Real-Time Bus Information: North-East

Hannah Bardell Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mary Kelly Foy]

Constituents tell me that real-time data is a huge issue, making it impossible for them to accurately plan their journeys, whether for a very rare dental appointment or to get to school on time. It is even worse for those in smaller rural communities where they are often put off using public services due to infrequent or unreliable bus services. It is really affecting them, especially when they are waiting, as my hon. Friend says, for up to an hour for a bus that may or may not turn up. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that we need to see buses in the north-east taken into public control, like in Manchester?

[Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind hon. Members that interventions should be short.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my hon. Friend for her passionate intervention. I agree with her that local accountability would be a huge improvement, which is why I am excited about Labour’s plans to give every local authority the power to franchise their buses and reverse the ban on municipal bus ownership.

This is what I would like to see: when someone gets off the train at Newcastle Central station and puts into an app one of our wonderful destinations—Benwell, Scotswood garden, St James’ park, Blakelaw community centre, Kenton School—I want them to know when a bus will come to take them there. Does the Minister agree that that must be the test? Why is it not happening?

Nexus, the Tyne and Wear passenger transport executive, told me that the real-time systems for passengers in the north-east are

“fragmented and need both investment and harmonisation”.

Each bus company, whether it is Arriva, Stagecoach or Go North East, has an app and real-time feed, created to its own design and specification, decided by corporate headquarters HQ. I was told that the Arriva app is designed in Germany, making integration more challenging. Apparently, they did not know about the disappearing bus bug until I raised it with them, and they have still failed to respond to my letters. Will the Minister encourage them?

Different operators provide their data feeds to different standards. Should the Government not use their levers—guidance, bus service improvement plans, city region sustainable transport settlements and so on—to ensure greater collaboration and standardisation in real-time bus information provision? Nexus tells me there is no specific duty on bus companies around real-time information that it can enforce, but the previous Minister, the right hon. Member for North West Durham, told me that there is a duty to supply data. Does the Minister believe that local or regional decision makers should have the powers to enforce real-time information delivery to an agreed standard?

As I know from my time working in competition regulation, standardisation does not stunt competition but enhances it, by allowing the best, most innovative apps to win out. When people travel across our region they should not have to download 10 apps in order to do so. There is also the problem that the technical systems and infrastructure underpinning those services do not guarantee a high enough standard of information. They are too open to human error—for example, when drivers decide to change their running boards early in their route—and they cannot account for simple things like a bus being at the start of its route. What are the Government doing to enable improvements in infra- structure, after more than a decade of local government cuts?

It should not take MPs to get bus operators and Government working on this issue. Bus operators should be aware of the failings of their services. Where passengers find an issue, there must be a clear avenue to make a complaint and get redress. I note that the accessible information regulation, which applies to journey information while someone is on a bus, will have a clear complaints enforcement process; why can we not have something similar for the information needed before someone gets on the bus?

The legislation that created BODS requires that the Government publish a review of the regulations at least every five years. That deadline of July 2025 approaches. Specifically, will the Minister confirm that his officials will respond to the issues raised today, and that members of the public, or their representatives, will be able to provide feedback?

Lastly, I want to question why the previous Minister gave such a rosy picture when I asked my question in October, when we all experience such difficulty in accessing real-time bus information. Does the Minister understand the very real issues that bus passengers in the north-east are experiencing? If so, will he retract and condemn the tone struck by his predecessor? It is disgraceful that, when real-time bus information has been standard in London for years, we in the north-east still do not know when and if a bus is going to turn up. It shows what Tory levelling up really means: Geordies left to shiver at bus stops in the dark, both literally and metaphorically. Does the Minister accept that we need a Labour Government to fix our broken bus services? Finally, when did he last take a bus?

--- Later in debate ---

[Guy Opperman]

The situation is that the last bus I took was the 148 last week. [Interruption.]

[Hannah Bardell (in the Chair)]

Order. If Members want to intervene on the Minister, they can do so in the usual way. Shouting from a sedentary position disadvantages not only themselves but the public, who are paying attention to an important debate.

[Guy Opperman]

The 685 and the 122, which are run by two different organisations, are the buses I take in Northumberland.

I will try to address some of the points raised. Clearly, we accept that buses are, without a shadow of a doubt, the most popular form of public transport in our country. They are essential to our national transport system in both urban and rural areas, and they play a vital part in the economy that we all wish to see thrive. In the year ending March 2023, around 128 million passenger journeys were made by local buses in the north-east. That is an increase of 12% compared with 2022. Following the introduction of the £2 fare cap in January 2023, bus fares in England outside London fell by 6.2% between September 2022 and September 2023. I congratulate the many bus operators in the north-east that have signed up to the subsidised £2 fare cap scheme, and I hope that others can see the benefit of doing so.

I will set out the national bus strategy and the bus service improvement plan in a little detail, and will then come to the more substantial questions of the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah). In March 2021, the Government published England’s national bus strategy, setting out the vision for bus services across the country. It sets out how we will deliver better bus services for passengers through ambitious and far-reaching reform.

As a first step, the Government asked every local authority to work with their bus operators to develop the bus service improvement plan—BSIP for short. Those plans are intended to set out each local authority’s vision for improving bus services in its area and to act as a guide to help design local transport networks that are tailor-made for the communities they serve. The central aim of the national bus strategy—to get more people travelling by bus—can only be achieved by making buses a more practical and attractive option for more people. Strong local plans delivered through enhanced partnerships between local transport authorities and bus operators or franchising operators are crucial to achieving that.

The Government have invested over £4.5 billion to support and improve bus services since March 2020. We have consistently provided funding to subsidise local bus services through other routes. We have provided over £200 million a year through the bus service operators grant directly to operators to help keep fares down and maintain extensive bus networks. A further £42 million is provided to local transport authorities annually from the bus service operators grant to subsidise socially necessary bus services; of the 80 English local transport authorities outside London, Nexus receives almost £1 million a year to subsidise services in the north-east through that route. We are also providing funding to local authorities so that older and disabled people up and down the country can travel on buses for free. That is a concessionary scheme that costs around £1 billion per year.

Further funding of £2 billion has been allocated to prevent reductions to bus services following the pandemic, £1 billion of which was allocated in 2022 to help local authorities deliver their bus service improvement plans. Subsequently, the Prime Minister announced an extra £1 billion in bus service improvement plan funding—redirected from the High Speed 2 decision—to deliver improved bus services in the north and the midlands as part of Network North.