40.缓慢客车

Passage Forty

Slow coaches(buses)

缓慢客车

【1】As well as a ticket, you need patience to ride the 72 bus in Leeds. The commuter line to Bradford is notorious(infamous) for delays and cancellations: by one estimate(calculate) it is late 80% of the time.

在利兹，要坐上72路公交车，除了要买票，你还要有耐心。72路公交车通往布拉德福德，因经常延误和取消而臭名昭著：据估计，72路公交车晚点的机率高达80%。

【2】Other services are almost as bad. Tough luck, too, if you bought a pass for one company and a rival’s bus turns up. operators don’t allow transfers.

其他服务几乎也一样糟糕。如果你买的是一家公司的车票，而对家公司的公交出现了，那你就太倒霉了。因为运营商不允许换乘。

【3】Britons still rely heavily on the humble bus, taking over 3bn local journeys on them each year. It remains an especially popular means, notably in cities, of getting people to work.

英国人仍然非常依赖普通公交车，每年乘公交车在当地出行超过30亿次。尤其是在城市，公交车仍是人们上班首选的交通工具。

【4】And if yet more used them, they would provide a lowish-cost way to reduce both congestion(jam) and pollution: the Centre for Cities, a think-tank, says that getting 10,000 car drivers on buses instead for a year, for a daily 7km journey, would cut 20,000 tonnes of carbon emissions(discharges).

如果越来越多的人乘坐公交车，这种低成本的交通方式将可以减少拥堵和污染：智库城市中心表示，如果1万名汽车司机改乘公共汽车，每天进行7公里的行程，一年下来将减少2万吨碳排放。

【5】London aside, however, many bus networks are in a poor state. Since deregulation in the 1980s, cities have struggled(strived) with them. Typically companies turn a profit on a few popular routes(lines), but local authorities subsidise(allowance) other lines.

然而，除了伦敦以外，许多公交车网络状况不佳。自20世纪80年代对公交车行业放松管制以来，各城市一直在努力解决公交车运营问题。一般来说，公交车公司只能在几条热门线路上盈利，地方政府会补贴其他线路。

【6】Rising fares and reduced services have gradually(increasingly) put off passengers. In the past three decades or so bus journeys in England as a whole fell by nearly half, even as they soared in London.

公交车的票价上涨和服务减少逐渐让乘客望而却步。在过去三十年左右的时间里，尽管伦敦的公交车出行量在飙升，英国整体的公交出行量却减少了近一半。

【7】One problem is regulation. Competition law stops companies in a given city from co-ordinating their routes and timetables, leading to disjointed services. Nearly 40 companies ran routes in Greater Manchester in 2022, for example.

公交车运营不佳的原因之一是监管问题。竞争法禁止同一城市中的公交公司协调其线路和时间表，导致服务脱节。例如，2022年有近40家公司在大曼彻斯特运营线路。

【8】Although buses at times have their own lanes, congestion means they move more slowly. Greener journeys, a lobby group, suggests bus speeds have dropped by an average of nearly two-fifths in the past half-century.

虽然公共汽车有时也有自己的车道，但拥堵也会导致它们行驶地更慢。游说团体“绿色之旅”表示，在过去50年里，公交车速度平均下降了近五分之二。

【9】The government wants more people on buses, so six years ago passed a law giving ten metropolitan mayoralties the power to switch to London-style franchising: bringing bus services back under public control, with a transport authority deciding on timetables, prices and more.

政府希望有更多的人乘坐公交车，因此6年前通过了一项法律，赋予十个大城市的市长使用伦敦式特许经营的权力：让公交服务回到公共管控之下，由交通管理部门决定时间表、价格等。

【10】Take-up, however, has been as slow as the dreaded 72. Only Greater Manchester has shifted: its first buses start running under a franchise system this month, with the whole fleet changing by 2025. Transport for Greater Manchester promises lower prices and emissions. Liverpool may follow next.

然而，市长们采用伦敦式特许经营模式的速度就像72路公交车一样缓慢。只有大曼彻斯特地区发生了转变：该地区的第一批公交车本月开始在伦敦式特许经营体系下运营，到2025年，整个车队都将置于这一体系下。大曼彻斯特交通部门承诺降低公交价格和排放。利物浦可能会紧随其后。

【11】Mayors have been reluctant for two reasons. One is the cost and hassle(difficulty) of swapping to a franchise model: officials lack expertise to oversee(supervision) services, given complex regulations. They worry, too, about legal action from existing operators.

市长们不愿意转向伦敦式特许经营模式的原因有两个。其一是转向这一模式成本高、困难多：法规复杂，官员缺乏监督服务的专业知识。他们也担心会被现有公交运营商起诉。

【12】It has taken Manchester several years to prepare its change, which is expected(predicted) to cost ￡135m, or five times the ￡27m it spends each year on bus subsidies.

曼彻斯特花了数年时间为改革作准备，预计将耗资1.35亿英镑，相当于其每年公交补贴（2700万英镑）的5倍。

【13】Second, cities must still support unprofitable(defective) routes within the franchise systems that they run. In London, before the pandemic hit, ￡722m was diverted(shifted) annually from the Tube and passed on to the buses. Other cities lack such a handy source of funding. Help from central government has also fallen in the past decade.

其次，在伦敦式特许经营体系内，城市必须继续补贴亏损的公交路线。在疫情爆发之前，伦敦每年有7.22亿英镑从地铁转移到公交车上。其他城市缺乏这样便利的资金来源。过去10年，来自中央政府的援助也有所减少。

【14】The Campaign for Better Transport, a lobby group, says national funds for buses now provide only a small portion of local authorities’ needs. metropolitan mayors are anxious(worrying) to find ways to get buses moving again. They will watch Manchester closely to see if the franchise system can work successfully beyond London.

游说团体“改善交通运输”表示，国家公交车基金现在只能满足地方政府的一小部分需求。各大城市的市长们焦虑于找到让公交车恢复运行的方法。他们将密切关注曼彻斯特，看看伦敦式特许经营制度能否在伦敦以外的地方成功运作。