When up to 30 DRT minibuses replace up to 40 bus routes

Tuesday 4th April 2023

This week sees the controversial withdrawal of many tendered bus routes within the West of England Combined Authority (WECA) area and their replacement with an extensive DRT operation. It’s been a rocky road to implementation and I’ve got a feeling it’ll be an even rockier road now it’s up and running.

Here’s a flavour of the background.

A melting pot of politics

Elected Mayor of the WECA is Dan Norris who is Labour and responsible for transport policy across the region. The three unitary councils that make up the Authority area are (a) Bristol City Council with its own directly elected Mayor, Marvin Rees who is also Labour but the Greens have the highest number of councillors at 25, compared to Labour with 24 within the city; (b) Bath and Northeast Somerset Council is LibDem controlled; and (c) South Gloucestershire Council which is Conservative controlled. For the Bus Service Improvement Plan which was successful in securing funding from the DfT, the Combined Authority teamed up with neighbouring unitary council, North Somerset which is Independent controlled. As you can see it’s a colourful melting pot of councils with varied political interests across the area leading to interesting dynamics between those involved, not least as elections approach.

Funding

The three unitary councils within the Combined Authority hand over a Transport Levy to the Combined Authority which pays for supported bus services, concessionary fares reimbursement, community transport, bus service information as well as overhead staff costs and the Metrobus project. Total levy for the year just ended March 2023 was just under £20 million split roughly 50% from Bristol City Council and 25% from each of Bath and Northeast Somerset Council and South Gloucestershire Council. Problems began as post pandemic reduced passenger numbers continued along with inflationary cost increases meaning that part of the levy for supported bus services (budgeted for around £3 million) became insufficient. Going forward the funding requirement was forecast to triple to £9.3 million for 2022/23 and beyond.

The unitary authorities were disinclined to hand over more money to the Combined Authority bearing in mind the financial challenges they in turn were each facing to meet their statutory duties, never mind paying for bus routes. Something therefore had to be done to plug the looming funding gap.

BSIP

Meanwhile as mentioned above, the Combined Authority and neighbouring North Somerset Council were successful in securing significant funding from the DfT for their jointly submitted Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP). While it was nowhere near the in excess of £1 billion they asked for (Authorities were asked to be ambitious) they did secure the second highest funding award in the country totally £105.5 million over the three years 2022/23 to 2024/25. Of this £57.5 million is revenue funding for fare reductions and service improvements.

CRSTS

WECA has also been a benefactor of the Government’s City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement (CRSTS). Last July it was awarded £540 million for a five year delivery plan which “aims to deliver transformational change through investments in public and sustainable transport infrastructure”. Note the crucial word “infrastructure”. WECA are planning to use £108 million each year across the five years (2022;23 to 2026/27) for “enhanced sustainable transport corridors” including bus priority measures.

When a replacement service is not a replacement service

One of the conditions the DfT imposed on BSIP funding awards is revenue funding cannot be used to prop up existing services that would otherwise be withdrawn for lack of funds. WECA reported this to its members at a meeting in January: BSIP “is not intended to be applied to support bus services that have been historically supported through Local Transport Authority (LTA) revenue budgets. The BSIP funding allocation is aimed primarily at promoting growth in bus use and the expectation from Government is that it will be utilised for fare incentives and new service provision.”

WECA’s supported bus services that needed extra funding therefore didn’t qualify. But, helped by enthusiastic sales pitches from tech companies which have made a specialism in ride sharing apps, a number of authorities are now seeing DRT as the answer to under funded tendered bus routes. It allows authorities to withdraw unprofitable supported services and their conventionally operated timetables where everyone knows what time buses run but with insufficient passengers on board, and, without using the word “replacement” for fear of breaking the BSIP funding rules, introduce a completely new DRT operation with all the usual guff about “Uber like buses” serving “virtual bus stops” etc etc, but the reality being no-one knows what time they might be able to get a bus until they try their luck at booking one. Consequently as readers will know I’ve consistently found DRT buses end up running around with one and sometimes two passengers on board, ie less than when it was a conventionally operated service, until the service ends up being withdrawn as a financial no hoper. But it’s regarded as an “improvement” because passengers have to use an App or make a telephone booking which they couldn’t before and so there’s minibus loads of funding available at the moment for such schemes.

However, it’s crucial to note that BSIP funding is time limited (two years to March 2025) by when it’s expected pump priming funding for the “improvements” will have attracted so many new passengers with motorists abandoning their cars to modal shift to the bus that the new arrangements will be financially self sustaining. Whilst this theory may be fine for effective (and ambitious) bus priority measures along with significant frequency enhancements across a corridor with significant potential, it’ll never make a DRT operation financial self sustaining. Even those enthusiastic eager-for-profits tech based companies admit that when pushed. A senior staff member from VIA told me the company never claim DRT will be commercial.

The upshot of all this is the DfT has approved funding of around £6 million to March 2025 from WECA and North Somerset’s BSIP allocation for the new DRT scheme launched yesterday, Monday 3rd April, and which is absolutely NOT a replacement for all those tendered bus routes that were withdrawn on Saturday 1st April. Anyone suggesting there is a connection will be immediately turned off the bus.

Introducing WESTlink

When the DRT plan was reported at a WECA meeting in January the idea was to have as many as 12 individual travel zones encircling Bristol city with some overlapping areas falling into two or more zones (I blogged incredulously about this last month), but thankfully, good sense prevailed and these have been reduced to just three – a North Zone, a South Zone – and what’s called a “Future Travel Zone” of which more later. Passengers can use DRT to travel wholly within each zone – the idea being not to compete with conventional bus routes entering into Bristol itself. Indeed some of the BSIP funds are being used to pay First Bus and Stagecoach to enhance frequencies of these routes to improve the service offering (also introduced yesterday), as well as fare reductions (which came in last year) when WECA introduced a £2 flat fare in the cities of Bristol and Bath ahead of the DfT’s temporary maximum scheme from January, meaning the BSIP provides the funding rather than the DfT’s own £2 arrangement.

The original idea was DRT would enable passengers to connect with the enhanced inter-urban bus routes at “Mobility Hubs” for which there are exciting plans (more later) but for now they appear to be no more than an ordinary bus stop, and maybe a shelter.

The new DRT operation has been given the brand name WESTlink. WECA confirm it’s been awarded to an operator “with a one hour service level” adding in its report to that January meeting “in some cases, this offer will far exceed current supported bus service availability”. That’s as maybe for a once a week shopping journey type bus service when maybe you are flexible enough to book your bus and then wait an hour for it to arrive, but it’s a completely different matter if you’re travelling to work or school or a medical appointment and previously had the certainty of a fixed timetabled bus service on which you could rely but now you could be waiting for the bus to arrive for up to an hour. It just reaffirms my view these schemes are dreamt up by people who’ve never travelled on a bus in their lives. And they expect people to give up their cars? Deluded doesn’t come close. It won’t happen.

The WESTlink operator

When tenders were invited at the end of last year I understand submissions were disappointingly low, if indeed any were received. In the event the tender was awarded to New York based VIA Technologies Inc, the global company that’s behind the software used by a number of DRT schemes in Britain, as well as a small company based in Southsea called WeDRT.

Aside from Milton Keynes where self employed own account (gig economy style) taxi/private hire drivers provide the MK Connect service with eight seaters for VIA, which won that tender too, the company hasn’t run any British DRT schemes directly itself.

WeDRT has also been involved in the West Midlands and University of Warwick DRT and dial-a-ride schemes but like VIA hasn’t got involved in actually running operations on the road directly itself.

WeDRT CEO Daniel Mould is also Director of a company called WeMOVE Solutions Ltd which may be one and the same business as WeDRT. WeMOVE used to be known as Coachscanner Ltd which acted as a broker between potential coach clients and small coach and minibus hire companies.

WECA specified accessible 16 seat minibuses for WESTlink which isn’t really VIA’s or WeDRT/WeMOVE’s bag (nor are ‘O’ licences and service registrations – both needed for WESTlink) so it’s not surprising to see the operation has been subcontracted.

Neither First Bus (200 bus drivers short at the moment) nor Stagecoach, both obvious contenders, were interested or in a position to help so the operation was sub-contracted to a company called E-Zec which is “proud to be able to provide non-emergency patient transport services, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to 30+ NHS Trusts, Clinical Commissioning Groups and Health Boards across the UK, helping them to care for their patients. We use our fleet of 550+ fully equipped ambulances and specialist medical vehicles, and the expertise of over 1,400 ambulance care assistants, call handlers, renal mangers and other specialist support colleagues to deliver an exceptional service“.

It’s the first time Redhill based E-Zec has been involved in bus operation so Directors John Harvey and Craig Smith applied for an O Licence with the Office of the Traffic Commissioner for the West of England as published in Notices and Proceedings dated 9th March 2023. The application was for 51 vehicles to be based at seven Operating Centres across Bristol, Yate and Nailsea but also as far away as Swindon and Salisbury.

Interestingly there’s a “New Undertaking” attached to the Licence that “vehicles with eight passenger seats or less will not be operated under the licence without the prior written agreement of the Traffic Commissioner who may require you to agree to certain undertakings Attached to Licence”. as well as “limousines and novelty type vehicles are not to be operated under this operator’s licence” which will no doubt disappoint novelty type loving DRT passengers.

E-Zec Medical Transport Services Ltd has been in business for a number of years (first incorporated in 2000) but a couple of years ago its accounts declared its parent company E-Zec Holdings Ltd was acquired by Leto 2021 Bidco Ltd. In turn, a company called Leto2021 Topco Ltd is the ultimate parent undertaking. The Annual Accounts also state the “ultimate controlling party is considered to be Cairngorm Capital Partners LLP”.

It’s certainly interesting to chart the changing landscape of bus operation in this country with an increasing involvement from tech companies, companies that act as brokers and run call centres and ‘mobility solution’ type companies.

WESTlink vehicles

WECA specified the WESTlink fleet of up to 30 vehicles must be fully accessible and I learnt from one of the drivers E-Zec has ordered low floor Mercedes Sprinter 16 seater minibuses – the mainstay of most DRT schemes around the country. However, due to the late notice in awarding the tender and the need for sub-contracting the timescale meant it’s not been possible to obtain the fleet ready for this week’s launch.

Instead a fleet of 16 seat vehicles has been temporarily rented in with step entrances …

… and some with manually operated side doors as well as tail lifts making for a less than optimum start to this exciting BSIP funded era when WECA aim to make “it easier to access and use public transport, we will get people out of cars and tackle highway congestion”. Not if you can’t manage steps it won’t.

Information

How’s WESTlink being communicated and promoted to the public to ensure it meets that all important WECA BSIP objective of “ensuring that people are provided with the right information as and when they need it”? There’s a dedicated WESTlink page on WECA’s traelwest.info website which I’d been keeping an eye on over the last few weeks. A week ago it was still promising information including the “WESTlink zone map” would be “coming soon”. Fortunately the link on that page to the map was activated later that day (last Tuesday) but I’m not sure it really helped much to be able to see it.

It was similar to the 12 zone map presented to that WECA meeting in January but instead of the now expected three coloured zones (North, South and “Future Travel” Zones) it now shows five coloured zones with no explanation that I could see of what the different colours mean.

My assumption was the large splurge of green in the south is the South Zone while the blue in the north is the North Zone but what are the small pink, yellow and orange zones? I’m guessing they mean passengers may book from either the green or blue zone into one of those, or vice versa, but not travel within them.

However on my travels yesterday I learnt that the small orange zone based on Keynsham and the pink zone based on Avonmouth both abutting the blue and green zones are available for journeys commencing or terminating in either blue or green although when I tried to book from the blue zone to Avonmoith it wouldn’t let me, so I’m none the wiser.

The yellow zone apparently is the Future Travel Zone of which more later.

If you zoom in on the map on a computer screen you can see the area covered a little better but the background colour makes it extremely hard, especially for partially sighted people – I doubt this passes muster with the Equalities Act.

Trying to find information about what services were to be withdrawn in the lead up to last weekend was not an easy task either. Lists were available online some of which have appeared in the local media in recent months within reports of the deliberations of WECA meetings. However, ominously these don’t give a very reassuring picture. One report which listed 36 routes began: “the West of England initially sent out a press release after the meeting saying 27 buses would be axed — before later clarifying that 27 would be saved, and 42 would be axed. A list was then sent out of potential services facing withdrawal, which was “not double-checked for accuracy” and only included 36 services. A confirmed list was then sent out the following day.”

Here’s that list as published:

As you can see, some of the routes are continuing for another three months. These are in Bath & North East Somerset where the Council has provided further short term funding. Quite a few on the list are once a week shopping journeys or low frequency routes, while some are routes with journeys geared up for school children giving rise to the quite incredible notion that WECA envisage school children having to summon up a DRT bus to take them to and from school – good luck with that one when schools return in a fortnight. I can just see the headlines in the local media now.

The travelwest.info website also contained details of “Bus service changes from the 2nd April 2023” for some time but it too advises the “lists below may still be subject to change”.

The table below the above screenshot gives a listing in route number order of every service subject to change. It defaults to showing just five at a time but if you don’t want to be clicking away for hours to find your route you can increase the display to show a 100 routes at a time and scroll down to check if your bus route is changing.

I was particularly interested in route 622 operated by Stagecoach between Thornbury and Cribbs Causeway every 90 minutes….

…. as it looked like an interesting route to road test its DRT “replacement” (that isn’t a “replacement” of course) once it ended on Saturday 1st April. The travelwest listing confirmed “Service withdrawn” but that was all.

Imagine if you’re a passenger that used that route to get to work at Cribbs Causeway and you can see the service is now withdrawn, there’s not much reassurance you’ll be able to still get to work this week even if you could work out what WESTlink offers and how to download the App. And they think this is “making it easier to access and use public transport, we will get people out of cars and tackle highway congestion”?

Frankly, if I’d been in that situation I’d have seriously thought about buying a car.

App and phone bookings

The WESTlink App became available for download from around the middle of last week which I’m sure people using the withdrawn bus routes for getting to work, school and other vital journeys were relieved about. It’s a standard VIA type App so I won’t bore you with the shortcomings I’ve commented on in previous blogs about that.

Despite the illusion of a Bristol 0117 area code number the call centre answering the phone line for those who prefer to speak to a human being when trying their luck at bus booking roulette may be pleased to know it’s based in Portsmouth, as I found when I gave it a call, so there’s not much chance of receiving reassuring local knowledge about the West of England. I’m guessing this location is associated with WeDRT (or WeMOVE) also being based in the Solent area and maybe that’s where the call centre for the West Midlands scheme is also based so overheads can be combined.

FTZ

Finally, to complete this background, as well as BSIP and CRSTS, WECA was also successful in securing £24.4 million funding for what the DfT call “Future Travel Zones” (FTZ). Authorities were invited to bid for this funding back in 2019 with seven applications shortlisted in September that year which were then invited to reapply to what was then known as the “Future Mobility Zones Fund”. (“Mobility” was subsequently renamed “Transport”). WECA, together with the West Midlands, Derby and Nottingham and the Solent area ended up as the four successful applicants.

In awarding the funding, DfT announced WECA “will test innovative tech to bring together people, operators and authorities. The aim is to introduce booking platforms, giving people access to book one journey across multiple modes of transport through the click of a button. They will also work to trial self-driving cars to transport people between Bristol airport, central Bath and the Northern Arc“. In addition to the £24.4 million, WECA is chipping in £3.65 million of its own money and the programme “runs from July 2020 to March 2024”. I know I can be a bit negative and something of a sceptic at times about these things, but I’m not sure we’ll be seeing self-driving cars on the roads between Bath and Bristol Airport any time soon let alone by next March.

The relevance to WESTlink is along with E-Scooters, the pretty much discredited “Mobility As A Service” concept (now I see rebranded as “Next generation app” – see image below) WECA will also introduce “one-stop trial Mobility Hub sites” to “make it easier for people to switch between modes such as bus, bicycle and e-scooter” which since that was devised in 2019 now includes between DRT. FTZ funds will also be used for what’s called “Dynamic Demand Responsive Transport” (“Dynamic”? You just can’t make it up these days!) which “puts passengers in control of when and where they travel, through small capacity but highly flexible bus services to help people access jobs, leisure and education.”

I understand that oddly shaped yellow coloured zone on the map shown earlier is the FTZ …

…. and WESTlink DRT buses can now be booked for journeys wholly within it but not crossing its boundary, which isn’t explained anywhere that I can find and only manifests itself when you try and book.

The proof of the pudding

After all that, as you’d expect I went over to the Bristol area yesterday to try WESTlink out.

I made four lengthy journeys as befits the large geographic area covered by WESTlink. Three of these were in the morning in the north zone and an 18 mile trek across the south zone in the afternoon. I won’t bore you with a blow by blow account of each one and instead just give some highlights.

As usual with a DRT day one experience there were no problems booking travel for the desired time. I scheduled the first journey (taking the option of a 09:55-10:25 window) to coincide with my 09:51 train arrival at Keynsham rail station and the bus was confirmed for 09:55 and waiting for me outside the station (hindering cars from passing) when I arrived.

I booked the next three journeys as needed and was offered a bus in 7 minutes, 19 minutes and 15 minutes. So not bad. Although the fourth booking had a false start giving me an 11 minute pick up but after a no show and my phoning the call centre when I was told it was “pending” I rebooked and got a 15 minute message.

The minibuses were indeed all step entrance – one with manually operated doors (which are heavy to open and quite a challenge to close properly) and three (the most modern buses) had driver operated doors. A retractable step comes out as the door opens but on the manually operated door one, it didn’t come out and I got quite a shock when alighting, almost falling.

The four bus drivers were all superb. All four had seen previous service with First Bus, albeit for short spells. One had also been with CTPlus until its closure last year. Azam, my first driver, was the politest driver I’ve ever come across (I told him so too) while Bart, the fourth of the day ..,,

…. was so friendly and the most obliging and helpful particularly ensuring he got me to the station for my train home from Freshford despite huge challenges from delays at roadworks with 4-way temporary traffic lights and the SatNav sending us along the narrowest road I’ve ever travelled along in a bus ….

…. let alone the narrow road that took us down to Freshford station itself.

Bart deserves a gold medal for his amazing driving. Thank you Bart.

Roadworks also plagued my first journey from Keynsham to Yate. The scheduled 21 minute journey time ended up taking 50 minutes.

The boss even rang Azam to check all was OK, such was the delay.

The next journey across the north zone from Yate to Thornbury was more uneventful taking 27 minutes …

…. and the third, from Thornbury to Almondsbury on the western flank of the north zone took 18 minutes. I chose Almondsbury as the App wouldn’t let me make that former route 622 journey to Cribbs Causeway as it turns out that’s in the Future Travel Zone. So tough luck any former passengers from the 622 living in Thornbury who work at Cribbs Causeway.

I’d been the only passenger on those three journeys but for the fourth – a marathon across much of the south zone from Parson Street station (south west Bristol near Hengrove) across to Freshford – I was surprised to see a passenger already on board as the bus pulled up.

It turned out to be a great guy called John who’s the Local Democracy Reporter for the area employed by Reach but makes news on local government in Bath and North East Somerset available to all media outlets. He was also doing a WESTlink road test for his reporting on the new venture so you can imagine we had a great chat. Indeed he contributed an item about his journey on BBC Radio 4’s PM programme last night which covered the WESTlink launch and DRT in general.

Coincidentally John had boarded the bus not far away in Whitchurch and booked to travel to the Odd Down Park & Ride site on the southern edge of Bath being the closest WESTlink gets to Bath so John’s journey was diverted to pick me up – I’d booked just as his journey was beginning – and my journey included a small deviation to drop him off. DRT as it’s meant to be I guess.

My end to end journey was scheduled to be an hour but due to the aforementioned roadworks it took 70 minutes becoming my longest ever DRT journey.

All in all it was a great day’s DRT riding and some lovely countryside to pass through especially on that last journey.

There were the usual teething issues for a new service – I’ve already mentioned the buses, but for those paying fares on the bus (rather than paying at the time of booking on the App) it’s cash only at the moment with contactless still pending.

Two of the drivers took a wrong turning but quickly recovered it when the SatNav alerted them.

The WESTlink fare is capped at the current £2 maximum. Hours of operation are 07:00 to 19:00 with no Sunday service although the Future Travel Zone has extended hours (05:30 to 21:30) and operates on Sundays (09:00 to 18:00).

Will it be a success? That depends on your definition of ‘success’. It gave me a great day’s travelling around beautiful South Gloucestershire and North East Somerset using my concessionary pass and enjoying my own personal chauffeur, but that’s not really the point of DRT.

The crunch will come when the schools go back in a fortnight and people become familiar with the new arrangements leading to buses becoming busier and not everyone getting their journey needs fulfilled. But the big worry is the looming cliff edge when the money runs out in April 2025. What happens then? Because WESTlink won’t be financially self sustaining, despite what WeDRT claim.

The budget for WECA’s supported bus services was increasing from £3 million a year to around £9 million. WESTlink has been given £6 million funding over two years from BSIP, which works out at, er, £3 million a year – coincidentally what the supported services budget had been.

Roger French

Blog updated: Wednesday 5th April. The previous reference as originally published in the blog to up to 50 vehicles has been amended to 30 vehicles and the allocation from BSIP funds for WESTlink corrected from £20 million to £6 million over two years.

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