City of Edinburgh Council today announced plans to integrate the capital's transport system under a new organisation called Transport for Edinburgh (TfE).
To begin with, Lothian Buses and Edinburgh Trams will run TfE, with the company's operating structure, 15-year financial model and tram-operating agreement going before a full Council meeting next week.
'There is potential' for the new body to oversee cycling, pedestrian and other issues in future.
The financial model envisages:
- £33.7, profit over the period, with an operating surplus in Year 4
- £42m 'operating surplus' for trams. 'Maintenance and refurbishment costs for the tram system (totalling £87m and which isn’t part of operating costs) would be covered by an infrastructure access fee of £39.6m payable to the Council by Tramco and through the dividend of £55.2m paid to the Council by Lothian Buses and Tramco. There is potential [that phrase again] for additional funding to be achieved on items such as advertising and ticket optimisation.'
'This is a very welcome development for the city, its residents, visitors and businesses,' said Lothian Buses CEO Ian Craig. 'Public transport is so key to all of our daily lives and the vision being put forward today by the Council should be embraced as committing to the ongoing provision of safe, socially-inclusive, affordable, integrated and high-quality public transport.
'Particularly in the immediate term, this allows the transport provision of bus and tram to the public to be integrated and presented as one multi-mode offering to our customers, rather than distinct and separate entities.
'Ensuring that Edinburgh’s public transport system, in its widest sense, keeps pace with the growth, economic development and social demands of the city is imperative and the formation of Transport for Edinburgh recognises this.'
The full report will be available on the Council’s committee papers here tomorrow.
Whilst Craig seems to be making the right kind of noises, Spurtle lacks expertise to comment authoritatively on this initiative. (We'd welcome better qualified readers' input.) However, we do possess a now well-honed sinking-stomach sensation born of bitter experience ... this proposal makes us nervous. Our dyspeptic concerns include:
- Will TfE fare better than anything else the Council has 'managed' over the last decade?
- How competently thought-through are its business plan and legal framework?
- To what extent can vested bus and tram interests be trusted with overseeing the competing rather than complementary demands of pedestrians and cyclists?
Let us hope that whoever oversees TfE works from a more reliable model than that shown top-left and below. The unusual globe (on sale in the Botanic Gardens giftshop) has Canonmills where the North Pole normally appears, and consigns most of Broughton to a mysterious haar between Albany Street and Hillside Crescent.
For once we cannot blame this cartographic confusion on wrongheaded Neighbourhood Partnership boundaries. London Road somehow continues as Queensferry Street, which does not bode at all well for Leith.
What do you think of Transport for Edinburgh? Tell us by email spurtle@hotmail.co.uk on Facebook Broughton Spurtle or Twitter @theSpurtle
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Reactions
Tim Maguire Interesting that Councillor Hinds said they were going to make sure that the trams and the buses work together. Someone needs to tell her that we have trains and planes too...
Neil Jones 
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