Trams for Bath welcomes any moves which will lead to improvements
in the quality of public transport in and around this city. We
appreciate the difficulties of delivering a quality service in
the traffic conditions prevailing in Bath and look forward to
improvements in the delivery and uptake of bus services which
result from this partnership.
We feel that in the short term, B&NES is right to be looking
at improvements in bus quality as a way of encouraging small but
significant amounts of modal shift. We hope this will pave the
way for the much greater improvements which can be had in the
longer term by the provision of a light electric tram network.
PUBLICITY
Partnership Principles
Extra publicity would be excellent in the form of leaflets
maps and timetables, but if it is in the form of the current roof
cove panels it can become confusing and counter-productive if
the vehicle has to be switched to another route.
RELIABILITY STANDARDS
Partnership Targets 5
Are these not the normal statutory requirements?
AGREED MEASURABLE INDICATORS
Partnership Targets
Where is Appendix 1?
MODAL SHIFT
Partnership Targets 1
We note that an increase of 2% per annum in bus ridership is anticipted,
this approximately equates to a 0.2% decrease in car use or a
saving of 300 car journeys per day over the entire bus network
area. It is interesting to compare this with the 25% of Croydon
tram passengers who switched from car last year, giving a figure
of about 10,000 car journeys saved per day by a 25 km tram system.
VALUE FOR MONEY
Early Projects & Commitments / Partnership Targets 3
We note that First is spending about 1.3m pa on new vehicles with
a 10 year life. Will this level of expenditure continue? Are thse
vehicles to remain in Bath throughout their lifetime or is there
some agreement that any which migrate to other fleets will be
replaced by vehicles of equivalent or better quality?
A fleet of tramcars sufficient to serve the Bath area and capable
of carrying at least twice the workload would cost cosiderably
less than buses when the costs were spread over their 50 year
lifetime.
INFORMATION SYSTEMS
B&NES 6 / B&NES 7 / First 6 / First 9 / Partnership Targets
7
The provision of passenger information systems, security devices
and communication points at bus stops, tram stops and on the vehicles
is made considerably easier where communication and power supply
ductwork already exists as part of the tramway infrastructre.
EXTENDED OPERATING TIMES
First 4
This is often difficult to justify in the case of a public transport
mode where fuel and mileage-related maintenence make up a significant
proportion of the operating costs. In the case of a tram, a major
part of the cost is in the infrastructure and the costs of extra
journeys are much lower.
ACCESSIBILITY
First 1 / Partnership Targets 2
For true accessibility, vehicles should have stepless and gapless
boarding. This can only be reliably achieved if the vehicle is
under the control of a guidance system as it approaches the stopping
place.
Trams for Bath July 2002
The original "Umbrella Quality Partnership" paper