Integrating Rail and Community Transport

A lack of integration with other transport modes has been a long-standing issue for our sector. Community Transport is too often sidelined in strategic transport planning and treated in isolation when local bus, rail, tram or ferry services are being designed.

In 2021, as part of our Mapping Scotland project, we asked our CTA members in Scotland whether they felt ‘integrated with other transport networks’. Only 21% said ‘yes’.

In 2024, for our Mapping England project, we asked our English members whether they felt ‘connected to local transport decision making’ in their area. Only 19% agreed. Our analysis of Bus Service Improvement Plans in England found that only one in ten fully integrated Community Transport into the overall plan. Half had either no mention or limited mentions of Community Transport within the text.

In Northern Ireland, the picture was even worse, with just 8% in agreement when we asked the same question as part of our Mapping Northern Ireland project.

Passengers in every part of the UK pay the price for this lack of multi-modal integration. Timetables which don’t match up, ticketing which isn’t integrated, stations which aren’t accessible, and suitable information that isn’t available in one place – it all adds up to longer journeys, higher prices and a poorer travel experience.

But the UK Government’s plans for rail reform offer an opportunity to put this right.

The Department for Transport is consulting on a new Railways Bill, which will create Great British Railways (GBR) and, it says, ‘shape a railway fit for Britain’s future’.

GBR will be a ‘single directing mind’ for rail that will be responsible for infrastructure (replacing Network Rail) as well as English passenger services (many of which will be transferred into public ownership in the coming years under 2024 legislation) with the aim to ensure the railway ‘works better for both passengers and taxpayers’. It will replace the fragmented, privatised status quo with a more coherent, unified system working ‘in the public interest’.

The Bill applies to England, Wales and Scotland. It doesn’t cover Northern Ireland. Rail services are already publicly-owned in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as in London and Liverpool City Region, and will remain so on a separate basis. We welcome this commitment to respect and protect the devolution of rail, which brings control over local transport closer to local people and communities.

The Bill will also create a new passenger watchdog, reform fares, ‘streamline processes’ and ‘reduce regulatory burdens’.

The Secretary of State for Transport, Heidi Alexander MP, is candid in the consultation about the state of ‘our broken railways’. Delays, cancellations and expensive fares are all too familiar for most rail passengers, she writes.

However, many older and disabled people struggle to even access rail, because of inaccessible stations and services. There are 14 million people with a disability in the UK and yet 41% of our train stations do not have step-free access. At the current, glacial pace of progress, they will not be fully accessible until at least 2070.

We believe that Great British Railways needs a stronger focus on improving accessibility with a clear statutory responsibility to do so, as the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland has called for too. The new passenger watchdog should have the powers and resources it needs to provide scrutiny, accountability and advocacy. Crucially, it must embed passenger voice at the heart of its work – ensuring that individuals, communities, and organisations representing disabled people, older people, and marginalised groups are directly involved in shaping rail services and holding providers to account. It should not only consult but co-design solutions with those most affected by current barriers – just like our new research project on empowering disabled children and young people to travel.

GBR should bring Britain’s railways closer to the people and communities they serve. It should deliver multi-modal integration and give communities a greater say in the design of transport services. We believe this can only happen through local partnership working with Community Transport operators, as well as with other key stakeholders, like bus operators and Community Rail partnerships. Not just through formal consultation, but through participatory mechanisms that give people real influence.

Operators could work with GBR to align timetables, improve the provision of information and improve first- and last-mile connections. Ideas like ‘Mobility Hubs’ could bring together different community, public and shared transport options at train stations. Communities could offer valuable insights into how to make facilities more accessible and attractive.

You can read the consultation here.

Our response in full is available here.

You can find out more about the work of our friends at the Community Rail Network here.