PMQ’s

[busman]

Buses made the headlines in Prime Minister Questions today. Jeremy Corbyn asked Theresa May “Does the PM accept her policy on bus travel has failed?” May blames local councils for bus cuts and Corbyn has currently spent 10 minutes grilling her about service levels across the country. Corbyn champions Sadiq Khan’s hopper fare and fare freeze as an example of what local mayoral powers can do to address accessibility to bus services. May shoots him down by saying that bus ridership levels are falling in London. You know things are bad when buses start making PMQ’s.

[vjaska]

Jul 4, 2018 11:30:16 GMT busman said:

Buses made the headlines in Prime Minister Questions today. Jeremy Corbyn asked Theresa May “Does the PM accept her policy on bus travel has failed?” May blames local councils for bus cuts and Corbyn has currently spent 10 minutes grilling her about service levels across the country. Corbyn champions Sadiq Khan’s hopper fare and fare freeze as an example of what local mayoral powers can do to address accessibility to bus services. May shoots him down by saying that bus ridership levels are falling in London. You know things are bad when buses start making PMQ’s.

I didn't know she had a bus policy? Is it to have strong & stable ridership levels lol.

Corbyn does my head in - does he realise the consequences of introducing the hopper fare & fare freeze and the impact it's having on services in London - he go back to his glass house and think before he throws stones - honestly, I worry if he gets in because as much as I can't stand Tories, he is even worse.

[sid]

Jul 4, 2018 11:30:16 GMT busman said:

Buses made the headlines in Prime Minister Questions today. Jeremy Corbyn asked Theresa May “Does the PM accept her policy on bus travel has failed?” May blames local councils for bus cuts and Corbyn has currently spent 10 minutes grilling her about service levels across the country. Corbyn champions Sadiq Khan’s hopper fare and fare freeze as an example of what local mayoral powers can do to address accessibility to bus services. May shoots him down by saying that bus ridership levels are falling in London. You know things are bad when buses start making PMQ’s.

But surely ridership levels would be down a lot more if it weren't for the fares freeze and hopper fare?

[busman]

Corbyn was making a very good point about whether or not bus services should be completely dictated by the free market (the complete exchange is not included in my original post, but is worth looking at as it reveals key differences in approach). The root cause of the bus cuts in London is TfL’s greater exposure to commercial forces. BoJo signed off on TfL’s government funding cut on the idea that TfL were going to bring in revenue from development of commercial space with lots of fancy retail opportunities like click and collect etc. However it seems that no one at Palestra was primed for that to happen so quickly and BoJo left his successors - i.e. Goldsmith or Khan - to clean up his excrement. Now that TfL is having to take a more business-minded approach it transpires that supply must be cut to match demand. In purely commercial terms, without government funding to top up revenues, TfL are oversupplying bus services compared to the demand. Reducing the price (fare freeze, hopper) should actually increase demand, but as covered by many others on this forum, some of TfL’s wider policies and objectives seem to be negating any resulting uplift we might expect to see in bus demand.

Let’s take a very crude look at the annual financial impact of the government cuts vs Sadiq Khan’s fare decreases:

TfL 2017-2018 fare revenue: £4.8 billion
Government cut: £700million per year (approx 14.5% of annual fare revenue)
Estimated annual cost of hopper fare: £35million (approx 0.73% of annual fare revenue)
Estimated annual cost of fare freeze @ 3.4% of revenue for 2017/2018: approx £163.2million - (but in reality less than this)

It’s very clear that central government policy is the biggest single factor driving cuts. Even without the hopper fare and fare freeze TfL would be facing a cut equivalent to >10% of annual fare revenue. The size of the funding deficit is compounded over time as TfL simply wouldn’t be able to raise fares high or fast enough to plug the £700million annual shortfall any time soon. I would suggest that cuts would still need to happen even without the fare freeze and hopper fare. Could TfL look at how other aspects of its own policies are impacting demand for bus travel? Absolutely. But we also have to consider the alternative scenario whereby there was no hopper fare or fare freeze and passengers were being asked to pay more each year whilst TfL are chopping services. That would be far less palatable than the current status quo.

TfL tried to implement higher financial penalties for motorists which would have raised £80million per year, but that move was blocked by Failing Grayling. TfL are pinning a lot of hope on the Elizabeth Line bringing in crazy amounts of additional revenue to plug the hole left by government cuts. I really hope TfL have got their fare projections right (they were £89 million out for 2017/2018 projections - about 1.9%) and we should all be rooting for the Lizzie Line to be a roaring success if we want to see TfL’s finances improve.

[redbus]

Jul 4, 2018 13:57:36 GMT sid said:

Jul 4, 2018 11:30:16 GMT busman said:

Buses made the headlines in Prime Minister Questions today. Jeremy Corbyn asked Theresa May “Does the PM accept her policy on bus travel has failed?” May blames local councils for bus cuts and Corbyn has currently spent 10 minutes grilling her about service levels across the country. Corbyn champions Sadiq Khan’s hopper fare and fare freeze as an example of what local mayoral powers can do to address accessibility to bus services. May shoots him down by saying that bus ridership levels are falling in London. You know things are bad when buses start making PMQ’s.

But surely ridership levels would be down a lot more if it weren't for the fares freeze and hopper fare?

An interesting question. As an student of economics you get taught about pricing, and that there's a point above which if you raise your prices you lose more customers and therefore income than the increased prices yield.

In the case of the hopper fare undoubtedly ridership would have been down further, but revenue would have been up had it not been introduced. The question is how many new journeys at £1.50 that were never made before are being made as a result of the hopper fare, and many people who made two journeys and paid twice previously are now only paying once. For example when I take my son to school by bus I can now get  there and back on the hopper fare, so I am paying half of what I used to.  

Likewise with the fares freeze more people will travel than if fares had increased by say inflation, but the overall reduction in income from not raising fares will more than offset this. I don't think we are anywhere near the point at which raising fares will result in a decrease in income. Ridership will have increased as a result of the fares freeze / hoper fare, but equally income will be down as a result.

[capitalomnibus]

Jul 4, 2018 11:30:16 GMT busman said:

Buses made the headlines in Prime Minister Questions today. Jeremy Corbyn asked Theresa May “Does the PM accept her policy on bus travel has failed?” May blames local councils for bus cuts and Corbyn has currently spent 10 minutes grilling her about service levels across the country. Corbyn champions Sadiq Khan’s hopper fare and fare freeze as an example of what local mayoral powers can do to address accessibility to bus services. May shoots him down by saying that bus ridership levels are falling in London. You know things are bad when buses start making PMQ’s.

PMSL, that backfired, she kicked him in the nuts!

I see Corbyns point, but don't be using Sadiq as an example when it comes to buses, he has done the opposite.

[capitalomnibus]

Jul 4, 2018 23:29:52 GMT busman said:

Corbyn was making a very good point about whether or not bus services should be completely dictated by the free market (the complete exchange is not included in my original post, but is worth looking at as it reveals key differences in approach). The root cause of the bus cuts in London is TfL’s greater exposure to commercial forces. BoJo signed off on TfL’s government funding cut on the idea that TfL were going to bring in revenue from development of commercial space with lots of fancy retail opportunities like click and collect etc. However it seems that no one at Palestra was primed for that to happen so quickly and BoJo left his successors - i.e. Goldsmith or Khan - to clean up his excrement. Now that TfL is having to take a more business-minded approach it transpires that supply must be cut to match demand. In purely commercial terms, without government funding to top up revenues, TfL are oversupplying bus services compared to the demand. Reducing the price (fare freeze, hopper) should actually increase demand, but as covered by many others on this forum, some of TfL’s wider policies and objectives seem to be negating any resulting uplift we might expect to see in bus demand.

Let’s take a very crude look at the annual financial impact of the government cuts vs Sadiq Khan’s fare decreases:

TfL 2017-2018 fare revenue: £4.8 billion
Government cut: £700million per year (approx 14.5% of annual fare revenue)
Estimated annual cost of hopper fare: £35million (approx 0.73% of annual fare revenue)
Estimated annual cost of fare freeze @ 3.4% of revenue for 2017/2018: approx £163.2million - (but in reality less than this)

It’s very clear that central government policy is the biggest single factor driving cuts. Even without the hopper fare and fare freeze TfL would be facing a cut equivalent to >10% of annual fare revenue. The size of the funding deficit is compounded over time as TfL simply wouldn’t be able to raise fares high or fast enough to plug the £700million annual shortfall any time soon. I would suggest that cuts would still need to happen even without the fare freeze and hopper fare. Could TfL look at how other aspects of its own policies are impacting demand for bus travel? Absolutely. But we also have to consider the alternative scenario whereby there was no hopper fare or fare freeze and passengers were being asked to pay more each year whilst TfL are chopping services. That would be far less palatable than the current status quo.

TfL tried to implement higher financial penalties for motorists which would have raised £80million per year, but that move was blocked by Failing Grayling. TfL are pinning a lot of hope on the Elizabeth Line bringing in crazy amounts of additional revenue to plug the hole left by government cuts. I really hope TfL have got their fare projections right (they were £89 million out for 2017/2018 projections - about 1.9%) and we should all be rooting for the Lizzie Line to be a roaring success if we want to see TfL’s finances improve.

You seem to be not understand why this is happening, just like Khan. You can give the bus service for free, yes FREE. Most people cannot be bothered. Who the hell has time to sit on buses that are going to be regulated and showed down further, go through stupid 20 zones, then on top of that all, roast your nuts in the hot weather full of all kinds of rubbish. And if your even more lucky you would be stuck in a traffic jam caused by roadworks or some looney council cycle scheme. When you think you would progress in a bus lane you would be greeted by a slow moving cyclist.

In reality bus travel is there if you have an extreme amount of time on your hands. With this time conscious world we live in, you would be left behind...

I can take a bet that Crossrail would not be the success they think it is. Why on earth is someone wanting to travel from Chingford to Edmonton or Golders green want to use crossrail for. They have way too high hopes and doctoring everything towards it putting people to go where they do not want to. Instead they would seek other means...UBER!!!!!

[Deleted]

Jul 5, 2018 0:48:49 GMT capitalomnibus said:

Jul 4, 2018 23:29:52 GMT busman said:

Corbyn was making a very good point about whether or not bus services should be completely dictated by the free market (the complete exchange is not included in my original post, but is worth looking at as it reveals key differences in approach). The root cause of the bus cuts in London is TfL’s greater exposure to commercial forces. BoJo signed off on TfL’s government funding cut on the idea that TfL were going to bring in revenue from development of commercial space with lots of fancy retail opportunities like click and collect etc. However it seems that no one at Palestra was primed for that to happen so quickly and BoJo left his successors - i.e. Goldsmith or Khan - to clean up his excrement. Now that TfL is having to take a more business-minded approach it transpires that supply must be cut to match demand. In purely commercial terms, without government funding to top up revenues, TfL are oversupplying bus services compared to the demand. Reducing the price (fare freeze, hopper) should actually increase demand, but as covered by many others on this forum, some of TfL’s wider policies and objectives seem to be negating any resulting uplift we might expect to see in bus demand.

Let’s take a very crude look at the annual financial impact of the government cuts vs Sadiq Khan’s fare decreases:

TfL 2017-2018 fare revenue: £4.8 billion
Government cut: £700million per year (approx 14.5% of annual fare revenue)
Estimated annual cost of hopper fare: £35million (approx 0.73% of annual fare revenue)
Estimated annual cost of fare freeze @ 3.4% of revenue for 2017/2018: approx £163.2million - (but in reality less than this)

It’s very clear that central government policy is the biggest single factor driving cuts. Even without the hopper fare and fare freeze TfL would be facing a cut equivalent to >10% of annual fare revenue. The size of the funding deficit is compounded over time as TfL simply wouldn’t be able to raise fares high or fast enough to plug the £700million annual shortfall any time soon. I would suggest that cuts would still need to happen even without the fare freeze and hopper fare. Could TfL look at how other aspects of its own policies are impacting demand for bus travel? Absolutely. But we also have to consider the alternative scenario whereby there was no hopper fare or fare freeze and passengers were being asked to pay more each year whilst TfL are chopping services. That would be far less palatable than the current status quo.

TfL tried to implement higher financial penalties for motorists which would have raised £80million per year, but that move was blocked by Failing Grayling. TfL are pinning a lot of hope on the Elizabeth Line bringing in crazy amounts of additional revenue to plug the hole left by government cuts. I really hope TfL have got their fare projections right (they were £89 million out for 2017/2018 projections - about 1.9%) and we should all be rooting for the Lizzie Line to be a roaring success if we want to see TfL’s finances improve.

You seem to be not understand why this is happening, just like Khan. You can give the bus service for free, yes FREE. Most people cannot be bothered. Who the hell has time to sit on buses that are going to be regulated and showed down further, go through stupid 20 zones, then on top of that all, roast your nuts in the hot weather full of all kinds of rubbish. And if your even more lucky you would be stuck in a traffic jam caused by roadworks or some looney council cycle scheme. When you think you would progress in a bus lane you would be greeted by a slow moving cyclist.

In reality bus travel is there if you have an extreme amount of time on your hands. With this time conscious world we live in, you would be left behind...

I can take a bet that Crossrail would not be the success they think it is. Why on earth is someone wanting to travel from Chingford to Edmonton or Golders green want to use crossrail for. They have way too high hopes and doctoring everything towards it putting people to go where they do not want to. Instead they would seek other means...UBER!!!!!

You really couldn't of worded it better. I would never want to travel on a bus during peak hours or even non peak hours, as you said due to either crap cycle lane works like on Lea Bridge Road and Hoe Street. Believe me on closing a bus lane is an idea of a lunatic (mind my language), my most recent experience was on the 56 when it took nearly an hour to go from Dalston to Bakers Arms.

As you say the crossrail will not be as successful as they reckon, it may help but is not the solution or answer to keep London moving.

Going to talk about the ''20 MPH zone'' that myself and majority of people don't even follow, they just slow down when coming near the camera then just carry on. 

Seriously last week Thursday I went to the state of London debate at the 02 in North Greenwich, and Khan was there and when he spoke about transport, I laughed as him and his establishment have no clue of what it is to travel on the roads of London. I bet Khan has never travelled on a bus in Waltham Forest or even been to the borough to see what he's dumb creative ideas of giving full priority to cyclists cause road users.

Again thanks very much Capitalomnibus

[vjaska]

Jul 5, 2018 0:48:49 GMT capitalomnibus said:

Jul 4, 2018 23:29:52 GMT busman said:

Corbyn was making a very good point about whether or not bus services should be completely dictated by the free market (the complete exchange is not included in my original post, but is worth looking at as it reveals key differences in approach). The root cause of the bus cuts in London is TfL’s greater exposure to commercial forces. BoJo signed off on TfL’s government funding cut on the idea that TfL were going to bring in revenue from development of commercial space with lots of fancy retail opportunities like click and collect etc. However it seems that no one at Palestra was primed for that to happen so quickly and BoJo left his successors - i.e. Goldsmith or Khan - to clean up his excrement. Now that TfL is having to take a more business-minded approach it transpires that supply must be cut to match demand. In purely commercial terms, without government funding to top up revenues, TfL are oversupplying bus services compared to the demand. Reducing the price (fare freeze, hopper) should actually increase demand, but as covered by many others on this forum, some of TfL’s wider policies and objectives seem to be negating any resulting uplift we might expect to see in bus demand.

Let’s take a very crude look at the annual financial impact of the government cuts vs Sadiq Khan’s fare decreases:

TfL 2017-2018 fare revenue: £4.8 billion
Government cut: £700million per year (approx 14.5% of annual fare revenue)
Estimated annual cost of hopper fare: £35million (approx 0.73% of annual fare revenue)
Estimated annual cost of fare freeze @ 3.4% of revenue for 2017/2018: approx £163.2million - (but in reality less than this)

It’s very clear that central government policy is the biggest single factor driving cuts. Even without the hopper fare and fare freeze TfL would be facing a cut equivalent to >10% of annual fare revenue. The size of the funding deficit is compounded over time as TfL simply wouldn’t be able to raise fares high or fast enough to plug the £700million annual shortfall any time soon. I would suggest that cuts would still need to happen even without the fare freeze and hopper fare. Could TfL look at how other aspects of its own policies are impacting demand for bus travel? Absolutely. But we also have to consider the alternative scenario whereby there was no hopper fare or fare freeze and passengers were being asked to pay more each year whilst TfL are chopping services. That would be far less palatable than the current status quo.

TfL tried to implement higher financial penalties for motorists which would have raised £80million per year, but that move was blocked by Failing Grayling. TfL are pinning a lot of hope on the Elizabeth Line bringing in crazy amounts of additional revenue to plug the hole left by government cuts. I really hope TfL have got their fare projections right (they were £89 million out for 2017/2018 projections - about 1.9%) and we should all be rooting for the Lizzie Line to be a roaring success if we want to see TfL’s finances improve.

In reality bus travel is there if you have an extreme amount of time on your hands.

Whilst I understand where your coming from on this particular point, many people still rely on the bus as a means of getting around. Take myself for example - I don't drive and live in South London which has few too little tube stations and a terrible rail network so if I need to get anywhere, the bus is usually my first point of call. Getting to Streatham from Brixton for example is really only doable by bus unless you want to faff about changing trains and I don't have an extreme amount of time on my hands.

[sid]

Jul 4, 2018 23:33:31 GMT redbus said:

Jul 4, 2018 13:57:36 GMT sid said:

But surely ridership levels would be down a lot more if it weren't for the fares freeze and hopper fare?

An interesting question. As an student of economics you get taught about pricing, and that there's a point above which if you raise your prices you lose more customers and therefore income than the increased prices yield.

In the case of the hopper fare undoubtedly ridership would have been down further, but revenue would have been up had it not been introduced. The question is how many new journeys at £1.50 that were never made before are being made as a result of the hopper fare, and many people who made two journeys and paid twice previously are now only paying once. For example when I take my son to school by bus I can now get  there and back on the hopper fare, so I am paying half of what I used to.  

Likewise with the fares freeze more people will travel than if fares had increased by say inflation, but the overall reduction in income from not raising fares will more than offset this. I don't think we are anywhere near the point at which raising fares will result in a decrease in income. Ridership will have increased as a result of the fares freeze / hoper fare, but equally income will be down as a result.

Interesting comment about your school journey and obviously this isn't what the hopper fare was intended for, in Berlin there is a similar two hour ticket (which is also valid on trains) but only in one direction, and if you embark on a return journey you have to pay again although quite how this is enforced in practice I don't know.

[snoggle]

Jul 4, 2018 23:29:52 GMT busman said:

It’s very clear that central government policy is the biggest single factor driving cuts. Even without the hopper fare and fare freeze TfL would be facing a cut equivalent to >10% of annual fare revenue. The size of the funding deficit is compounded over time as TfL simply wouldn’t be able to raise fares high or fast enough to plug the £700million annual shortfall any time soon. I would suggest that cuts would still need to happen even without the fare freeze and hopper fare. Could TfL look at how other aspects of its own policies are impacting demand for bus travel? Absolutely. But we also have to consider the alternative scenario whereby there was no hopper fare or fare freeze and passengers were being asked to pay more each year whilst TfL are chopping services. That would be far less palatable than the current status quo.

TfL tried to implement higher financial penalties for motorists which would have raised £80million per year, but that move was blocked by Failing Grayling. TfL are pinning a lot of hope on the Elizabeth Line bringing in crazy amounts of additional revenue to plug the hole left by government cuts. I really hope TfL have got their fare projections right (they were £89 million out for 2017/2018 projections - about 1.9%) and we should all be rooting for the Lizzie Line to be a roaring success if we want to see TfL’s finances improve.

I'd say you're partly right. However "TfL policies" are largely set by the Mayor through the Transport Strategy and whatever directives he imposes. There's nothing major that TfL can do on its own because of political oversight. The aspect that's missed is external changes like the economy, changes in employment hours / locations, changes in leisure and shopping activity etc. To my mind those are the things that TfL doesn't wholly understand and certainly can't control. As we have also seen TfL can't control what local councils decide to do and some authorities, while happy to take TfL's money, are not exactly in tune with their (Mayoral set) objectives.

On the subject of Crossrail revenues TfL recently explained the numbers to the Assembly budget committee. I was somewhat astounded that there is basically no growth assumed for this financial year and only tiny amounts in future years. Much of the sums are simply assumed revenue transfers from the Tube and National Rail services. This is because people are assumed to swap to faster Crossrail services to reach their destinatons. Thus the Central, Jubilee and DLR lines are assumed to lose patronage thus bringing congestion relief. Later years much of the gain is because TfL gain a large slice of what is current GWR revenue from suburban services. Any growth assumptions are extremely modest so past "it will be full from day one" headlines are very unlikely to materialise for years to come - and that's before any pessimism about the economy falling off a cliff and "B word" related transfer of jobs from London to mainland Europe. There is more evidence emerging that banks, finance houses, insurers and others will move thousands of jobs out of the UK. This will mean less central London employment which is a key driver of TfL revenue. This means there is significant risk for TfL's revenue and the only way TfL will cope is to cut project spend and service levels.