Return to Agenda

ITEM EX15

TAXIS IN BUS LANES AND BUS LANE/GATE CAMERA ENFORCEMENT

Report by Director of Environmental Services

1. This report considers the issue of access by taxis to bus lanes in Oxford as there are currently different regulations applying to some bus lanes. (The report applies only to bus lanes in the Oxford City vicinity - further consideration will need to be given to taxi access for any new bus lanes designated at other locations in the County.) On a separate but related issue the report makes proposals for the amendment of the traffic orders for the central area bus gates (or access control points) and bus lanes to allow decriminalised camera enforcement. The report also considers a request by the Oxford Radcliffe Trust for access to bus lanes and through bus gates by patient transport ambulances.

Taxis In Bus Lanes

Hackney Carriages

2. Hackney carriages are permitted to use most of the bus lanes in Oxford, ie those on Woodstock Road, Banbury Road, London Road and the A44 south of Pear Tree park and ride. With the introduction of the bus gate in Botley Road at Binsey Lane there were technical constraints which prevented taxis from passing through those signals and so taxis were then excluded.
3. All taxis licensed by Oxford City Council have now been issued with the necessary transponders which enable them to pass through all bus gates, therefore both Botley Road bus lane and that in Abingdon Road which has similar controls, could be used without any difficulty by these vehicles. Now that there are no physical constraints to allowing hackney carriages to use these bus lanes I consider it advisable to have a consistent approach across the City and permit them access to these and other bus lanes from which they are currently excluded.
4. The central area bus gates in High Street, Magdalen St, George St and Castle Street permit a wider class of vehicles, including hackney carriages and private hire vehicles and will continue to do so.

Taxi Quality Partnership

5. City and County Council committees previously resolved to set up a Taxi Quality Partnership (TQP). Through the licensing authority (Oxford City Council), several measures have been agreed including disability awareness training, and offers of improvements to emission standards. As an element of these measures, the City of Oxford Licensed Taxicab Association (COLTA) already extend the fare structure beyond the City to Botley, as far as the wood yard on Cumnor Hill. It has also agreed to consider including other areas outside the City boundary, but geographically within the Oxford area, as part of the same fare structure. However COLTA has expressed reluctance to proceed with any further expenditure on training and technical changes without access to all City bus lanes. Due to the delay in being able to set up a 'formal' TQP I recommend proceeding, without any further delay, with changes to exemptions in relevant Traffic Orders, particularly since COLTA have come some way to offering concessions.

Private Hire Vehicles

6. Private hire vehicles are currently excluded from all bus lanes in the City of Oxford, but their association have from time to time made representations that they should be allowed to use them on the basis that they provide a similar public transport service to hackney carriages.
7. In Oxford City licensed hackney carriages are all purpose designed vehicles ('black cabs') and provide a different level of service from private hire vehicles. Higher criteria, including knowledge tests, are applied before a hackney carriage driver licence can be granted. They are permitted to ply for hire and stand at taxi ranks within their licensing area. The vehicles are all accessible by wheelchair.
8. The number of hackney carriages involved is unlikely to hamper the flow of buses and no particular difficulties are experienced on those bus lanes which currently permit access. Enforcement would however become more difficult if private hire vehicles were permitted access to bus lanes. These are generally standard saloon cars and are therefore less easily identifiable. This would result in a risk of a greater level of abuse by private cars, which could jeopardise the effectiveness of bus priority measures. I therefore recommend maintaining the principle of only permitting hackney carriages in bus lanes and not private hire vehicles.

Hackney Carriages licensed by Other Authorities

9. Hackney carriages licensed outside Oxford are not permitted to operate as hackney carriages within Oxford, for example, by plying for hire. In essence they can only operate as a private hire vehicle within the Oxford City boundary. Within the other Oxfordshire districts and in most other areas throughout the South Midlands, licensed hackney carriages are generally standard saloon cars rather than purpose built taxicabs. They will generally appear similar to most cars albeit they will carry a licence plate of varying size and style.
10. In view of this it is proposed that any changes to bus lane orders should restrict such vehicles when operating within the City and exclude them from bus lanes. Whilst it may be possible to define in a traffic order that we are limiting access to (Oxford licensed) hackney carriages this may be difficult to indicate sufficiently with standard signs. If regulations are not clear there is a greater risk of abuse by non permitted vehicles. We would need to monitor the situation once the changes are implemented, and if there is a problem with enforcement and abuse we may need to consider badging and signing for permitted vehicles.

Excepted Bus Lanes

11. Most of the existing bus lanes in the Oxford vicinity are within the City boundary. There are two exceptions, which are the length of West Way, Botley west of A34/A420 junction up to the Eynsham Road junction; and the A4165 Banbury Road/Oxford Road north of Jordan Hill Road. It would not be reasonable to limit access to a bus lane in other districts to Oxford City licensed hackney carriages. For ease of enforcement and definition the change in distinction for A4165 would be better at the Cutteslowe Roundabout rather than the district boundary, as this is a natural break in the bus lane. Clearly we would have to let either all hackney carriages or none into these two sections, and for the reasons of enforcement problems with saloon cars as discussed before, I would recommend that no hackney carriages, nor private hire vehicles, are permitted into these two stretches.
12. An additional length of bus lane on Botley Road between the A34/A420 junctions and the Seacourt park and ride car park is available to any vehicle which is accessing the Seacourt park and ride site and this will remain as existing.

Enforcement and Review

13. With this proposal for change I do not envisage any greater problems with identification and enforcement than with the current situation, and in fact the proposed clarification of exemptions should make enforcement easier. The situation would be reviewed once in place and any further mechanism for enforcement could then be considered if necessary. The new legislation referred to in more detail below would permit camera enforcement, which could in time, be implemented throughout the City, if the need was considered sufficient.

Consultation

14. Informal contact with the bus operators indicates support for achieving consistency of regulations and their signing by allowing hackney carriages access to all bus lanes. Their view on private hire vehicles is that they should not be permitted due to the difficulty of identification and increasing the risk of further abuse and congestion in bus lanes.
15. Thames Valley Police support the move to a consistent approach. They share the view that ease of identification and enforcement is of prime importance.
16. The changes outlined above would require consultation with representatives of both hackney carriage and private hire operators in the context of formal proposals for amendment of the relevant traffic orders, as well as other interested parties and public advertisement. The responses would be referred to the Transport Implementation Committee for consideration and decision.

Camera Enforcement

Central Area Bus Gates

17. The four bus gates in the central area of Oxford, High Street, George Street, Magdalen Street and Castle Street, currently permit passage for cycles, buses, emergency vehicles and all classes of taxi, both hackney carriage and private hire licensed by any authority in the country. Further limited exemptions are granted to other authorised vehicles such as high security delivery vehicles. With the exception of including patient transport ambulances (see further below) I do not propose any other changes to the restrictions at each of the bus gates.
18. The County Council has been awaiting the powers to introduce "decriminalised" camera enforcement for bus gates in the centre of Oxford for the last two years. Currently enforcement relies totally on the intermittent presence of a Police officer and therefore does not cover the whole restriction period, or all the sites. With the intention to improve enforcement, officers have been exploring what would be necessary to install cameras at all four sites in the centre of Oxford. Further informal consultation would still be advisable on the detail of the physical site layout at each bus gate, although significant alterations are not likely to be needed. If any physical changes are required this will be reported to the Executive separately once the full detail is assessed. Further guidance is still awaited from the Department for Transport (DfT) on the specifications required for both cameras and site layout before this can be done.
19. The traffic orders applying to bus gates in the centre of Oxford will need to be amended to allow the new legislation to be used. I am still awaiting the issue by the DfT of the regulations which will provide the basis for a decriminalised camera enforcement regime. I would like to go ahead and promote the orders as soon as these are issued. The DfT's consultation on the draft regulations closed at the beginning of September, therefore I would hope the actual regulations would be enacted before the end of the year. As with the bus lane amendments referred to above, any representations received in response to the published draft orders would be referred to the Transport Implementation Committee for consideration and decision.

Bus Lanes

20. It is not envisaged that we should proceed immediately with camera enforcement along any of the radial route bus lanes at the same time as the central area bus gates. Any future decision to implement this will require further amendment of the relevant traffic orders.

Ambulances - Access to Bus Lanes and Bus Gates

21. Currently, ambulances on emergencies are permitted into bus lanes or through the bus gates at any time. The Oxford Radcliffe Health Trust has asked that access for ambulances operating on patient transport duties through the bus gates and into the bus lanes around Oxford be granted. The Trust has expressed the benefit to patients on the grounds of their medical conditions. People who require transport by ambulance are classed as ‘high dependency’ by the severity of their illness or level of handicap. The Trust takes the view that more rapid transport to the hospitals would greatly improve the quality of care for these patients. The Trust has indicated that they do not anticipate that this would involve more than 30 vehicle movements per day at any one point therefore this is not considered likely to hamper the operation of the bus priority routes. These vehicles are clearly marked as ambulances and would therefore not be expected to create any enforcement problem as vehicles are identifiable.

Environmental Implications

22. There are no significant implications of including hackney carriage access to all bus lanes as they are currently permitted on much of the bus priority network. Similarly, allowing access for small numbers of non-emergency ambulances will not have a great impact. The introduction of camera enforcement at the bus gates should have a beneficial impact on the traffic levels and air quality within central Oxford as this should dramatically reduce the numbers of non-permitted vehicles, which currently abuse the regulations on a regular basis.

Financial Implications

23. The work required to amend the existing orders has been included under the existing work programme under the Oxford Transport Strategy. The costs associated with procuring equipment necessary to undertake camera enforcement will be presented to the Executive in a later report once the full specifications are known.

RECOMMENDATIONS

24. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to:

1. subject to (b) below, instruct officers to promote amendments to the traffic orders which designate bus lanes in and adjoining Oxford, to permit hackney carriages licensed by Oxford City Council (and not by any other licensing authority) to travel in those bus lanes;
2. maintain the exclusion of hackney carriages from the lengths of bus lane in B4044 West Way, Botley west of the A34/A420 junction and the A4165 Banbury Road/Oxford Road north of the A40 Cutteslowe Roundabout, and make no change to the classes of permitted vehicle in the length of bus lane in West Way between the Seacourt Park & Ride access and the A34/A420 junction;
3. instruct officers to promote the necessary amendments to the traffic orders which restrict access via the bus gates located on the High Street, Castle Street, Magdalen Street and George Street, to allow decriminalised camera enforcement as soon as possible after commencement of the forthcoming regulations;
4. agree that the amendments to the traffic orders under (a) and (c) should permit ambulances on patient transport duty to pass through the High Street, Castle Street, Magdalen Street and George Street bus gates and all bus lanes in and around Oxford;
5. authorise officers to prepare the necessary amendments to the bus lane orders to allow for decriminalised camera enforcement when this can be extended to the bus lanes.

DAVID YOUNG
Director of Environmental Services

Background papers: Nil

Contact Officer: Samantha Tharme - Tel: Oxford 810443

October 2002

Return to TOP