On or off the buses..?

On or off the buses..?

Amy Cole

Politics Show South West

In a case of European legislation being seen, by some, as 'mad', a rural bus company is incurring the wrath of many of its travelling customers over enforced disruption to timetables...

Cornwall's Western Greyhound bus company says, because it can not afford a device which monitors bus drivers' hours, as required under the European regulation, it has had to slice up the bus routes on many of its services.

One elderly passenger is now refusing to use the altered service, because she would have to change buses up to six times.

She has even written to the House of Lords asking for its help.

Six changes

Anthea Silver will be 80-years-old in 2008. She has cancer and is not particularly agile.

She used to take the Western Greyhound bus from Wadebridge through to the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro.

But since April, she has had to find alternative transport because the now altered bus route means she would have to change buses six times to get to and from the hospital.

A journey she says she can not face.

New European rules mean that if a bus route is longer than 31. 5 miles, it must be fitted with a tachograph - a device which monitors driving hours.

It costs more than £1,500 and is expensive to maintain.

For a small rural bus company, like Western Greyhound, the only option to comply with the legislation is to split the routes up so they are under 30 miles.

This means many more bus changes for passengers.

Friends in high places

Last week a letter written by Anthea about her plight was read to the House of Lords.

In some cases the same bus is being used for the next leg of a route, but passengers still have to physically get off that bus, only to re-board it a few minutes later, so they constitute an official change of that route.

On other occasions, the bus drivers change over.

Many passengers say they are fed-up with the new timetables and are blaming the company, Western Greyhound.

Its managing director, Mark Howarth, says he has faced a lot of criticism and people are leaving the service.

He says: "This is very frustrating as we have put in a lot of effort trying to provide a good service which is now being ruined because we have to comply with this legislation which many people do not realise.

The Department for Transport says: "At the time the EU Regulation was being negotiated, the government received little evidence from consultees to suggest that this change would cause problems for operators.

In light of the recent concerns raised, we have invited representatives of rural bus operators to meet DfT officials.

Such a meeting would explore the extent of the problem and possible solutions within the constraints of the EU Regulation."

"We then asked the European Commission what room for manoeuvre there might be within the legislation.

"It said 'Existing derogations from the law have been based on low population density, i.e. less than five people per square kilometre'.

"Were there to be reasonable justifications for further derogations drawn to our attention, we would of course examine them very carefully."

Anthea recently received a letter from the House of Lords saying it will investigate the situation, although she says she is not very optimistic that anything will be done.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/6768065.stm