Worcester North (Perdiswell) Park and Ride
Background:
The Worcester North (Perdiswell) Park and Ride is operated from a purpose-built site on the north of Worcester on the main A38 from Droitwich and Bromsgrove.
The original aim was to take 500 cars each day out of the centre of Worcester. It was to be the first of three sites proposed for the city.
The site was opened in 2001 and was deemed successful in that nearly 41,000 tickets were sold in the first six months.
A peak of 136,500 cars parked at the site in the year 2002-3. This represents an average of about 450 cars per day.
However, in order to reduce the net cost and to link with the hospital it was decided to merge the service with a semi-orbital service in 2005. This reduced the reliability and resulted in a loss of park and ride customers.
The service was restored as a stand-alone facility, but still serving some intermediate stops, now operated by the in-house Fleet Services, in 2008.
To reduce costs the off-peak and Saturday service was reduced in frequency in 2011.
The number of cars parked has continued to fall due to cheaper car parking in the city and the general recession such that now there are less than half the numbers recorded previously. In 2012-13 just under 56,500 cars were parked at Perdiswell, representing about 185 cars per day.
A service is currently operated from 7am to 7pm Monday to Saturday at every 10 minutes during the peaks but reducing to every 15 minutes off-peak and on Saturdays. The current timetable is appended at the end of this report.
These key dates are summarised below:
Worcester North (Perdiswell) Park and Ride TimeLine17th April 2001
- Commenced.
- Operated by First, every 10 minutes.
- Stopped only at Little London and Foregate Street.
- Merged with semi-orbital services, W1 – W3, overall every 10 minutes.
- Operated by First.
- Additional stops introduced.
- Intention was to provide link to hospital and integration with existing service.
- However, this proved unreliable and park and ride passengers were lost.
- W1 as a stand alone service with some intermediate stops, operated by WCC Fleet.
- W1 off-peak and Saturday frequency reduced.
Patronage
Car Parking2001-2 / 96,436
2002-3 / 136,500
2003-4 / 129,949
2004-5 / 129,285
2005-6 / 103,023
2006-7 / 74,881
2007-8 / 71,016
2008-9 / 66,227
2009-10 / 65,275 / Estimate for 2009-10 due to machine out of action for a period.
2010-11 / 62,005
2011-12 / 62,145
2012-13 / 56,446
Costs
Worcester North (Perdiswell)Car Park Expenditure / £120,000
Bus Service W1 cost / £300,000
Car Park Ticket Machine Income / -£150,000
Bus Service W1 on bus fares / -£60,000
Bus Service W1 Concessionary Reimbursement / -£45,000
Net Cost: / £165,000
Actual Patronage / Receipts April – December 2013
Average number of cars parked: 191 per day, approx 58,000 pa.
Total Passengers (From site and en route): 1,043 per day.
Main Park and Ride Fares and Tickets, revised 1st June 2011
Day Park and Ride: £2.20.
Weekly Park and Ride: £8.00.
Monthly Park and Ride: £30.00.
Day Group Travel, Driver and up to six passengers: £3.50.
Options for the Future of the Perdiswell Park and Ride
The reduction in budget for public transport means that the Perdiswell Park and Ride service can only operate in future at no net cost to the County Council. This is because all passengers do have alternative transport, either a car which can be used for the whole journey or alternative services for intermediate passengers.
At present there is a net cost of approximately £165,000 per annum. Therefore the two elements of the service need to be examined to determine ways of reducing these costs.
The Site
The site costs of £120,000 could be reduced by not manning the site (although there would ideally need to be cctv monitoring from elsewhere) and removing the ticket machines. Alternative ways of maintaining the site could be sought but it is unlikely that total savings of more than 50% could be achieved.
Users of the site could either be not charged to park or could pay a fixed sum per car of say £1 or £2, this being collected by a coin in the slot at the barrier, a separate simple ticket machine or by pay and display. A pay and display system would require some level of inspection to encourage people to pay the charges.
If site costs are reduced by half then, at the current level of patronage, a charge of about £1 per car would need to be levied to cover the site costs.
Note that if no parking charge is made to the site then by implication this would allow free access. It would be necessary to ensure that this did not attract use of the site by people parking for other purposes, such as nearby offices.
The Buses
At the current level of service, and assuming that the on-bus fares revenue (£60,000) and off-bus concessionary reimbursement (£45,000) continues, with the current operating cost of £300,000 there is a need to raise £195,000 from people using the car park, or £3.36 per car, to just cover the cost of the bus service. Note that this does not cover the car parking cost.
Thus, even with reduced site costs, there is still a need to raise a total of £4.36 per car (£3.36 for the bus and £1 for the car park), which seems unlikely, as current charges are £2.20 for one adult or £3.50 for upto seven people.
Analysis
As the current service is seen as a reliable and high quality service at a fairly competitive cost to the user, it will not be easy to attract new passengers unless city centre car parking is reduced in quantity or increased in cost, neither of which action is within the scope of the County Council to achieve.
In order to attract park and ride users a frequent level of service is needed and thus a less frequent service than that currently operated is likely to deter patronage thus reducing income.
The most favourable option, therefore, would appear to reduce operating costs.
Although the County Council Fleet Services did win the operation of the service by competitive tender, this was some six years ago and it may be possible that another operator has lower costs. This may be due to various factors but inter-working or absorbing the Park and Ride service into another route could provide the most likely way to reduce costs.
In discussions with operators none have declared an intention to run the service commercially but a competition or tender may raise serious interest.
Operators need to be able to provide a commercially-viable service which may also need to contribute towards site costs if these are not fully met from parking charges on site. The contribution to the County Council can be made on a "departure charge" basis, eg £3.86 for each visit to or departure from the site, or on annual "licence to access" the site. The latter would be the actual balance of the site costs to be met, would be calculable in advance and be the required charge to access the site.
A competition or tender could be sought whereby operators quote the level and quality of the service they would provide on payment of the required annual access charge in exchange for the right to access the site. The Council then has no risk associated with revenue,except on any element of revenue raised directly from users of the car park. Hence the option whereby the use of the car park is free to users and all the site costs are recovered from the bus operator by means of a licence to access the site is more favourable.
An alternative option is to tender out the combined operation of the site and bus operation together which may be attractive. This needs further research.
Also, investigation into best practice around the country into the operation of park and ride sites is recommended.
Self-financing Contract
In accordance with the discussion above:
1Cost of Providing the site: Ascertain the lowest possible cost of operation of the site that can be achieved, perhaps by de-manning and removing expensive ticket machines.
2Operation of the Site: Need to determine whether any costs will actually be levied on the parking of cars and how this will be collectedin order to forecast the revenue from the site.
3Tender for a Licence to Access Site by Buses: Balance of costs from (2) above needs to be obtained from a bus operator prepared to pay to access the site to provide a park and ride bus service. Winning tenderer determined by the best level and quality of service on pre-set criteria.
Conclusion
The costs of operating the Perdiswell Park and Ride site needs to be reduced and then it may be possible to encourage an operator to provide a commercially viable service, perhaps in combination with another commercial service.
The costs of running the site would be recovered ideally from the bus operator but could be partly recouped from the drivers of the cars parked there.
To ensure no net cost to the Council a tendering exercise could be undertaken to determine which operator can provide the best level and quality of service whilst paying the Council a set amount that would be required to cover site costs.
However, it is recommended that investigation takes place into alternatively tendering the combined operation of the site and bus service plus research should be undertaken as to the operation of other park and rides around the country.
U:\U163 ES\U303 Transp Pl & Rev\G2 Finance\BOLD 2014\Perdiswell Park and Ride.docx
31st January 2014
Worcester Perdiswell Park and Ride Service Timetable