69 metric tonnes a year.

4.5 With regard to the cost of the Yellow Bus pilot, in terms of operation and survey costs, these are shown below together with the costs for the other three pilots over the period of the pilot from 2006/07, including forecast costs until summer 2010.

Costs to Date Forecast Budget

5. Bus Subsidy Mechanism Review

5.1. Following presentation of an initial proposal, based on work in Surrey, to members from this Select Committee, work was undertaken to assess best practice nation-wide and to examine the effect that any new approach would have on the existing subsidised network. It was found that there was no one favoured way of prioritising subsidised services, that the importance given to value for money or social inclusion contrasted greatly between different authorities, that some systems were overly complex and the interface between public transport and community transport was not well handled.

5.2. Of the many approaches reviewed, a system used by a Scottish authority which used simple numeric scores for usage, value, social inclusion, employment and alternatives was considered worthy of further development and is now being worked up. Introduction of Accession data to identify social inclusion issues and tipping points in cost and usage levels, at which community transport or taxi-share options would be more appropriate, are being evaluated and it is anticipated that work will be completed later in the autumn.

5.3. The subsidy matrix evaluates service against a set of six criteria:

(i) service usage

(ii) accessibility

(iii) social inclusion (employment)

(iv) social inclusion (isolation)

(v) financial

(vi) sustainability.

5.4. Each element attracts a score from 0 to 5 and services can be ranked according to the overall score achieved and a minimum threshold could be set, with weightings to reflect urban or rural setting.

5.5. By considering support against a range of headings, rather than an across the board financial threshold as currently used, account can be taken of local facilities or alternative transport provision. The Department for Transport software package, Accession, supplemented by Mosaic data, provide information on the location of local shops or employment centres. Passenger Transport Group data show the availability of community transport provision and the frequency and proximity of alternative bus services which can be ranked in terms of convenience and usability.

5.6. Priority can be given to those trips which meet key journey purposes such as health, and social inclusion priorities such as access to employment; the former according to whether the route serves the local doctor's surgery or health centre, the latter according to journey time and destination served.

5.7. Access to services may involve local delivery of services as well as providing transport and the bus is not the only means of transport available, so a service which carried less than 25 passengers a day might be more effectively replaced with an alternative such as a taxi-share or community transport service in both financial and carbon reduction terms.

5.8. Consideration is also given to social inclusion in terms of isolation. To what extent would the absence of a service preclude access to the doctor or local shopping facilities? Accession mapping will allow measurement of the proportion of the population unable to access these facilities if the service was not provided and a score given to reflect this.

5.9. Financial performance would be measured in terms of subsidy per trip, as now, but with graduated score values with a tipping point where a non-bus alternative would be considered and a ceiling beyond which support would not be provided.

5.10. Services would be evaluated in terms of sustainability, that is to say the extent to which the service operates at times of day or days of the week when demand is traditionally low, for example Sundays or evenings. This complements the score for passenger usage and seeks to prioritise support towards journeys which not only meet demand but are seen as having the best prospects of continued operation.

5.11. Evaluating services according to measurable characteristics, such as passengers carried, time of journey, subsidy per passenger trip and proximity to alternatives, offers the prospect of a more equitable and objective way of directing support. Consideration of journey purpose enables accessibility priorities and social inclusion objectives to be met, whilst use of Accession and Mosaic identifies access to key services and the availability of local facilities shows the extent to which users may be dependent on the service. Financial measures ensure best use of finite resources and thresholds at which non-bus alternatives become more appropriate.

5.12. Evaluation of selected services in a variety of settings will be carried out in the autumn to test both the usability of the approach and the resulting outputs before presentation to the Executive Member for Environment.

2193/PS

IMPACT ASSESSMENTS:

1. Equalities Impact Assessment:

1.1. Not applicable.

2. Impact on Crime and Disorder:

2.1. Not applicable.

3. Climate Change:

a) How does what is being proposed impact on our carbon footprint / energy consumption?

The Yellow Bus pilot is estimated to save 69 metric tonnes of CO² per annum.

b) How does what is being proposed consider the need to adapt to climate change, and be resilient to its longer term impacts?

The measures are intended to assist with the delivery of efficient and effective transport which offers an alternative to the private car.