TRANSPORT - BUSES

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In the 19th century, a railway line linked Mickleover to the city centre. It travelled from Station Road, alongside Slack Lane and Uttoxeter Old Road and on to Friar Gate. Beyond Mickleover, the line went on to Burton or Stafford. Now, nearly 130 years later, the city council is looking at plans to resurrect the line and use buses instead of trains. As part of the council's proposals for improving public transport in the city, it is looking at making a dedicated, bus-only expressway along the route of the old line, known as the Mick-Mack line.

Council leader Councillor Chris Williamson said, "The Mick-Mack route would be a traffic-free link between Mickleover and the city and Mackworth and the city centre. It would be a major overhaul of our transport system in the city. We would be looking at high-frequency buses, possibly every three minutes, which would let people get straight in to the city. It would almost be like a taxi service for those people living in Mickleover and Mackworth but they would not get stuck in traffic."

Peter Price, head of transportation at the city council, said, "We know from our own modelling work and from the bus operators' ticket information that the majority of demand is from the suburbs in to the city centre. We have to cater for that in the most effective way possible." It has been out of the reach of the council's own budget but, if the authority decides to bid for £200m of government money from the Transport Innovation Fund, the scheme could get the funds it needs to make it a reality. (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph, Nov/07)

Trent and Stagecoach want an extra £4m from Derbyshire's councils this year because they say that a scheme which gives pensioners free travel is leaving them out of pocket. Derbyshire county council, the city council and eight district councils paid £12.5m in 2006-7 so that pensioners with a Gold Card could travel for free. But Trent said that the value of the seats taken up by the 186,000 pensioners who use the scheme costs more than this.

The company said that seats which could be filled by fare-paying customers had been "effectively stolen" as a result of the Gold Card scheme. Derbyshire County Council said that this was "rubbish" and the demands were unreasonable. Mike Ashworth, the county council's deputy director for environmental services, said that it was not true that the bus companies had been short-changed. He said, "We think that £12.5m is enough. The suggestion that seats are being stolen is rubbish."

Mr Ashworth said that the council kept track of which bus services were becoming full and offered operators extra money to run new services where this happened. He said, "This has only happened a handful of times, maybe three or four." In April 2006, the councils, with funding from the Department for Transport, agreed to pay a total of £12.5m to three operators, Trent, Stagecoach and Arriva, so that pensioners could travel free 24 hours a day.

Previously, they were paid £5.5m so that pensioners could travel half-price. After looking at figures for the 2006-7 financial year, Trent and Stagecoach said that £12.5m was not enough. Arriva disagreed after councils decided that pensioners could travel free between 9.30am and 11pm from April this year. Trent and Stagecoach decided to take their case to the Government arbitration panel, which will decide on a figure between zero and £4m. The councils will not be able to appeal.

Mr Ashworth said that the bus companies had calculated the £4m figure by assuming that every journey made by a pensioner using a Gold Card would have been paid for as an average single fare, whereas, in fact, many could have been return fares, weekly fares or discount tickets, which are cheaper. A spokesman for Trent said that the company had seen a 40% increase in travel by Gold Card holders since April 2006. (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph, Nov/07)

Derby City Council said it had been "held to ransom" by bus companies and as a result thousands of pensioners are to lose their half-price bus fares. At present, 180,000 Gold Card holders are entitled to pay half-price to travel on buses before 9.30am and travel free at all other times but councillors said that, from April 1, the over-60s would have to pay full fares before 9.30am because of the financial needs of Arriva, Trent Barton and Stagecoach buses.

The free travel still available to Gold Card holders after 9.30am is possible because of a deal which sees 10 councils, including the city council, the county council and district councils, pay £13m in subsidies to bus operators. Councillor Chris Wynn, cabinet member for planning and transportation, said that the change would affect about 400 trips into the city per day and that no changes had been made to concessions for those people with serious disabilities, who are Purple Striped Gold Card holders.

City council deputy leader Dave Roberts said, "The bus companies say they won't be able to run their services unless they're paid additional money. We deeply regret that Gold Card holders' privileges have to be changed but we're not in a position to do anything else. I still believe we have the best bus network outside of London." God help the rest of the country then! Despite being offered a £300,000 increase this year, Arriva, Trent Barton and Stagecoach were still not satisfied.

The three bus companies have said that they need another £1.3m to maintain their services and have appealed to the Government to force the councils to pay up. The government and local councils keep banging on about needing to get people out of their cars and on to public transport. Also, the last two car park charge increases were supposedly to help provide subsidised public transport. They have a hell of a long way to go yet. (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph, Mar/07)

Southdown PSV, which operates in Kent, Surrey and Sussex, is to axe two popular routes because they are used by too many pensioners with free passes. Executives claim the services are unprofitable, despite the company getting large annual sums of ratepayers' money to subsidise the free elderly and disabled travellers. The loss of the routes, after just one year of a four-year agreement, will leave several villages without public transport.

Surrey County Council's transport department explained the closure decision by saying, "The revenue expectations on these services is much lower than was anticipated by Southdown when they tendered for the services in spring 2006. Some of the problems relate to the introduction of the free fares for senior citizens and people with disabilities. The proportion of the total passengers now travelling free being far greater than originally estimated."

Gordon Keymer, of Tandridge district council, said, "We believe the services are vital. The district council pays £500,000 a year to Surrey County Council to provide free travel for pass-holders, so I don't know why the bus company says that they have the wrong type of passengers." Southdown PSV said, "The revenue is not coming up to our expectation." (Source: Daily Mail, Feb/07)

Council workers are getting free rides on a private, taxpayer-funded bus service because they are too frightened to walk the streets of their own borough to get home. Staff in Southwark Council’s regeneration department in South London are ferried to the nearest train station every night after work to prevent them having to walk through a rough estate. The half-hourly shuttle service continues, at £130 per day to the taxpayer, until the last workers are dropped off at the station at around 7pm. A total of six journeys are made each day, at a cost of £910 a week, to ensure the workers do not have to cross the notorious Aylesbury Estate and risk being mugged.

Yet the council workers could easily catch a scheduled bus from their desks at Chiltern House, which is a 15-minute walk away from the Tube station, just as Southwark Council advises its residents to do. A Southwark Council spokesman said, "We implemented the service in December 2005 after a series of violent attacks on staff. Three were mugged on their way home within a four-week period and the council decided to provide a secure, safe bus service. At the same time we are working overtime to make the borough a safer place to live for our residents." (Source: Mail on Sunday, Aug/08)

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