Exeter’s buses are unnecessarily slow because of the amount of the time they spend at bus stops

Traffic congestion – that is, the inability of the road network to keep the volume of traffic moving – is the all-purpose alibi, certainly in Exeter. Taxi arrives late? It’s the traffic. Grocery delivery arrives late? It’s the traffic. Bus running late? It’s the traffic. Late for an appointment? You get the idea.

Every transport strategy in recent times acknowledges the importance of encouraging people to leave their cars and travel on foot, by bicycle or by public transport. Doing so will reduce pollution and congestion, and make our streets quieter and friendlier. Of course to achieve this shift public transport needs to be sufficiently attractive. Specifically it needs to be reliable, punctual, frequent, and clean.

Bus operators claim that the first two of these are held back by traffic congestion. They are right, and there are all sorts of measures that local councils with highways and transport functions can take. There is a 100-page government guidance note devoted to bus priority schemes.

But that’s not the whole story. Several other factors combine to make urban bus travel unattractive, including the buses, the routes and people.

The draft Local Transport Plan for Devon and Torbay, currently out for public consultation, states boldly “Our aspiration is to transform the attractiveness of travel by bus. … Journeys by bus will be faster”. Nowhere does the draft plan acknowledge that speeding up the buses is not just a matter of better physical infrastructure but of changing the way people use the buses.

Let’s think about what the industry calls “dwell times” at bus stops. You have been waiting on the High Street for your bus. It arrives, and then all or some of the following will happen as sure as night follows day.

• Some passengers already on board decide to get off. They don’t stir until the bus has stopped and sometimes linger after that. There may be baby buggies and shopping trolleys to be disembarked.
• Boarding passengers begin to board. Although many have passes, there’s always a few who don’t start rummaging in their bags for it until they are face to face with the driver.
• Then there are those whose lives are encapsulated within their smartphones. Season tickets, using the phone to pay a cash fare, checking the route map. And we wait while the disorganised switch on the device and find the relevant function.
• Destinations are a source of endless discussion. Either the passenger knows only the name of some side-street that the driver has never heard of, or the desired stop is expressed in such vague terms (eg “Marsh Barton”) that an interrogation is needed to tie things down. Given that almost every single fare is currently £2, one wonders why the bus company needs to know the destination; after all, pass-holders are never asked for such information.
• And this assumes the passenger is on the right bus in the first place. “Do you go to IKEA?” “No, you need the J” “Where does that go from?” “Two stops back”. “When is the next one….”
• Or there are those who think bus drivers are not there just to drive and collect faces. Rather they are a general information resource, So, person approaches the bus, gets half on and asks “Where is John Lewis?” Or even “what time is the next B bus?”, ignoring the availability of a timetable at the stop.
• Finally when the bus is ready to move on, the driver has to wait until buggies and shopping trolleys are located into a space and parked, oft accompanied by the screams of an infant whose mother is either too stressed by life or too preoccupied with her smartphone to do anything about it.

And all this before the bus has even left the stop.

Once under way, a key constraint on progress may not be congestion, road works, cars doing U-turns and so on, but – and whisper this – cyclists.

We know that cycling is the least polluting, healthiest way of getting around faster than walking. Nothing must interfere with its progress. If you are a bus driver, overtaking a pedal cyclist doing 15 mph is a real challenge, if the cyclist is to be given the approved amount of space, which is 1.5 metres according to Rule 163 of the Highway Code. So a bus with say 20 people on board has to go at the pace of the solitary cyclist.

Well, what is to be done to “transform the attractiveness” of bus travel? Here are some measures, admittedly not cost-neutral in the short-term, that operators (as opposed to government and councils) could take.

First, and crucially, put an end to paying the driver. London buses don’t accept payment on the bus, so why not in Exeter? For people without passes, tickets would be bought at on-street machines or machines inside the buses themselves. A flat fare, or two at the most, would make it simple to buy the right ticket.

The usual objections that this sort of thing discriminates against elderly and disabled people just don’t wash. These groups can obtain from Devon County Council, at no cost, individual passes allowing free travel on local buses anywhere in England. And if Londoners can cope, then …..?

It is probably unnecessary to install machines at remoter or less well-used bus stops. In such cases, people would pay using a machine on the bus (though these would be rendered non-operational by the driver at busy stops to prevent queues forming on the bus).

A London Buses on-street ticket machine

Because drivers are not selling tickets, the time required for crew changes is greatly reduced since there is no ticket machine to log off and on from.

To reduce fare evasion, the operators will need to employ roving inspectors to check tickets in buses, with the prospect of whopping fines for transgressors. Some of us are old enough to remember having our tickets checked frequently by inspectors, so this is not a radical suggestion. And when they are not on the buses, inspectors can provide advice and information at key bus stops.

The new government’s proposals to allow all local transport authorities to franchise bus services offer a real opportunity here. Yes, Devon and Torbay, this means you

The other key change needed is the design of buses in urban areas. The expectation of being able to bring shopping trolleys, buggies and luggage onto buses – together with competition for wheelchair space – means that the traditional bus design is becoming unfit for purpose. On short trips, fewer seats are required in any case.

Manufacturers should be tasked by their customers with developing new designs, involving two separate doorways – entry and exit, or with wheels and without them. There should be more vacant space for buggies and trolleys, racks for shopping, and standing passengers and ticket machines.

The last proposal here is one for government, though local transport authorities and bus operators could lobby for it. There is a strong case that public transport carrying multiple passengers should have priority over other road users, including cyclists who slow buses down. An amendment to the Highway Code would start the behaviour change.

Can we get on with this, please? Use the consultation on the Local Transport Plan to let the decision-makers know your views