Beyond the charge

THAT Manchester’s proposed congestion charge got a big thumbs down from the voters clearly marks the end of the plan to use Transport Innovation Fund cash to boost the region’s public transport. But the need to improve transport services to preserve mobility and avoid ever-worsening congestion remains. The ‘no’ vote in the TIF referendum solved nothing. It simply side-stepped the issue.

And it has left the Greater Manchester PTE, the local councils and the bus operators looking for a new way forward.

“Post-TIF there are still discussions going on, but on the basis there is no secured funding,” says Gradyn Thompson, general manager of the Greater Manchester Bus Operators’ Association. “The PTE’s aspiration is to have a network which in their eyes doesn’t have ‘wasteful competition’ but at minimal cost. The next phase is discussion with operators looking at their networks and how they could be improved with whatever funding might become available.”

This could see the adoption of a combination of de minimis contracts, Kickstart funding and normal commercial operation. Or, if all else failed, Quality Contracts. “There are always Quality Contracts looming in the background as a sledgehammer to crack a nut,” says Thompson.

But he understands the politicians’ concerns. “Politicians want to see improvements,” he continues. “They want tangible evidence that things are moving forward on routes and frequencies. If these improvements focus on delivering tangible and affordable passenger benefits then the bus operators will be very supportive, but there isn’t a blank cheque from either the government or the operators to fund unrealistic political aspirations.”

The PTE, with GMBOA, is planning to establish standards for vehicles used on services run as Quality Partnerships, while Greater Manchester Travelcards, of which Thompson is also general manager and which is owned jointly by the region’s transport operators, is examining new ways of ticketing. This includes smartcards and any other technology which would make travel easier.

On vehicles there will probably be an achievable minimum environmental standard – say Euro 3, later moving on to Euro 5 – for Quality Partnership routes, and a minimum accessibility requirement which would be the existing DDA standards. There won’t be a return to the bad old days of the 1990s when PTEs and other tendering authorities had their own, sometimes idiosyncratic, requirements for improving disabled access.

“We see a nice steady improvement in standards of cleanliness and interior design, without hard and fast rules,” says Thompson. “Thoughts of fancy, and expensive, artics haven’t been ruled out, but there’s the realisation that they can’t be paid for from the congestion charge. There’s got to be a good business case for that sea-change in vehicles to come about.”

On ticketing a London-style Oyster card is favoured by the PTE, but Thompson points out that no-one has yet developed a successful multi-operator smartcard. Oyster and similar cards elsewhere work because there is only one authority collecting the revenue. “People think that smartcards are a panacea and that they do everything except the washing up,” he says. “It’s a different world outside London.”

To work properly in a region like Greater Manchester, smartcard users would need to touch in and touch out as they got on and off buses, trams and trains to ensure the operator was correctly reimbursed for the journey made. And while he flags up the problems, Thompson is optimistic that there will be at least one single-operator smartcard within the next three years.

There could also be co-ordinated branding on quality corridors, to distinguish those routes.

Manchester is at the heart of the region and the city council has a long-term aim to make the best use of the available road space. Following the collapse of the TIF proposals a revised regional transport strategy is being developed by the Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority and will soon be going out to consultation. One possibility will be the development of new cross-city routes. “These are a good idea in some respects,” says Thompson, “but buses will need clear passage through the city centre if the services are to operate reliably.”

But Manchester city council has in the past talked about excluding buses from the central area, and that’s something GMBOA and its members would clearly be concerned about. “We don’t want to introduce new vehicles for cross-city services and then have the city council come along and say they’re going to close key roads,” Thompson says.

Of course now is not the best time to be discussing the whole idea of improving transport services, with bus use down by between 5 and 10 per cent across the region. “We’re being asked to improve frequencies and provide new vehicles, which is difficult to do on the back of reduced patronage and income,” Thompson continues.

“Operators’ appetites for risk-taking are eroded a little because patronage is down.”

GMBOA exists to protect and promote the interests of the region’s bus operators, most of whom are members. And all the region’s major operators of regular services are part of Greater Manchester Travelcards. That organisation, which promotes itself as System One Travel, was formed in 1993 to provide multi-operator tickets. It is co-owned by the region’s bus, train and tram operators and claims to be the largest integrated ticketing system in the UK outside London.

It is promoted through a range of media – newspapers, radio and on the vehicles – and System One branding is now featured in the PTE’s central Manchester travel bureau. “Seven-day and 28-day tickets are sold through PayPoint outlets. Effectively people can buy a ticket any time of the week and most hours of the day,” explains Thompson.
With some 800 outlets and long opening hours at many shops, PayPoint is a big improvement over the previous deal with the Post Office which had fewer outlets and restricted opening hours. There is also a range of day tickets which are sold on buses.

The System One tickets help make it easier to use public transport. “We know that many people who don’t use public transport think it is complicated,” Thompson continues. “Ask a car user, and they will say it’s complicated and expensive. Ask a bus user and they will say it’s not complicated.”

Thompson has been general manager at the bus operators’ association and Greater Manchester Travelcards for 18 months, but has a life-long involvement in transport including 25 years with Maynes of Manchester. His career started as an engineering apprentice with Bullocks of Cheadle, and he also spent five years with another Manchester area operator, Finglands, before joining Maynes in 1983. There was even a short spell in coach sales with Yeates of Loughborough at the end of the 1970s. “I realised that wasn’t my cup of tea,” he says.

But his long association with bus operation in Greater Manchester and his hands-on experience as general manager at Maynes makes him the right man in the right place as the region explores the options for improving public transport in a world without TIF support.

One benefit of the whole TIF exercise, and the co-operation it required between the various players in Manchester’s transport is summed up by Thompson: “It improved relationships, and there’s now a better spirit of partnership than there has ever been.”