Transport User Voice November 2023 – Around Great Britain

01 November 2023

A roundup of our work

West Midlands

Bus passengers in the West Midlands have been having their say on all aspects of their journeys as part of the new ‘Your Bus Journey’ Survey. The new ongoing research has recently published its interim findings for the first six months of this phase.

The generally positive results were well received at the West Midlands Bus Alliance and the Bus Passenger Satisfaction Steering Group. The new data will set a revised benchmark going forward for passenger satisfaction.

On rail, passengers will be pleased to hear that London Northwestern is finalising plans to reintroduce services to the Marston Vale line., Exciting plans on the rollout of new trains at the recent West Midlands Trains Stakeholder Conference held in Birmingham.

West Midlands residents have been celebrating as the Wolverhampton station connection to the regional Metro tram service is now complete. Transport Focus have been involved with developing the Wolverhampton Interchange project since 2019, and its excellent news for passengers to see this facility up and running.

Wales

Metro works and Core Valley lines

Engineering works are progressing at Dinas (Rhondda), Treherbert and Porth, and the disruption for passengers has been extensive as part of this ongoing transformation of the valleys network.

We spoke to staff along the route and gave feedback on passenger issues and talked about some of the challenges that the works were having. Passenger will have more seamless connections when the new Porth Interchange opens. The new site will provide improved connections between bus and rail.

Out and about on the network

We’ve also been out and about at stations in the Cardiff and Valleys area including Whitchurch (Cardiff), Pontypridd, Cardiff Central and Cardiff Queen Street. It was good to see that information posters were all up-to-date and that stations were generally well-maintained and free of litter. We have raised issues such as the poor state of the toilets at Cardiff Queen Street, graffiti and cleanliness of some facilities at Whitchurch, and poor quality of information on screens at Cardiff Central.

We also experienced late cancellations at Pontypridd, but it was good to see staff on hand proactively providing advice. We have also given feedback on crowding we experienced and anti-social behaviour observed at Llanharan. We continue to work with Transport for Wales to secure improvements for passengers.

New information points at Cardiff Central

We have been pressing for better information to help passengers with their journeys. Transport for Wales has installed new information totems at Cardiff Central to make this easier.

The new interactive touch-screen displays provide a range of useful information such as live journey updates, disruptions, location of rail replacement busesand help for planning journeys including bus connections and walking routes. They also have a facility to give feedback, comments or areas for improvement to Transport for Wales. Give them a try if you are at the station and use the feedback button if you see anything that can be improved!

Have your say

Transport for Wales is looking for feedback on the designs of five potential new stations at Cardiff East, Newport West, Somerton, Llanwern and Magor and Undy, including the types of facilities that people would like to see at each station.

The 13-week public consultation is currently live and runs until Sunday 14 January 2024.

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