Chamber and committees

Bus passenger journeys have generally been falling over the long term, almost halving between 1960 and 1975 and roughly halving again since then. More recently the rate of decline in journey numbers has decreased but we have still seen bus passenger journeys down 12% in the last ten years.

We have been carrying out engagement with local authorities and across the bus industry to better understand the situation and I discussed this most recently when I chaired a meeting of the Bus Stakeholders Group. It is clear that bus patronage trends vary by geographical area and there is no one element driving a decline in bus patronage. The impact of the financial crisis, low costs of private car ownership, congestion and running changes in travel behaviour such as out of town and internet shopping are all contributory factors.

In terms of subsidised routes, local authorities have powers to financially support services regarded as socially necessary to meet local needs and make decisions around how to prioritise support for routes.

The Scottish Government continue to promote and highlight the importance of partnership working in relation to the transport sector. Guidance was published to encourage the use of both statutory quality partnerships (SQP) and quality contracts. Dialogue to improve and promote the uptake of these is on-going.

The Bus Investment Fund was designed to encourage partnership working and was weighted to favour bids which created or worked towards an SQP.

This information will be collated at a local authority level as part of regular monitoring arrangements and will be available in due course.

The Scottish Government understands that Perth and Kinross Council has decided to make use of this power in respect of 2016-17.

The first Bus Stakeholder Group meeting was held on 3 April, 2012. Eight further meetings were held on the following dates:- 26 June 2012; 26 October 2012; 26 February 2013; 30 October 2013; 26 March 2014; 11 November 2014; 26 January 2016 and 31 August 2016.

The following have been present at meetings: Transport Scotland, Confederation of Passenger Transport, Regional Transport Partnerships, CoSLA, Association of Transport Co-Ordinating Officers, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland, Bus Users Scotland, the Scottish Traffic Commissioner, Community Transport Association and the Scottish Road Works Commissioner.

I chaired the most recent meeting on 31 August 2016.

The aim of these meetings is to bring together representatives from across the bus industry to discuss bus policy issues. A range of issues have been discussed over the life of the Group with recent focus being on congestion, smart and integrated ticketing and engagement with bus users among other things.

On 24 May 2016 officials made me aware that Network Rail had advised that they were unlikely to deliver the electrification of the Edinburgh-Falkirk High-Glasgow Queen Street line by December 2016, as confirmed in the Office of Road and Rail's Network Rail Monitor. I was not prepared to simply accept this and challenged Network Rail to revisit their analysis. In addition I ordered Transport Scotland to undertake an intensive review of major rail projects being delivered by Network Rail, which will report back shortly.

The report is attached to SPICe - BIB number 58193

The report highlights every service schedule which resulted in a penalty for being below the benchmark. It must be underlined there is a tolerance level between the ceiling level and benchmarks before recorded fails actually result in a financial penalty.

Following the publication of the Bus Action Plan (BAP) in 2006 a steering group was set up to consider how the 17 action points from the BAP should be delivered and was composed of regulators, public sector representatives and bus operators.

In June 2010 it was accepted that the actions had been delivered and the steering group was wound up. To maintain progress since then a Bus Stakeholder Group was established to consider and take forward bus policy development and implementation.

A review of the Bus Investment Fund process is currently underway. The report will be published and made available on the Transport Scotland website on completion.

Disability legislation is reserved to the UK Parliament. The timetable by which buses must be fully accessible is set out in the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations (PSVAR) 2000. All new buses have had to be fully accessible since 31 December 2000. All other single decker buses had to be fully accessible by 1 January 2016 at the latest, all double decker buses by 1 January 2017 at the latest and all coaches by 1 January 2020. Until then, fleet renewal and deployment is a discretionary operational matter for individual bus operators. The Scottish Government is committed to encouraging bus operators to meet these regulations within the timetable.

The timetable has been agreed with the transport industry and the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (the Department for Transport's statutory advisers on the transport needs of disabled people).

That said, the Accessible Travel Framework published on 21 September 2016, includes accessibility issues for bus which will be an important focus of work through the 10 year lifetime of the Framework.

The cost estimate for the Edinburgh Glasgow Improvement Programme (EGIP) is part of the independent review on major rail projects. That review is expected to conclude later this month following which a revised EGIP cost estimate will be provided to the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee.