Youth Select Committee inquiry on public transport – Response from
Campaign for Better Transport
Summary
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Public transport fares have risen above the wider rate of inflation and above the overall cost of
motoring
Four groups in society are particularly reliant on public transport – older people, those with
disabilities, those on low incomes (particularly job seekers) and children and young people. Older
people and those with disabilities are entitled to the statutory concessionary fares scheme but
concessionary fares provision for young people is dependent on what local authorities decide to offer
Cuts to financial support for bus services are likely to lead to steeper fare rises in the next few years
Fares on rail have also risen steeply and are set to rise still further and the complexity of the rail
fares system means passengers do not necessarily know what is the best offer
Many local authorities have withdrawn or cut back on concessionary fares schemes for young
people
The withdrawal of the Educational Maintenance Allowance has also created difficulties for young
people using public transport to get to college
Cuts in funding have meant cuts in the availability of bus services, with rural, evening and weekend
services particularly affected
Affordability of fares
Campaign for Better Transport has been working on the issue of affordability of public transport fares for
some time, mainly in relation to rail. The cost of public transport has risen steeply in recent years compared
to the overall costs of motoring (which include running costs and the cost of buying vehicles).
The graph below shows changes in the real cost of transport and in income from 1997 to 2010.1 Both bus
and rail fares have risen above the overall rate of inflation. The high price of buses and trains is a particular
problem for those who lack other options. For older people and those with disabilities, the statutory
concessionary fares scheme offers free travel outside peak hours on buses. However, there is no statutory
scheme for young people and instead local councils decide themselves on the generosity of their individual
offers for young people (see below for more details on the statutory schemes).
1
From Transport Statistics Great Britain, Tables TSBG0122 and TSGB0123
Research by the Government’s Social Exclusion Unit in 2003 showed that affordable transport is a
substantial barrier for young people accessing further education.2 This is a major concern and risks
undermining efforts to get more young people into post-16 courses. Some of the most worrying findings of
the research include:
 More than one in five students have considered dropping out of further education because of
financial difficulties. Transport costs are the biggest expenditure associated with participation in
post–16 education.
 Nearly half of 16–18-year-old students say they find their transport costs hard to meet.
 6 per cent of students have missed college at some point in the previous year because they could
not afford transport costs.
The cuts in central and local government support for bus services will make this situation worse. There are
three main areas that have been cut back:
 Funding to local authorities to provide services which the commercial operators would not otherwise
provide
 Cuts to the bus service operators grant (BSOG), which goes directly to operators of local bus
services
 Underfunding of the statutory concessionary fares scheme, which means that local authorities have
made cuts elsewhere in order to fund it. Operators also argue that they do not receive sufficient
reimbursement for the costs to them from passengers using the concessionary fares scheme
Each nation of the UK has seen or will see cuts in these three areas though the detail is slightly different in
each nation. This submission mainly focuses on the cuts in England.
Cuts to local authority funding happened first and the main impact of that cut has been a reduction in the
number of services (see below). However, cuts to BSOG and the ongoing pressure on concessionary fares
funding are likely to lead to fare rises. Modelling carried out for the Passenger Transport Executive Group
2 Social Exclusion Unit, Making the Connections: Final Report on Transport and Social Exclusion, 2003
(http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/cabinetoffice/social_exclusion_task_force/assets/publications_1997_t
o_2006/making_transport_2003.pdf)
(pteg), which represents the larger metropolitan transport authorities outside London, suggests that fares will
rise by 24% by 2014, compared to a rise of 18% based on current trends without the funding cuts. 3
Fares on rail are also forecast to rise sharply. The Government uses an RPI+X% formula to set the annual
rise in regulated fares. Since 2004, this has been set at RPI+1% but the Government decided in the 2010
Spending Review to change the formula to RPI+3% for the 2012, 2013 and 2014 rises. The Government
backed down on the rise for 2012 (reverting to RPI+1%) but the higher rate is still planned for 2013 and
2014. This could mean fares will be over a quarter higher by 2015 based on forecast rates of inflation.
The complexity of the fares system also means that it is often difficult for people to take advantage of
cheaper advance fares. Campaign for Better Transport has been running the Fair Fares Now campaign to
call for cheaper, simpler and fairer fares. A full set of proposals to make our fares and ticketing system fairer,
simpler and cheaper is set out in our Fair Fares Charter (www.bettertransportorg.uk/fairfaresnow).
Effectiveness of current concessionary fares schemes
Concessionary fares for young people are provided by local authorities on a discretionary basis and this has
resulted in a very mixed provision for young people. Moreover, non-statutory concessions are exactly the
type of provisions that have been vulnerable to local authority cuts as they struggle to find funds to run the
minimum essential services.
Campaign for Better Transport has been running a crowd sourcing project to identify cuts to bus services
and to other associated services like non-statutory concessionary fares schemes. Our research shows that
many local authorities have cut back on concessionary schemes for young people. Cuts include schemes in
Suffolk and the Isle of White, while other schemes have become more expensive in Kent, South Yorkshire
and Manchester.
Campaign for Better Transport’s work has particularly focussed on the problems for young people at college,
particularly with the abolition of the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA). Research by the Association
of Colleges has shown that 72% of students take a bus to college, the average home to college journey is 9
miles, and 94% of colleges believe that the abolition of EMA will affect student's ability to travel to and from
college.4
We have called for the Government to use some of the money from fuel duty to provide free or subsidised
travel to 16-18 year olds who would have qualified for some level of EMA support. Helping young people in
full-time education with their travel costs would reduce long-term welfare expenditure and, if linked to
attendance and academic performance (as EMA was) increase recipients’ qualifications and long-term job
prospects.
Availability and accessibility of transport services
As described above, Campaign for Better Transport’s Save Our Buses campaign has been tracking cuts to
bus services across the country. The first wave of cuts particularly hit local authority supported services,
which tend to be rural services, evening services and those at the weekend (particularly Sunday services).
Young people in rural areas are likely to have been particularly badly hit by these cuts.
3
See http://www.pteg.net/NR/rdonlyres/821B74A5-9CB4-46CC-8E55B669CAFAA947/0/20110808ModellingBusSubsidyinEnglishMetropolitanAreasFinalReportAbridgedv50.pdf
4 Association of Colleges http://www.aoc.co.uk/en/newsroom/aoc_news_releases.cfm/id/ED65A52E-08B6498CBFD30BFD2844E0B7/page/3
Using freedom of information requests, our research suggests that council spending cuts have led to one in
five supported bus services being cut with more yet to come. The figures reveal that council cuts to bus
budgets totalling £36m have resulted in more than 1000 service cuts.
Cuts to supported services are expected to have a knock-on effect on commercial services, as people can
no longer rely on evening buses to get home or on feeder routes linking services. In addition, the Bus
Service Operators Grant (BSOG) will be cut by 20 per cent from 2012, which will result in £99.6m less
funding, and changes to the way the free bus pass scheme is administered and its budget calculated will
mean around another £50 to £100 million reduction in spending on local bus services. 5
Underfunding of the statutory concessionary fares scheme for older people and those with disabilities is also
putting pressure on bus services. Adjustments made to local authority funding in 2010-11 resulted in 27 shire
counties receiving £200.71 million combined for providing a scheme which actually cost them £261.60 million
to deliver. The funding shortfall therefore amounted to over £60 million, and the situation will only get worse
as the bus concession becomes more and more popular.6
Funding cuts and cuts to services have particularly affected younger people. As part of the Save Our Buses
campaign, we helped produce a film petition that was delivered to education secretary Michael Gove MP
today. The film was produced by young people and a coalition of youth and environmental organisations,
including Campaign for Better Transport, Association of Colleges, British Youth Council, Kent Youth County
Council, National Children's Bureau, UK Youth Parliament and the University and College Union (UCU). It
aimed to also address the lack of consultation with young people as cuts were being made to bus services. 7
There are now some positive signs of movement on bus policy with the Department for Transport
announcing additional funding for buses through a one-off Better Bus Areas fund. The Department is also
considering how to devolve more funding to local authorities, including BSOG. It is important that the impacts
of changes in funding are considered for all groups in society and a particular concern will be to ensure that
local authorities do not cut back funding on things like young people’s concessionary fares schemes if they
receive additional devolved funding.
June 2012
Richard Hebditch
Campaign for Better Transport
Campaign for Better Transport’s vision is a country where communities have affordable transport that
improves quality of life and protects the environment. Achieving our vision requires substantial changes to
UK transport policy which we aim to achieve by providing well-researched, practical solutions that gain
support from both decision-makers and the public.
16 Waterside, 44-48 Wharf Road, London N1 7UX
Registered Charity 1101929. Company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales: 4943428
5
See http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/media/13-oct-1-in-5-buses-cut
See http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/files/Concessionary-fares-shortfall.pdf
7 See http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/campaigns/save-our-buses/young-people-video for the video with
accompanying press release at http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/media/june-2-buses-film
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