"LTP 2002": Local Transport Plan around Birmingham

• Travel strategy branded disgrace, The Birmingham Post, September 19, 2002, p. 1.

A report criticising the LTP (Local Transport Plan) 2002 of the West Midlands region. The figures quoted in this article is very interesting.

Especially, I would like to note the steep decline in the ridership of Midland Metro. According to the article, the figure was 5.0 million passenger journeys in 1999/2000 and 5.5m in 2000/2001, but it declined to 4.8m in 2001/2002. The reason is said to be the reliability problem found during this year (since I do not use Midland Metro frequently I myself could not find any problem when I travelled on the Metro myself). I wonder what the problem was which led to such a quick decline in ridership.

On the other hand, the ridership of the bus declined by 3.2 per cent from 347m in 2000/2001 to 336m in 2001/2002. I presume this is because of the price increase. The article criticises LTP for setting the target of increasing the ridership to 382m in 2010 without any proposal of the measures to realise that goal -- the view which I could not help agreeing. Probably increasing frequencies of the services on weekdays after 6pm or on Sundays might help.

Railways' ridership is steadily increasing from 22.8m in 2000/2001 to 24.8m in 2001/2002; however, this figure is still less than 25.7m recorded in 1998/1999.

These figures give us the picture of the region, which deeply relies on buses in terms of public transport. I doubt if it is good for the conurbation of this size to rely on buses, though...