The National View

Steven Caulston, representative for HAMBAG and Buses in Fleet, recently attended the annual national Quality Bus Conference, and was encouraged to see there was more interest in listening to bus users going forward.

This was a conference by The National Bus Centre of Excellence, which is an organisation funded by the government, and run by the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation, to help advise, guide and support local authorities on the bus and railway sector, alongside with those working within it.

It is designed to help improve these services on various levels, from skill sets, knowledge on greener transport, to understanding what is needed by the services.

At the conference, there was a presentation from Stephen Fidler, who is the Director of the Local Passenger Transport and Inclusion section at the Department for Transport.

He is now trying to change attitudes towards buses and the development and improvement of services, by placing a larger emphasis on listening to locals.

In his presentation he stated that the ones of the Department for Transport's main goals to:

"Expect, empower and support local leaders, Local Transport Authorities and bus operators to work together"

They aim to grow bus use in England by improving services. Looking at the data they provided, bus use has increased in some areas of the country in the last few years by almost 25%.

To improve service use, they will need to have data directly from the bus users to make sure they reach these aims:

To ensure passengers:

• have the connections they need

• services are more reliable and they trust that their bus will turn up on time

• buses are better integrated and it’s easy to make a journey using different types of transport

• are, and feel, safe – especially women and girls

• bus services are faster – particularly in towns and cities

• have accurate, accessible and easy to understand information when and where they need it

• tickets remain affordable

• buses, bus stops and stations are accessible to all

• it is an increasingly climate and environmentally friendly choice

Previously, the information used to help improve bus services was taken from ridership data that could be up to two years old.

This data told them how popular the service was, but not want people wanted or needed. Was the route mapped out right, should it go more often?

Therefore a new toolkit has been configured by the DfT to help with this, which shows they are trying to communicate more directly with bus users.

They are highlighting it is important to listen to local people in order to develop and improve bus services and are slowly educating local authorities to act in this way.

Many local councils were present at this meeting, which was in Portsmouth. notably, Hampshire County Council was not.

Currently HCC use a system called Transport Focus to get their data for improving services. Transport Focus is a paid for service, and they do not survey that many people.

A survey by them is generally around 800-1000 people, which works out around 2-3 people per bus route in the county.

Some of the new funding acquired from the Local Authority Bus Grant will most likely be put towards this. - Read More about this grant here.

The new toolkit from the Department for Transport, almost copies the first step of putting a campaign together on 'My Ideal Bus Journey', which is a website toolkit put together by HAMBAG (Hampshire Bus Action Group).

It welcomes feedback from local people - when they travel, why and where they go. The data is anonymous and can be used to improve services and create new ones. It comes from a wide range of people and most importantly it is free.

It has helped to create numerous bus user campaign groups, most recently one in the Meon Valley and one in the Itchen Valley.

It is good to see that attitudes higher up are becoming more user focused. However this must be passed down the line to local authorities in order for change to take place.