Transport Committee calls for long-term strategy to improve bus services

Five-year funding deals, grants weighted towards rural areas, a national framework for demand-responsive transport (DRT) and community transport, and a free bus pass for under-22s are among the proposals set out in a new report by the Transport Committee. 

Recommendations in the report are based on the findings of the committee’s inquiry into buses connecting communities.

The Department for Transport (DfT) should help councils to ensure a minimum level of public transport connectivity by the end of this Parliament, states the report. The Committee is calling for this minimum level to be considered regionally as well as being supported by long-term government funding.  

Decisions should be made locally about whether this minimum level of connectivity can best be delivered by a conventional, timetabled bus service, or by alternative models such as DRT “where smaller buses can collect and drop off passengers from locations by request, making them more flexible”. 

DRT could offer a way of sustaining socially necessary services, according to the committee. “Their potential is being undermined, however, by fragmented regulation, inconsistent funding streams, and a lack of integration in mainstream transport policy and local planning. The Government should establish a coherent national framework that supports the integration of these models, ensures sustainable funding, and provides consistent guidance for delivery.”

Two major sources of state funding – the Bus Service Operators Grant and capital funding for Bus Service Improvement Plans – are “calculated in a way that fails to recognise the distinct challenges of running services in rural areas”, says the committee. Operating costs in isolated areas are often higher due to longer journey distances and low population densities, yet the services are just as vital to those residents who use them, it points out. 

The DfT should consider introducing a rural weighting into its revised Bus Service Improvement Plan funding formula to reflect the higher per-passenger costs, the MPs say. 

The Bus Service Operators Grant provides funds based on how much fuel is used, they point out. “As urban services tend to consume more fuel per mile compared with rural services, this leaves rural services in receipt of relatively less funding for having to travel longer distances.”

Also, the Grant should be reformed “so that it would instead be based on passenger journeys, which would further incentivise operators to grow their passenger numbers”. 

For years, government funding for buses has been provided on an annual basis and subject to change, making it difficult for councils and bus firms to plan ahead, the committee points out.

It welcomed the Government’s longer term approach to funding – including its Spending Review pledge of £900m a year on bus services for the next three years. However, the Government should go further and set five-year settlements for both capital and revenue funding. “This would enable all transport authorities to make sustainable improvements,” says the committee.

The committee also welcomed moves to bring bus services back under public control  where local transport authorities decide details such as routes, fares, service levels, and vehicle standards. 

“Long established in London and recently adopted in Manchester, DfT is now taking forward franchising pilots in York and North Yorkshire, Cheshire West and Chester,” the committee reports. 

“When done successfully, franchising can offer a pathway to more integrated and accountable services. However, many hollowed-out local authorities currently lack the legal, commercial, and operational capacity to take on the risks and challenges of franchising.”

The DfT should expand the Bus Centre of Excellence (BCoE) to include a dedicated support strand for rural and other local transport authorities to provide more targeted support to local authorities that may look to adopt franchising, says the report. 

The BCoE was pledged in the Government’s National Bus Strategy in 2021 and set up in 2023.

The report calls for the BCoE to “help reduce administrative burdens by developing standardised templates for key documents such as data-sharing and non-disclosure agreements and offer training in the commercial and operational aspects of running bus services”.  

Find out more about the Bus Centre of Excellence come at Quality Bus in Portsmouth on 23 and 24 September 

Elsewhere in the report, MPs call on the DfT to develop a clear strategy for consistent, transparent setting of bus fares at local level within 12 months. They noted that bus fare caps, launched in January 2023, have helped bus ridership in largely rural areas rise by 10.1%. But bus fare caps, “though positive, are only a short-term measure”.  

More must be done to encourage young people to travel by bus, says the report. “England’s patchwork of local youth concessions requires a coherent national approach to ensure fair access and to drive economic growth and equal opportunity.”

The DfT’s review of the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme should consider piloting a free bus pass for under-22s, valid for travel at any time of day, the committee recommends. 

The committee points out that bus service patronage has been falling. DfT data shows that the number of bus journeys taken in England outside of London fell from?4.6bn in 2009 to 3.6bn?in 2024, a reduction of 21.7%. The County Councils Network reported that, between 2019 and 2024, bus services decreased by 18% on average in areas covered by county and unitary councils. 

“Despite this period of decline, buses remain the most-used form of public transport in the country,” says the report.

“The Government now seeks to turn the sector’s poor fortunes around with provisions in its Bus (No.2) Services Bill.”

The legislation aims to: make it easier for more councils to set up franchised services; to support collaborations between private bus firms and councils under Enhanced Partnerships; and to provide a definition of and require local authorities to list ‘socially necessary services’. 

Transport Committee Chair Ruth Cadbury MP said: “Buses are fundamental to many people’s quality of life. Without them, residents on low incomes, older and younger people, face social exclusion or being cut off from employment and services like hospitals or education. In many areas that is tragically already the case.”

She calls for a change in the funding model to ensure councils and bus firms would be committed to running socially necessary services. The DfT should also adopt an ambition for all councils to develop and maintain a minimum level of public transport connectivity. “To achieve this the sector will need greater financial certainty, which is why we say the Government should announce funding in five-year blocks,” said Cadbury.

“Those most affected by unreliable or even non-existent buses include the young, who need them to get to school, college, university and their first jobs. Denying young people these experiences denies them their life chances. We call for a universal, free bus pass for all under-22s to equalise opportunity.” 

Cadbury added: “Franchising works for London and Manchester but is unlikely to be a silver bullet for the rest of the country. Many local councils’ workforces now lack the skills and capacity to suddenly start overseeing bus services. We therefore say that the Bus Centre of Excellence should be expanded to provide more targeted support and training. 

Buses Connecting Communities