KYQ4: Buses

My first bus - Farringdon Park to Preston Town Centre

I was daydreaming about my experience of buses on the Ember Bus back from Glasgow. It has become a familiar journey over the past eighteen months, as I have given up going to Glasgow by car; the traffic congestion is horrendous. Parking is too expensive or dependent on an App for all on-street parking. The Council has hived off one of its income streams to a commercial money maker. There are also no longer any public toilets in Glasgow, but Buchanan Street bus station is handy for John Lewis.

Ember buses have revived my faith in buses. Modern electric buses that travel at least as quick as cars and have internet access and comfortable seats. Booking could not be simpler with an App that shows you where your bus is and sends you a message if it is more than 4 minutes late. They have recently acquired a massive grant from the Scottish Government Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund to purchase a further 100 Yutong electric buses that will allow them to complete a network of routes between Scotland's cities and main towns that will be a sustainable alternative to car travel. And looking at the passengers on Ember Buses and talking to fellow travellers has convinced me that this is happening. For the most part, they are folks who have forsaken their cars for less hassle and the comfort of the Ember coaches. Admittedly, many use the Entitlement Cards, but the aim of the net-zero plan was to reduce car travel by 20%. The other losers could be ScotRail, which may be slightly faster, but also far more costly and less comfortable.

The last time I was so excited by bus travel was as a child, when buses were the only way to travel in most towns and cities after the first tram epoch was disbanded. We travelled to the town centre on the Farrindon Park route, which had a 5-minute frequency. Buses ran to tight timetables, dictated by work hooters and school bells. I was a great fan of step-on back platforms that could be accessed by running after the bus and jumping on, whilst being admonished by conductors with ticket machines and a normally cheery countenance.

There were long-distance coaches like the Ribble Leyland Tigers that took me to London when I was three. Apparently, I became very worried when we stopped in Birmingham, shouting, "Where's the driver?" Ribble buses also provided a wonderful service in the north west with regular trips to Blackpool, Lytham and Morecombe. They also provided Alfred Wainwright with buses to the 214 Lakeland Hills that became the Wainwrights. They were chosen as much by the accessibility via the Ribble Bus timetable as by their height or difference in height from adjacent hills.

I always travelled to secondary school and then to university by bus in the 1960s and early 70s. Living in Glasgow in the 1970s, I had the choice of bus or underground. In the 1980s, I used to run to work or occasionally catch the bus or use the car. Buses were slow and smoke-filled on the upper deck. They became a source of disdain, and Mrs Thatcher was alleged to have said: "If a man finds himself on a bus by the age of 26, he can count himself a failure." She didn't say this; according to Alistair Cook, it was attributed to the Duchess of Westminster, a cut-glass snob in the 1920s. Mrs Thatcher did, however, introduce the 1985 Transport Act, which deregulated local bus services, allowing the privatisation of bus services. This led to the effective demise of local authority bus services in all but a few cities: Lothian, Dumfries and Galloway, Nottingham, Cardiff, and Blackpool, amongst them. By the 1980s, buses were not a lifestyle way of travelling for those with cars. But they were the only way to travel for the poorest in society. Standards dropped, timetables became fictional, prices increased as competition between companies inevitably gave way to monopolies and further price increases.

In the early noughties, I was involved in a Scottish working group to introduce a Scottish-wide identity card. It involved the Scottish Executive (now Scottish Government), the Councils and the NHS. We were seeking to establish a citizen account or identity number integrating National Insurance numbers, NHS numbers and electoral roll and council tax address information from Councils. It was seen as a means of sharing information between Health, Education, Social Work, and Police, and a way to keep the electoral roll up to date and to give entitlement to council services like libraries, leisure facilities and school dinners. It would also have significantly reduced the number of people on the list of local medical practices. In Glasgow, there were over 10% more people on these lists than the total population. People did not tend to notify practices when they moved elsewhere.

The citizen account number would be linked to a single address, and this identity would provide the entitlement to a wide range of public services. It was going well, not least because of the work carried out by Dundee City Council, which had a working example of an identity card. Alas, following the 2007 election, it was dropped as a comprehensive scheme by the new government that was feart of the civil liberties lobby. The only parts that continued were the National Entitlement Card, essentially the bus pass, and a Proof of Age scheme, both of which were voluntary. Fears of Big Brother saw the rest of the initiative being too radical for our increasingly centralised democracy.

It had an upside in that thousands of pensioners were given the freedom of Scotland by virtue of the National Entitlement Card. The mock-ups had the card in the name of Winston Smith from Nineteen-Eighty-Four; perhaps there were some humourists in the Edinburgh City Council. Winston was fighting against Big Brother whilst getting laid by Julia. After retirement, my Entitlement Card was used regularly to catch the City Link Bus from Crianlarich to Skye. The bus was always full of elderly folk astonished at the scenery as they travelled across Rannoch Moor and through Glencoe or caught the views into Knoydart before reaching Glenshiel. It was a better tonic than a visit to the Doctor; the bus was a happy place. I was often queried about my age by the regular female driver as I heaved my rucksack onto the bus and asked to be dropped at a remote location in Glencoe or Glenshiel. I would spend two days walking over and camping in the hills, and get picked up the next day at another stop. The flexibility and the comfort of a City Link bus were a prized service.

Yes, buses are becoming a lifestyle choice again as well as an essential public service.