Transport User Voice November 2024 – Chief Executive’s editorial

04 November 2024

Working for transport users

One of the things we’ve talked about at Transport Focus is how we can be a voice for transport users, while remaining constructive and engaged with the people running services so they listen to us when we say something isn’t good enough. It’s an age old dilemma for any organisation seeking to influence change: to what extent are you ‘inside the tent’ or campaigning outside it. Every organisation is different and the context will change from one issue to the next, but it helps to have some general principles.   

What we try to do is understand and share in an undiluted form what users think. If people are saying a service is poor and getting worse, we’ll say that without any sugar coating. Our focus then shifts to working out how we can influence change, rather than pointing fingers or saying who is to blame. Of course, sometimes we will say where responsibility sits, but our objective is to make a difference, not make headlines.   

The reports and issues we report in this month’s edition show that approach working in practise. For example, our recent Strategic Roads User Survey showed a decline in satisfaction in user experience. We’ve been talking to National Highways about those findings and will be working with them to try new, customer focussed approaches to managing parts of their network.  If they work, they’ll roll out them out more widely.

One final thing to mention is what we’ll be doing on lorry driver facilities. Of all the surveys we do the scores we get on this are the lowest by some way. We’ll be bringing together everyone with a role to play in improving the availability and quality of rest-stops – if you can help, please get involved. 

Enjoy the read. 

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