On the buses... off the planes
GUERNSEY'S rekindled love affair with public transport seems to be slowly gaining in ardour. Bus passenger numbers are still a fraction of what they were in the glory days of Guernsey Railways and the Greys, but they've been increasing steadily for a dozen years now.
GUERNSEY'S rekindled love affair with public transport seems to be slowly gaining in ardour. Bus passenger numbers are still a fraction of what they were in the glory days of Guernsey Railways and the Greys, but they've been increasing steadily for a dozen years now.In many ways that's quite remarkable. From the 50s to the mid-90s there was a direct correlation between rising car ownership and falling bus use. However, since then passenger numbers have gone up by more than 50% despite no commensurate reduction in the number of private vehicles.
Put simply, people used to use buses because they had no other choice. Now it is clear that a growing number of us are choosing to use buses out of preference rather than necessity. That is a testament to the outstanding work done by Island Coachways and the former States Traffic Committee to rescue the island's bus service from almost terminal decline.
Nor is the public transport revival only good for trendy, environmental reasons - although these are important. If our bus service had gone (and it nearly did), so would have the ability to move freely about the island for many hundreds of people who can't drive because of age, medical conditions, or poverty. Obviously tourists would also have found the island a far less convenient destination. Last, but not least, private motorists would have suffered as congestion increased. Just imagine another 1.5 million private journeys on our roads every year.
For the anoraks among you, I can reveal Island Coachways' latest passenger figures. Of the first eight months of 2009, six have seen the highest passenger counts since automated records began. Since 1 January, numbers are up by more than 20,000 and over the last whole year, there's been a rise of more than 42,000. Both increases would have been even higher if it hadn't been for a drop of 7,500 in February when snow disrupted services.
It's high time Guernsey stopped whinging about the buses and gave credit for a job well done. We also should be careful not to destroy that success story through the current review of subsidies. Of course Environment, like all States departments, has to reduce costs and no area of spending can be sacrosanct. The irony is that as it seeks ways of cutting expenditure without damaging services, its own actions have made the task harder.
If Environment had introduced paid parking - as repeatedly instructed - increasing bus fares would be far easier. Single/system tickets could have gone up from 60p/30p to £1/50p respectively and still have been attractive to commuters. However, such a price hike with free long-term parking risks reversing the rising trend in bus use.
While talking transport, it's a good time for an update on 'our' airline. Aurigny's figures reveal a mixed picture. Just as with Island Coachways, passenger numbers are up. In fact, they are predicting a 12% increase in passenger numbers on their UK routes for 2009. That's quite a performance in the present circumstances, but to some extent it hides the true picture.
With a collapsed market for leasing out Aurigny's 'spare' aircraft, they've put it to use expanding their capacity on scheduled UK routes instead. That's involved extra flights to Gatwick and opening up a new route to the East Midlands. The net result is a 22% rise in capacity. So, even with passenger numbers up by 12%, flights are now running at an average of 65% full instead of 70%.
On the inter-island routes the picture is worse, with both major carriers running about half full and a 14% drop in the total market. It will be interesting to see how this 'death struggle' between Aurigny and Blue Islands for the limited and dwindling inter-island trade pans out. Both must surely be losing heavily on the route now.
The bottom line in all this for Aurigny - and local taxpayers - is a predicted loss of £1m. this year and half that next year, before returning to profit in 2011. That sounds dire - it is dire - but in the context of the aviation industry as a whole, it's not that bad.
More positively, as a result of the world recession and the resultant downturn in air travel, Aurigny has managed to acquire another pair of vital slots at Gatwick Airport. Remember, we bought the airline as a strategic insurance policy. That's still the reason we own it, albeit with the pretty high premiums at the moment.
