Functions
- The ITAs are now responsible for subsidising bus services which are not profitable to run but are considered socially necessary, and the PTEs organise this role on their behalf. They are also responsible for providing bus shelters and stations.
- Most PTEs do not operate public transport services. There are limited number of cases where they do - the Tyne and Wear PTE operates the Tyne and Wear Metro, and Strathclyde Passenger Transport operates the Glasgow Subway. In Merseyside, Strathclyde and Tyne and Wear, some ferry services are operated by the PTEs.
- The PTEs, on the ITAs' behalf, have retained more powers over local train services, which they do not operate but are responsible for setting fares and timetables of.
- The PTEs are also responsible for planning and funding new public transport facilities, such as light rail systems and new stations.
- They fund concessionary travel schemes for the elderly and disabled including free passes and "Dial-a-Ride" services.
- They are also responsible for giving out travel information about transport services.
- The Transport Act 2000 made the then PTAs (now ITAs) and metropolitan boroughs jointly responsible for producing local transport plans in their areas.
In recent years the PTEs and ITAs have campaigned to be given more powers to regulate local bus services, as is the case in London (see London Buses).
Read more about this topic: Passenger Transport Executive
Famous quotes containing the word functions:
“The English masses are lovable: they are kind, decent, tolerant, practical and not stupid. The tragedy is that there are too many of them, and that they are aimless, having outgrown the servile functions for which they were encouraged to multiply. One day these huge crowds will have to seize power because there will be nothing else for them to do, and yet they neither demand power nor are ready to make use of it; they will learn only to be bored in a new way.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)
“Empirical science is apt to cloud the sight, and, by the very knowledge of functions and processes, to bereave the student of the manly contemplation of the whole.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Let us stop being afraid. Of our own thoughts, our own minds. Of madness, our own or others’. Stop being afraid of the mind itself, its astonishing functions and fandangos, its complications and simplifications, the wonderful operation of its machinery—more wonderful because it is not machinery at all or predictable.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)