Following the decision of the DTI and DfT to pass the ‘de-limit’ buck to local councils, it would appear that those of us involved in the taxi/PH trade urgently need to gen up on what a Transport Plan is, and what it does. With this in mind, Taxi Driver Online asked someone with background in local government to give us a very broad overview.

Local Transport Plans

In order to get a comprehensive approach to national transport planning, each area of the country must prepare a transport plan.

There is not any set ground rules as to how this should be done, for instance in West Yorkshire, a total of five highway authorities and a passenger transport authority, joined forces to prepare their plan. But usually a transport plan is a highway authority or a county council document.

The government has set ground rules by issuing set criteria, and a plan is drafted. After which interested parties must be consulted, including bus companies, haulage companies and the electorate.

An approved plan will get a response from the Department for Transport, by the way of capital and grant funding over the five years of the plan. If, by way of example, there are road improvements in the transport plan, on approval of the plan the government will give the go ahead by expressing allocations of cash or approved borrowings.

The DfT required the following for the years 2000/2005.

i) Description of scheme

ii) Objectives and Benefits

iii) Environmental considerations

iv) Effects on the local economy

v) Road Safety

vi) Public Transport

vii) Other Highway Users

viii) Progress

ix) Future Development

It has been announced that both taxis and private hire must feature in future plans. Although it would be untrue to state that these have not previously been included, some plans like the West Yorkshire plan have included them, as ‘Integrated Transport Planning’.

A league table of previous taxi and PH transport plan inputs can be found here.  Was yours one of the very few that did well, or one of the many they didn’t?

West Yorkshire

The five districts of West Yorkshire have a common approach to taxis

i) All limit Taxis by number in urban heartlands

ii) All have plans to introduce Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles in their fleets

iii) All allow taxis into the bus lanes

What is not known generally is the tactics of influencing the transport plan.

In West Yorkshire for instance, a Halifax taxi driver once raised at his consultative group the prospects of using taxis in bus lanes, and was told it was not possible, as the proposal would give rise to similar claims. He was advised to contact a taxi liaison group, which was a committee of West Yorkshire Passenger Transport executive. He was also advised that two other authorities had such a policy. His perseverance led to the bus lane request being put into the transport plan, and approved.

Members and guests of Taxi Driver Online are given the following advice.

i) Find out who does your local transport plan, licensing officials should know.

ii) Get a copy of the last edition, and try to get a feel of its language.

iii) Find out about the consultation process, and attend any relevant meetings. They are worthwhile.

iv) Find out who approves your local plan, the names of councillors and if need be, contact them.

v) If there is more than one authority concerned, try to find out the policies you like of other member authorities, to help back up your argument. 

vi) Prior to any meetings, get to know the criterion laid down by government and get your argument to fit.

vii) Find a contact officer and talk to him/her regularly, don’t be confrontational; this should be for floating ideas and information gathering.

viii) The public transport policy unit is usually one of the best for raising ideas.

ix) Try not to get bogged down in the restrict or de-restrict issue. Transport plans are there for many subjects. Fares, driver’s safety, access are just a few issues that could be included.

And finally good luck, the bus people have a big head start on us. So lets all try and catch up, and have the taxi and PH trade at the top of the pile, not where we are at present.

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