Transport User Voice – September 2018 – Boosting passenger priorities in new bus strategies

29 August 2018

Helping to shape partnership working in two combined authority areas

Transport Focus already works in partnership with city regions including West Midlands, Liverpool and West Yorkshire to articulate the passenger voice in local investment and operational decision making about future bus services. In recent months we have successfully established new roles for ourselves to help two other combined authorities shape their emerging bus strategies – West of England and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

In the West of England passenger numbers have recently grown by about seven per cent year-on-year. Transport Focus is now working with a partnership of local councils and the Combined Authority to help them during a review process. The results of this will inform subsequent efforts to develop a bus strategy that looks to deliver smart ticketing as well as stronger passenger satisfaction through greater service reliability, better passenger information and targets to improve accessibility to services.

Six months after it was established the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA) also decided to undertake a strategic bus review. This study will evaluate the strengths/weaknesses of the existing network and identify options that could be built into a strategy to deliver better services in the future, to be developed in parallel with the future Local Transport Plan. Transport Focus now participates as an active member of the project board for this review, to help ensure the study is focused on the needs and priorities of passengers and to stretch  thinking about the challenges and opportunities available to transform future passenger experience. Among other things we have called for a stakeholder communications strategy and the commissioning of passenger research.

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