Does UK Public transport live up to expectations? :: Business Management Studies

Does UK Public transport live up to expectations? Introduction Public transportation has always been a key issue to the government by trying to promote public transport more than using a car. Today public transport is pushed more to help reduce factors of pollution and congestion which seem to be growing all over the UK. Transportation needs vary greatly depending on peoples commuting needs and therefore trying to focus on transport as a whole over the UK is very difficult to research. I have used over 20 documents to help me research this statement. Literature Review Out of the documents that I was able to find the documents seemed to have very positive or negative opinions about public transport with only a few mixed opinions. The following facts were from mixed view documents. There were many documents which were about crime on public transport and around areas of public transport. The main issues were about train stations and buses where situations of theft were experienced on regular basis. Crime is a factor which is now being dealt with increasingly with investments going into cameras at train stations and increased security. Buses are also being equipped with cameras on board so that drivers can see the upper floor. These articles can be found in the appendix and are articles AP 1, 3, 4 and 5. Many articles were also mixed as they acknowledged improvements being made but were also negative as plans are always based on 5 to10 year developments and cost millions if not billions of pounds. This seems to make people loose faith in public transport as it is slow and costly. An example of this is the  £10bn investment into the London underground found in appendix. Many articles brought forward positive opinions of public transport these opinions and facts are as follows. There are new websites being created to help people plan their journeys by public transport. These sort of sites help people by telling someone which, buses and trains they may need and which ones. A site which I used is www.transportdirect.co.uk. A site like this gives people confidence as they know what forms of transport they may need and how long a journey may take. In appendix this site can be found as AP6. New investments are being made to link major cities. An example is Leeds and Sheffield being linked by one train route. This is designed to help reduce congestion on the M1 this can be seen in appendix AP7. Appendix article AP8 shows achievements made over 2003 and 2004 and tells us of more park and rides schemes being used and set up more.