WelshLabour’s disastrous blanket 20mph rollout stalls the bus service

On this weeks’ Sunday Supplement programme, Professor Stuart Cole – Emeritus Professor of Transport at the University of South Wales, explained why 20mph is having a negative impact on bus services in Wales. On the show, the professor noted that:

Buses are built to be travelling with a speed limit of 30mph in urban areas.

They can also travel at 10mph in other sections of the route and most busses are now automatic.

Their gearing system is designed to travel very slowly at around ten miles an hour and much more quickly at 30mph and above.

They’re not designed to travel at 20mph. Therefore, the driver is spending more of his or her time adjusting the gearing system.

More vehicles would be needed to provide the same frequency of service. And that, of course, means more drivers. And there’s a shortage of drivers. It’s just not possible in many cases to achieve a higher frequency and a higher number of vehicles travelling than there are now.

Commenting on Professor Stuart Cole’s comments, Welsh Conservative Shadow Transport Minister, Natasha Asghar MS said:

“With an already struggling bus sector in Wales the Labour Government have used the blanket 20mph rollout to seemingly bring down the final curtain call on Welsh bus services.

“All the while forcing people off the road onto non-existent public transport. You couldn’t make it up. It’s completely backwards thinking, which is unsurprising from Labour’s Deputy Minister, unfortunately.

“For bus drivers to be more focused on controlling gears than paying attention to the roads, could regretfully lead to more accidents. With the blanket policy in place for just over a week, buses unable to cope with the strain and more than 440,000 people in Wales signing a record-breaking Senedd petition to scrap 20mph speed limits, it would appear that Labour’s policy has already stalled.”