Bus Services: Covid-19 Emergency Funding

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

I am always grateful to receive a Question from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, but today it was a particularly good one. We will be working with all the local transport authorities as they not only put in place their best service improvement plans, but also make best use of this funding. We have service levels running at approximately 90% while current patronage is approximately 77% and within that there are some quite significant regional variations. For example, we know that in the West Midlands people use buses more than elsewhere. Particularly with the Commonwealth Games coming up, we are very cognisant that we need to keep local transport running.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on today’s announcement and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. Buses matter a great deal, especially to the elderly and to poorer travellers. Does my noble friend agree that we could do more with technology by drawing on best practice and smartphone ticketing to link buses and coaches to each other as well as to railway stations, trams and city centres, thereby improving value for money and making public transport more competitive?

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton (Con)]

My noble friend raises a very important point which is at the front of the mind of the department: how do we make the best use of technology? It is not necessarily for the Government to step in and develop the technology themselves. However, there are different ways that we see various app providers being able to integrate with multiple transport modes. What we can do is provide them with the data they need for their apps. This is why, a couple of years ago, we launched the bus open data service which puts information out there in an open fashion concerning, for example, routes, live locations of buses, and fares and ticketing systems—the latter can sometimes be very complicated. We hope to simplify that, and we think that the apps can help.