Buurtbus a wrong turn for D1 solution

On October 3rd I attended a sustianable transport conference where I had the good luck to buttonhole Dr. Stephen Hickey, chairman of the Community Transport Association. We had a coffee and chat about the D1 crisis; the challenge faced by many community transport operators with a dwinding supply of volunteers who can drive 16 passenger minibuses on a car license, otherwise they need to invest £2000 (which is unsecurable) in each one to pass a PSV. In April 2013 Sue Jay, the chair of Suffolk Community Transport, took the opportunity of a visit to Suffolk by the Department for Transport's cheif civil servant Graham Pendlebury to advise him that this is hampering the recruitment of volunteer drivers.

Dr. Hickey was well informed on the subject though apparently not of my campaigning on it. However I realised afterwards the Spring 2013 CTA journal has a round-up of minibus licensing issues and the D1 issue that says in the preamble: "the CTA has been receiving an increasing number of enquiries about driver licensing entitlelments..." It goes on to reproduce the same licensing flow-chart I drew back in 2011 and advises that operators in future may have to consider smaller and lighter minibuses for their fleets. But this is the nub; it is not practicable and it would lead to a reduction in services and increases in overheads for many volunteer-run operators if they had to switch from 16 passenger to 8 passenger buses or use lighter, less robust, buses under the MAM limits.

He told me the good news that he and Bill Freeman, the CTA chief executive, had recently had meetings at the Department for Transport and had presented the data from the recent CTA survey on the D1 issue. He recalled that the CTA survey had shown him the D1 issue was of great concern to his members and so the CTA had told the DfT that "D1 must be the top of the heap for policy change". The DfT was consulting on how the European Union helps or hampers transport in the UK.  The EU Balance of Competencies Review closed on 6th August 2013.

If I recall, Dr. Hickey said the DfT put the question to the CTA, given that D1 is EU legislation, what room does the DfT have to create a solution? I said that as far as I was concerned, the simplest solution was to make an exception to raise the MAM weight limit for community buses with volunteer drivers operating a section 22 route because the drivers (with MiDAS certification) would be familiar with their vehicles and the routes and this was a very different safety scenario to a school or community group using a minibus on a one-off trip. I put it to him that if necessary, the UK members of the European Parliament must present that proposal to the EU.

When I asked what he or the DfT thought might be the answer, he ventured the DfT were looking into the 'Buurtbus' model. Not necessarily as a solution to the D1 issue but to increase the saturation of services in rural or marginal areas. I haven't heard of these but Dr. Hickey explained they are widely operated in the Netherlands in partnership with commercial operators where 8 passenger buses are driven by volunteers on scheduled routes "at a minimum subsidy".

Coincidentally no doubt, the Summer 2013 issue of the CTA Journal has an article about the Buurtbus, stemming from a visit by CTA trustee Gareth Blackett to Amsterdam on an ATCO bursary. 

It turns out this innovative Dutch model was inspired by the UK. I would venture that HACT in Suffolk is a typical example in which a scheduled service is provided with a 16 passenger minibus driven by volunteers. 

There are now 200 Buurtbus schemes in the Netherlands, some established over 30 years. Gareth Blackett considered why are these so successful in the Netherland and posited it was becasue of "the nature of the partnership between the statutory authorities, commercial providors and the voluntary sector" in the Netherlands - indicating that this kind of cooperation isn't always the case in the UK, it is practically non-existent. The CTA reported "it is said that the Buurtbus could potentially offer a solution to the UK's accessibility challenge..."

The CTA journal promises in its next issue to reveal in more detail what Gareth Blackett learned. I might venture to suggest that if anyone wants to see what a successful 'Buurtbus' operation might be like, they ought to come to Halesworth.

What concerns me though, because Holland has the same rules, is that these Buurtbus are still operated with 8-passenger minibuses by volunteers with an ordinary car license and not a PSV.

However, with an average of 60 passengers per day in Halesworth, community transport operators like HACT could not meet that passenger demand with 8 passenger minibuses without a huge decrease in hard-won efficiency. It must use 16 passenger vehicles to meet present demand on a 50 mile daily route (4 to 5 cycles) within its resources of vehicles and volunteer staffing. There are also a number of other factors; a 16 passenger coachbuilt vehicle is a much more accessisble, efficient, versatile and comfortable vehicle than a smaller van conversion. 

In May 2013 the CTA gave evidence to the House of Commons Transport Committee which was holding an enquiry into transport for people with disabilities. The CTA Journal reports that acting chief executive Ewan Jones informed the committee: "even though people with disabilities might be entitled to concessionary travel, if there was not a vehicle they could get on or a service they could use, the entitlement would be of little use to them." Mr Jones also informed them how community transport was funded and how the sector was exploring new business models to remain sustainable.

There is potentially a host of issues in partnerships between voluntary, statutory and commercial bodies which some experienced voluntary operators can recall with bitterness and which the CTA hints at.

Halesworth's passenger cost per mile at an outstanding 90% of capacity is still a place where no commercial operator dares to tread without some form of subsidy. HACT receives no route subsidy but manages to make up the deficit in fare revenue by continually fundraising, so using up precious volunteer time and enthusiasm. I would also hazard a guess that the "minimum subsidy" provided in the Netherlands is much higher than any subsidy anticipated in the UK.