Transport User Voice – February 2019 – Promising developments on the buses agenda

04 February 2019

A new transport board in Bristol and work for young users

Young people are the biggest users of bus – but don’t feel services are designed for them. In 2018 Transport Focus published its research Using the bus: what young people think. This study explored what the important 14-19 age group needs and wants from bus services today to encourage them to be tomorrow’s bus users.

Transport Focus is running a series of workshops to help share the research findings and collate examples of work being done by the industry to engage with young people. The discussion will help identify challenges and barriers and generate new ideas about how the industry can improve the experience for young people.

Transport Focus will gather feedback and good practice examples to produce a report to share with governments, the bus industry and other stakeholders. This will outline the work the industry is doing, and plans to do, to get more young people engaged with bus.

The workshops will take place in Exeter on Thursday 14 February, Oxford on Tuesday 19 February, York on Wednesday 27 February and Colchester on Tuesday 5 March. Anyone keen to participate can request to attend these events. There will also be a workshop in Birmingham on Thursday 7 March, but that is now fully subscribed.

If you wish to join Transport Focus and colleagues from across the industry to explore ideas for making bus a better choice for young people, please contact Yvonne Fox-Burmby at yvonne.fox-burmby@transportfocus.org.uk.

Transforming transport planning in Bristol
Bristol is a city bucking the national trend – bus patronage continues to grow – albeit it is a city with significant transport challenges, including some complex congestion problems.

The mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, recognises this and has just launched the Bristol Transport Board. Transport Focus is co-chairing the meeting, making sure the passenger voice is at the heart of the discussions.

The Transport Board is part of the mayor’s One City Plan, which has a number of thematic boards that will bring city partners and experts together to work collaboratively through the challenges the city faces.

Transport Focus welcomed the invitation to co-chair the Transport Board and believes it will be important to identify how improvements can be made to the current passenger experience in the short term. Alongside this, Transport Focus will also look forward to influencing proposals to deliver longer-term changes, which could allow for a significant transformation in customer experience if the vision of the One City Plan is delivered.

Bristol has big ideas and lots of ambition; it sees the value in working together, so it will be interesting to see how the board progresses over the next 12 months.

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