Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 1
1st Report - Public transport in towns and cities
Published 9 Nov 2022
Paragraph 6
Built Environment Committee Public transport in towns and cities All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on public transport. We began this study in the wake of the pandemic, at a time when demand for public transport was steadily recovering. We chose to focus our inquiry on English towns and cities outside of London. Our objective was to examine the role of public transport, developments in demand and technology and the prospects for improvement, as well as public transport’s interaction with other modes of transport.
From: Built Environment Committee, 1st Report - Public transport in towns and cities, paragraph 6, 9 November 2022
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 12 January 2023 (deadline 9 January 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government welcomes the report and says it agrees with the Committee on a number of recommendations, while noting, partially agreeing with or disagreeing with others.
- It agrees that public transport investment should focus on user priorities, citing 'Improving Transport for the User' as one of DfT's five strategic priorities.
- On a multimodal zonal ticketing evaluation, it "notes" the recommendation and says it is for local areas and operators to consider the costs and benefits of specific integrated ticketing solutions.
- It "partially agrees" on bus rapid transit evaluation, saying a Government-led post-project evaluation "would likely be of limited comparable value" and may risk breaching mode neutrality.
- On bus funding after emergency support ends, it "partially agrees", says DfT is "actively considering" long-term support from April 2023, and "hope[s]" to set out more clarity by January 2023.