Does the increase use of public transportation cut down the pollution private transportation cause? (Reading Transport Ltd)

Public transportation helps provide sustainable alternatives for the society. It makes it easier to travel, improve our health and reduce traffic impacts on the environment. Therefore it makes sense to change our life style and start using public transportation. There are over 21 million cars on our roads making huge contribution to global warming, that’s faster than any other source. The government has introduced some barriers like congestion charge, the increase of bus lanes and the improvement and increase of public transportation. These techniques are very effective and are being introduced in more areas, but why is the number of road users increasing by 2% every year?

For this topic I have chose to talk about what Reading is doing to combat these issues. The reason I have chosen to talk about Reading is because Reading is my home town. Since I came to this country in 2000 I have lived in Reading and I have seen a lot of changes with Reading’s public transportation, especially with the bus service. I’m impressed with the huge improvement RTL has made within the seven years of me living there, but also quite disappointed with the bus fare increase that occurred within those years ( from £60p per adult to £1.50p now). I want to know if the improvement that is made is worth paying the ridiculously increased amount fare, and also if the money the public is paying is going to a good cause e.g. improving the service for the public and most importantly making the buses environmental friendly.

Reading Buses is a service brand that operates under a company called Reading Transport Ltd. RTL is one of the few remaining municipal bus companies in the UK (operator of bus services owned by the local government authority). Reading Transport Ltd also owns other two brands apart from Reading Buses; these are Newbury Buses and Goldline Travel. Reading Transport Ltd has come up with some incentives to increase the use of buses and to overcome the barriers that prevent the use of more buses in Reading.

Plan of inquiry

1. I will try to find out what would persuade the public to use the bus service more
2. What the public view is on the bus service compared to the past
3. What more improvement the public wants to see with the service Reading is providing
4. Find out the number of the public using the bus service currently, previously and predict the future
5. Find out if the increase of the bus fares meet the progress RTL is doing.
6. Find out if the public feels safe using the buses compared to the past

I will use different sources to research about this topic. Some of the sources I plan to use are.

1. Reading buses website
2. Go to RTL office to speak to someone about strategies RTL is implementing. Also I want to ask whether the use of buses has increased compared to past years and whether the continuity improvement of the service will increase the use of the buses.
3. List of websites provided by the university for this subject.
• http://www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/

• Barriers RTL faces

There are lots of reasons why the public don’t like using the bus in Reading. The following are some of the reasons.

1. Buses don’t come on time
2. The buses are dirty
3. Buses are not comfortable
4. Frequency of the buses
5. No buses in some areas
6. Don’t feel safe

• Incentives RTL Introduced to overcome the barriers it faces

RTL has introduced many incentives to overcome the barrier it faces. Some of these incentives are:

1. Display screens on most bus stops which uses satellite technology
2. Satellite technology
3. New comfortable buses
4. Colour coded bus
5. Increased number of buses
6. New routes
7. Free travel to some parts of Reading
8. Improved security

1) The display screens use global positioning system data to track each bus and display the next five buses for that particular stop. All new buses are fitted with a device that communicates with bus stops. This information is relayed to a central control room and then sent to electronic information signs at other bus stops. The location of each bus is then combined with data and formulas predicting when it will arrive at each stop, so passengers can see exactly when the next bus is due.

2) Satellite technology system has been designed to give passengers accurate and concise bus arrival information at a variety of points on the network. Satellite technology allows communication between bus stops and buses. The satellite device then sends the time the bus reached at that stop to central control room whenever a bus goes pass a bus stop, which then is passed on to other bus stops by the central control room, to let the public know when the bus is due at each bus stops.

3) 4) About a year ago RTL introduced new buses for Reading Buses brand and colour coded all the buses according to their route. This method makes it easy for the public to identify the service a bus is providing. There are thirteen colours and each one represents the route they travel

5) 6) RTL has increased the number of buses operating under all its brands. This meant that the buses come more frequently allowing RTL to overcome some of the barriers it was facing. Also new routes were introduced in some areas.

7) RTL is working with other companies to provide free bus service to some areas. Free bus service from Reading Town Centre to Thames Valley Park is one of them. The buses that are used for this service are amongst the cleanest of their kind in Europe. There are five of these buses and are fitted with Euro4 engines, the latest European standard for reducing carbon and other gas emissions from combustion engines. The buses are also the first production single deck buses to use these engines in the UK.

• Future plans of RTL

RTL is researching to see if it is possible to come up with ‘intelligent’ traffic signals at priority junctions which will give buses priority over domestic cars.

I feel that RTL has done a lot of improvement to its services but also feel that, there is more that RTL can do to make the buses even more environmental friendly, for example getting all the buses to work with Biofuel.