I have lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked:
What is the block to Mobility as a Service is in the UK?
Whenever I’m asked - by mystified blue chip clients who can’t understand why we’ve not achieved lift off with MaaS trials in this country, right through to consultants writing reports for transport authorities who feel like they’re banging their heads against brick walls putting together business cases for MaaS - there is pretty much one answer:
Buses
They’re the problem. More specifically, the deregulated bus landscape which actively mitigates against any form of network planning, cooperation on routes, fares or ticketing. I have said it from any platform I’ve been granted - from conference podiums, to boardrooms, to journal articles.
The new bus strategy is almost as blunt an echo as I could wish for.
It says, quite clearly that we need buses in the UK that are:
in other words, more like London’s… we want the same simple, multi-modal tickets, the same increase in bus priority measures, the same high-quality information for passengers, and in larger places, the same turn-up-and-go frequencies.
Having just looked enviously over the channel the ability of regulated systems to integrate new mobility - at French demand responsive transport (in answer to the Future of Mobility Rural Transport Call for Evidence) and at German cities which are quietly adding bike share and DRT onto their oyster-style ticketing system I have had a constant, sinking feeling that our potential is limited. We’re missing the MaaS bus
But the Bus Strategy doesn’t shrink from saying that the structures that support such a service will need to be different. It’s pro-franchising and demands new partnerships. Whether the new found pace of change at the DfT is realistic (no Bus Service Operators Grant for areas which haven’t committed to set up an Enhanced Partnership across their entire area by the end of June and have implemented it by April 2022!) and whether cash-strapped local authorities have the resources to jump to the government’s new-found pro-regulatory zeal is moot. But the zeal is there, and with it, the potential for real change.
We need flexible network planning that integrates DRT to ensure that less dense areas are served (both because the local population benefit and because they generate car traffic in city centres). And, we also need – as the Bus Strategy puts it :
…. no-fuss, multi-operator tickets and price caps on contactless credit and debit cards, at little or no premium to single operator fares. We will expect all operators to work with LTAs to deliver this.
If it delivers – then with buses working in networks we can finally link together multiple modes and make sensible, integrated transport for all kinds of journeys possible.
The stakes are high. The foundations for a car-based post-covid recovery are being laid. We desperately need to catch the bus and make it work, to create a real, integrated transport alternative to cars. Before it’s too late.