Passenger Transport: October 29, 2021

YEARS 2011 | 2021

ISSUE 252 29 OCTOBER 2021

NEWS, VIEWS AND ANALYSIS FOR A SECTOR ON THE MOVE

Next stop: Net Zero

The passenger transport sector is selling itself as part of the solution to climate change ahead of COP26, but the government is being urged to do more to encourage modal shift With global leaders preparing to gather in Glasgow next week for the COP26 climate summit, the UK passenger transport sector has been demonstrating its ability to play a lead role in decarbonisation.

Transport organisations, operators and suppliers have showcased their efforts in Destination Net Zero: Decarbonising Transport, which accompanies this edition of Passenger Transport.

NEWS

Meanwhile, two zero emission buses, one electric (pictured above in Oxford) and one hydrogen, are making their way to Glasgow to demonstrate the role that these vehicles can play in decarbonising

transport (see page 12).

However, the government is being urged to do more to stimulate modal shift from cars to public transport. Writing the foreword to Destination Net Zero,

“Government needs to have an honest conversation with the public about the hard choices ahead”Claire Haigh TECHNOLOGY

COMMENT

Claire Haigh, founder and CEO of Greener Transport Solutions, writes: “The hard work of delivering behaviour change has been delegated to local authorities.

However, it can’t be left to local leaders to make all the tough political decisions. Government needs to have an honest conversation with the public about the hard choices ahead.”

MORE ON PAGES 2, 12-13

SPECIAL REPORT

City regions to share £7bn for transport

On-demand ‘ting’ service launches

Travel by train? Bell equipped The price for First Bus isn’t right challenges

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‘Great cities need great transport’

New solution for west Huntingdonshire

Norman Baker urges rail fares reform

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First Bus boss has broad experience

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CONTENTS

PASSENGER TRANSPORT PO Box 5496, Westbury BA13 9BX 020 3950 8000 editorial@passengertransport.co.uk

Green rhetoric IN THIS ISSUE must now 18 be matched with actions

TEAM UP WITH THE EVENT PROVIDERS

We’re in a climate emergency. Transport is the largest contributor to UK domestic greenhouse gas emissions (responsible for 27% in 2019) and we need to cut that fast. Contrary to what the television advertisements suggest, we won’t fix the Robert Jack problem by all going out and buying an electric car.

Managing Editor We need to make more journeys on foot, on bicycles and on public transport, and fewer journeys by car and plane.

It has been heartening to see public transport rise up the agenda.

There seems to be an understanding within government - from the very top - of the vital role it can and must play in connecting our communities and in achieving net zero. The government has even been willing to talk about modal shift, with public transport and active travel set to become “the natural first choice for our daily activities”.

Too often, however, the actions fail to live up to the rhetoric - and they continue to do so. Domestic greenhouse gas emissions from transport have been flat for the last 30 years. Rapid change is required, but in this week’s budget - on the eve of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow - the chancellor took a backwards step by freezing fuel duty for a twelfth consecutive year and cutting Air Passenger Duty for domestic flights. And we still have a £27bn road building programme.

During the pandemic the prime minister gave an address to the nation in which he said “I must level with you” about the actions we would all have to take. It’s time to do the same for transport.

HAVE YOUR SAY Contact us with your news, views and opinion at: editorial@passengertransport.co.uk PASSENGER TRANSPORT editorial@passengertransport.co.uk forename.surname@ passengertransport.co.uk Telephone: 020 3950 8000 Managing Editor & Publisher Robert Jack Deputy Editor Andrew Garnett Contributing Writer Rhodri Clark Directors Chris Cheek, Andrew Garnett, Robert Jack, George Muir, John Nelson OFFICE CONTACT DETAILS Passenger Transport Publishing Ltd PO Box 5496, Westbury BA13 9BX, UNITED KINGDOM Telephone (all enquiries):

020 3950 8000 EDITORIAL editorial@passengertransport.co.uk ADVERTISING ads@passengertransport.co.uk SUBSCRIPTIONS subs@passengertransport.co.uk ACCOUNTS accounts@passengertransport.co.uk Passenger Transport is only available by subscription. Subscription rates per year; UK £140 (despatch by Royal Mail post); Europe/Eire £220; Worldwide (airmail) £280 The editor welcomes written contributions and photographs, which should be sent to the above

www.passengertransport.co.uk

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address. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the publisher’s written permission.

Printed by Cambrian Printers Ltd, The Pensord Group, Tram Road, Pontllanfraith, Blackwood, NP12 2YA © Passenger Transport Publishing Ltd 2021 ISSN 2046-3278 SUBSCRIPTIONS HOTLINE 020 3950 8000

“We must work together with event providers to unlock demand and it’s a shared challenge for us all,” writes Alex Warner, a lifelong fan of both public transport and live sport. “Neither sector can do it alone.”

ORGANISATION Abellio London Alexander Dennis Arriva Arriva London Arriva Southern Counties BYD Campaign for Better Transport CPT (UK) CT Plus Falcon Coaches First Bus FirstGroup FlixMobility Go-Ahead Group Go-Ahead London Great British Railways Greener Transport Solutions Greyhound Lines INEOS Metroline Metrolink National Express Group Newport Transport Rail Delivery Group Ryze Hydrogen SPT SSE Stagecoach Group Stagecoach London Stagecoach Supertram Sullivan Buses Switch Mobility Tellings Golden Miller Tower Transit Transport Focus Transport for London West Midlands Metro Wrightbus

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13

PLANNERS URGE ROAD BUILDING REVIEW

The Transport Planning Society has urged government to review funding for high carbon road building projects ahead of the COP26 climate summit.

“With two weeks to go until COP26 it’s crucial we shift away from our dependence on the car.”

20

HOW DO WE SEEK THE RIGHT ANSWERS?

25

WE’RE STUCK IN A POLICY TIME WARP

Consultation has become part of the transport portfolio for policies and schemes. However, Nick Richardson believes there are signs that the process may be drifting away from having a useful role to becoming adversarial and irrelevant.

Our Whitehall insider imagines what’s going on inside the minds of the mandarins at Great Minster House, home of the DfT. “We seem to be stuck in some kind of policy time warp where we keep on announcing the same things over and over again!”

REGULARS NEWS ENVIRONMENT INNOVATION & TECH COMMENT GRUMBLES CAREERS DIVERSIONS

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NEWS ROUND-UP

£7bn transport funding bonanza for city regions Ahead of this week’s spending review, chancellor Rishi Sunak announced the seven ‘metro mayor’ city regions will share £7bn over five years FUNDING

Ahead of this week’s spending review, the Treasury and chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed a multi-billion pound overhaul of local transport in his spending review this week with almost £7bn allocated for transport improvements in the city regions.

The majority of the funding (£5.7bn) has been allocated from the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements (CRSTS) scheme. When announced in the summer, this was expected to comprise a funding pot worth £4.2bn over five years.

A further £1.2bn will be allocated from funding for buses and cycling infrastructure that was previously announced by prime minister Boris Johnson as part of England’s National Bus Strategy.

The seven ‘city region’ mayoral combined authority areas will each receive a share of the funding pot. The North East Combined Authority, which uniquely does not have an elected mayor, was not eligible for the funding round.

The funding is allocated as follows: Greater Manchester - £1.07bn; West Midlands £1.05bn; West Yorkshire - £830m; Liverpool City Region - £710m; South Yorkshire - £570m; West of England - £540m; and Tees Valley - £310m. The funding will be allocated in installments over a five-year period.

“Great cities need great transport and that is why we’re investing billions to improve 04 | 29 October 2021 PT252p04-05 4

connections in our city regions as we level up opportunities across the country,” said Sunak at the weekend. “There is no reason why somebody working in the north and Midlands should have to wait several times longer for their bus or train to arrive in the

morning compared to a commuter in the capital.

“This transport revolution will help redress that imbalance as we modernise our local transport networks so they are fit for our great cities and those people who live and work in them.”

WHERE THE £7BN IS GOING GREATER MANCHESTER - £1.07BN Next generation Metrolink tram-train vehicles New bus corridors and interchanges in Ashton-Under-Lyne and Bury Creating a 140-mile active travel network across Greater Manchester WEST MIDLANDS - £1.05BN Preparatory work for four West Midlands Metro extensions Completion of Coventry Very Light Rail project Completion of Phase Two of the Sprint Bus Rapid Transit scheme WEST YORKSHIRE - £830M West Bradford-Cycle Superhighway Extension Improving the A61 including a bus priority package in Wakefield LIVERPOOL CITY REGION - £710M Battery packs for Merseyrail’s new train fleet Station and interchange improvements SOUTH YORKSHIRE - £570M A programme to refurbish and renew the Supertram light rail network Bus priority expansion via signalised junctions using real time detection Bus and Active Travel priority corridors WEST OF ENGLAND - £540M A fully prioritised bus route between Bristol and Bath Improved pedestrian and cycling access across Bath TEES VALLEY - £310M Upgrades to Darlington and Middlesbrough stations A programme of bus corridor improvements Creating new active travel links to the Teesworks development area

Reaction Greater Manchester will be the greatest beneficiary of the funding and mayor Andy Burnham hailed it as a demonstration that regional leaders and Whitehall were at last now more aligned in their thinking. He described the region’s pitch for funding from the CRSTS as a powerful case for a London-style public transport system. “This is a big down payment on it,” he added.

However, he said the plan was only halfway there and he was awaiting the announcement of funding from the region’s Bus Service Improvement Plan bid to determine whether Greater Manchester would be able to fully press ahead with its ambitious plans for the integrated Bee Network. “This is infrastructure and what we need is services as well,” Burnham said.

Another big winner is the West Midlands which placed expansion of the region’s West Midlands Metro light rail system at the heart of its plans. “Whilst no final decisions have been made on where the money will be spent, it is no secret that the expansion of our tram network is a key priority,” said Andy Street, the region’s mayor.

In South Yorkshire mayor Dan Jarvis said his region deserved a “world-class” transport network and he was pleased to see the funding confirmed.

“I’ve fought hard to secure the transformative investment we need for South Yorkshire and repeatedly called on ministers to match my ambitions,” he said.

“That message has finally been heard by government. The money we have secured will get South Yorkshire moving and help deliver a public transport revolution benefitting all parts of our region and making public transport the first choice for travel.” www.passengertransport.co.uk

27/10/2021 17:03

Travel by train?

The price isn’t right. Page 16

North east sets out its plans for bus services Integration and a common brand mooted in BSIP NETWORKS

The north east of England’s Bus Service Improvement Plan aims to place multi-modal travel at the heart of its plans.

Transport North East, which brings together the transport functions of the North of Tyne Combined Authority and the North East Combined Authority, says the £804m bid would transform services and greatly improve the bus network for millions of passengers.

The BSIP outlines region-wide ambitions to make buses more attractive by making them a more affordable and practical alternative to using private cars for millions of people, and helping

FALCON PULLS OUT OF ARRIVA DEAL

Falcon Coaches was in talks to buy Guildford depot ACQUISITIONS

Arriva has confirmed that talks to sell its Guildford bus operations to Surrey-based operator Falcon Coaches have now ended.

Earlier this month the Germanowned group announced it was working with trade union groups and staff to explore options for the business after Arriva decided it could no longer continue to support the loss-making operation (PT251).

Byfleet-based Falcon is owned by the Telling family, who previously owned bus and coach operator Tellings Golden Miller before selling the business to Arriva in 2007. In www.passengertransport.co.uk

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existing bus users to travel even more frequently.

It also contains ambitious plans to restore passenger demand in the wake of the Covid pandemic.

Bus patronage in the region is currently running around 25% below that of the pre-pandemic norm. But the BSIP aims to return to pre-Covid levels by the end of the next financial year, and to grow by 10% each year thereafter. Until then, the document proposes to support the current network financially.

But it is on integration and ticketing where the BSIP has big ambitions. Transport North East says it aims to create region-wide affordable fares for multi-modal travel on all bus, Tyne and Wear Metro and ferry services across the North East, as well as on selected rail services.

Multi-modal fares would be available both as a ticket purchased before travel begins; and as a contactless price cap. For young people “affordable” fares are promised and Transport North East also proposes a trial of free travel for children under the age 12 on local bus services during summer 2022. This would match a similar offer already in place on the Metro system.

On the bus network, frequency improvements are promised as well as earlier and later buses on many routes. There would also be better daytime links and a night bus network. Rural and isolated communities would see wide use of demand-response transport and Transport North East has made a commitment for simple and intuitive information to make buses easy to understand and use.

late 2016 the family reacquired what remained of TGM and it now operates as a subsidiary of Falcon Coaches.

Falcon itself was acquired by the Telling family in 2012 and has expanded from a handful of vehicles since then. In 2017 it acquired a purpose-built depot at Byfleet and it expanded into local bus services with the award of Surrey County Council contracts. Today it operates around 25 buses.

Falcon had confirmed it was in talks with Arriva about the Guildford operation last week but it appears no firm offer was forthcoming.

“Unfortunately these talks have not progressed,” says an Arriva UK Bus spokesperson. “We have informed colleagues that our consultation process will continue as we explore a proposal to close

the depot. Our priority will be to safeguard jobs, where possible, through redeployment to other parts of our business should we proceed with the closure.

“We continue to work with our trade union partners and with Surrey County Council to safeguard services for the local community through other operators.”

Falcon has pulled out of talks

There would be a standardised customer offer regardless of operator, with a common brand and a passenger charter to set standards and expectations, and to report transparently on performance. All buses in the region are to be either zeroemission or the highest emission standard possible for conventional buses, by March 2025.

“With the right amount of government funding behind us, our plan would I’m sure be welcome news for passengers,” said Martin Gannon, chair of the North East Joint Transport Committee. “Our region’s BSIP is a true collaborative effort and we are united in our goal to dramatically improve the network, so that more people than ever before are able - and willing - to make more sustainable transport choices by using the bus when they can. More people travelling by bus means less congestion on our roads, reduced carbon emissions, and less pollution in the air we breathe.”

88% SATISFIED WITH LAST TRIP

Transport Focus aims to track bus satisfaction SATISFACTION

Almost nine in 10 bus passengers were satisfied with their last journey according to a new weekly survey of bus users by Transport Focus.

The survey will continue to track bus passenger satisfaction (outside of London) week by week as passengers return to bus travel. The first results found 88% were satisfied with their overall journey and 76% satisfied with how punctual their bus was (12% were dissatisfied).

“We’ll be tracking how operators can provide an even better service,” said Anthony Smith, Transport Focus chief executive.

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NEWS ROUND-UP

‘Give us a road map for zero emission buses’ Treasury announces additional £355m of funding for zero emission buses, but the bus industry says pledge to deliver 4,000 vehicles is still at risk ZERO EMISSION VEHICLES

The bus industry welcomed news of additional funding for transport schemes in this week’s Autumn Budget, but called for a clear roadmap for decarbonisation of the national bus fleet.

The Treasury has dedicated a further £355m of new funding for zero emission buses. It has also allocated £70m under the ZEBRA (Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas) scheme to five locations - Warrington, Leicester, Milton Keynes, Kent, and Cambridgeshire & Peterborough.

Last week saw the UK’s three bus manufacturers join forces to urge the government to accelerate its planned rollout of 4,000 new UK-made zero emission buses. Alexander Dennis, Switch Mobility and Wrightbus held a ‘park the bus’ event in Westminster to make their point.

Prime minister Boris Johnson and transport secretary Grant Shapps promised in February 2020 to deliver these 4,000 buses by 2025, but only 50-100 are on the road.

Together with the ZEBRA and All Electric Bus Town schemes, government funding for up to 900 buses had been made available period to this week’s budget.

The £355m announced this week should help acquire around 1,500 vehicles and associated infrastructure The Bus and Coach All-Party Parliamentary Group invited the three bus manufacturers to park three UK-made zero emission buses in Westminster on October 06 | 29 October 2021 PT252p06-07 6

20, demonstrating the technology to MPs and reminding Downing Street of its commitment.

A letter delivered by the Bus and Coach APPG, which is chaired by former transport minister Robert Goodwill, to Number 10 explained: “The UK has three world-leading bus manufacturers who have all invested in R&D to develop market-leading zero-emission buses (ZEBs) and stand ready to deliver on your government’s commitment to introduce 4,000 ZEBS by 2024/5.

However, from our discussions with the manufacturers, we understand there remains frustration by the slow progress that is being made in turning

government words into bus production orders.”

These frustrations remain despite this week’s Treasury announcement. A statement issued by the Confederation of Passenger Transport on budget day said: “The funding announced today for zero emission buses gives a welcome immediate boost to bus manufacturing.

Beyond this year, however, the scale of funding raises serious questions over the speed at which the prime minister’s five year plan to deliver 4000 zero emission buses can be delivered.”

Martin Dean, managing director, business development at The Go-Ahead Group, Britain’s

“A clear long-term roadmap is needed for decarbonisation of the national bus fleet”Martin Dean, The Go-Ahead Group

Tom Randall, Conservative MP for Gelding (left) and Buta Atwal, CEO of Wrightbus

largest operator of electric buses, said: “Buses are a green mode of transport and with COP26 looming, we’re glad that the government is committing more funding to electric vehicles.”

But he added: “This is a once in a generation shift in transport technology - and that means a clear long-term roadmap is needed for decarbonisation of the national bus fleet.”

In an interview in Destination Net Zero: Decarbonising Transport, which accompanies this edition of Passenger Transport, Alexander Dennis president and managing director Paul Davies expressed his concern that ministers may not appreciate the industry’s need for a constant pace: “2024 may sound far away but bus manufacturing isn’t a tap we can simply turn on and off. The underlying manufacturing capacity of the established UK bus manufacturers is much less than it used to be and the danger is that a bow wave of demand may force government investment offshore at a time when it is critical that we grow the country’s clean tech sector that will deliver the decarbonisation objectives.

“We’re doing what we can here at Alexander Dennis to be as flexible as possible under what are incredibly challenging times for anyone involved in manufacturing, but pushing back orders to future years creates a situation where you are trying to squeeze two pints into a one-pint pot.”

Commenting prior to this week’s budget statement, Campaign for Better Transport also called for more to be done to deliver a zero-emission bus fleet.

Of the 38,000 buses nationally, the transport charity pointed out that only 12% are hybrid and only 2% (4% in London and 1% in the rest of England) are zero emission according to the latest figures. www.passengertransport.co.uk

27/10/2021 18:02

“Consumers are increasingly seeking affordable, comfortable, smart and sustainable mobility solutions”

First exits America with Greyhound sale FlixMobility acquires iconic coach operator in £100m deal ACQUISITIONS

FirstGroup has withdrawn from the international stage with the sale of its Greyhound express coach operation in North America to fast-growing FlixMobility, the parent company of low cost coach operator FlixBus. FlixMobility will pay the Aberdeen-based group $172m (£125m) in installments for ownership of Greyhound. A total of $140m (£102m) will be paid initially, with $32m (£23m) in unconditional deferred consideration paid in instalments over eighteen months.

In a change to the usual FlixBus model, which relies on the outsourcing of operations to third party operators, FlixMobility will take on ownership of the Greyhound fleet and staff.

FirstGroup, which has been trying to sell the operation since 2019, will retain $176m (£128m) of Greyhound’s property portfolio.

FlixMobility will lease these properties back at market rates, but the freeholds are expected to be sold over the next three to five years. FirstGroup also retains certain legacy Greyhound liabilities, including pensions, self-insurance, and finance leases

FlixMobility will directly operate Greyhound in a change to its usual business model

First confirms return of cash to shareholders Coast Capital agrees to the terms despite criticism FirstGroup has announced a tender offer to return up to £500m to shareholders following the completion of the disposal of non-UK businesses with the sale of Greyhound to German upstart FlixMobility.

Coast Capital Management, an activist investor that criticised the disposal programme will tender all its shares.

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with a value of $320m (£232m).

Some of these liabilities will be covered by the proceeds of the sale of the bulk of the North American business to Swedish equity player EQT earlier this year.

David Martin, First’s executive chairman, said the sale of Greyhound “completes the group’s portfolio rationalisation strategy which has refocused

Shareholders are being offered 105p per share which represents a 9% premium on the closing share price on October 26. If the full £500m is not tendered, FirstGroup said it will make up the gap through a share buyback.

“This marks the culmination of our portfolio rationalisation strategy, as announced in December 2019, which has

refocused the group on its leading UK public transport businesses,” said David Martin, the executive chairman of FirstGroup.

“In doing so, we have created a cash generative company with a well-capitalised balance sheet, a focused strategy and attractive growth prospects in our markets.”

Martin added he was optimistic about the future for First as the policy backdrop in the UK has never been more supportive for public transport.

FirstGroup on its leading UK public transport businesses”.

FlixBus entered the US market in 2018 and the purchase of the Greyhound business means it will now serve just under 5,000 destinations around the world.

Greyhound currently connects approximately 2,400 destinations across North America with nearly 16 million passengers each year.

Greyhound has a fleet of 1,300 vehicles and 2,400 employees. For the 52 weeks to March 27, 2021, Greyhound Lines, Inc. reported revenue of $423m (£323m), EBITDA of $37m (£27m) and an adjusted operating profit of $2m (£1.3m). The gross assets subject of the transaction were valued at $194m (£142m).

“Consumers across North America are increasingly seeking affordable, comfortable, smart and sustainable mobility solutions,” said André Schwämmlein, founder and chief executive of FlixMobility.

“A compelling offering will draw significantly more travellers away from private cars to shared coach mobility. Together, FlixBus and Greyhound will be better able to meet this increased demand.”

MORE TIME FOR TAKEOVER TALKS NEG and Stagecoach request more time ACQUISITIONS

Continuing talks between National Express Group and Stagecoach have led to a delay in the proposed deal until at least mid-November. Both groups have applied to the Takeover Panel for a month-long extension.

“Discussions between Stagecoach and National Express have continued, with respective management teams and advisers working constructively to progress reciprocal due diligence,” they said.

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NEWS ROUND-UP

Minister laments inaccessible hospitals Welsh deputy climate change minister says new out-of-town hospital near Cwmbran is example of a planning decision that should not be repeated PLANNING

A government minister has said no more hospitals should be built without proper public transport access, after a 471-bed facility opened on a greenfield site which is difficult for most people to reach without a car.

The NHS has centralised many care specialisms in larger hospitals for clinical reasons. This has resulted in patients, visitors and employees travelling further than they did when care was provided in local facilities, such as cottage hospitals. Many of the new facilities were built on cheaper land well outside town and city centres, providing easy access from trunk roads for cars and ambulances but imposing large penalties in travel time and cost on people who have no car available.

Last November, the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, covering a large area of south east Wales, opened the £360m Grange University Hospital on a hillside east of Cwmbran.

More than 3,000 employees work there, providing care services transferred from older hospitals, such as the Royal Gwent in Newport, which were accessible by public transport.

The Grange hospital is close to a roundabout on the A4042 dual carriageway but is more than a mile from Cwmbran railway station and town centre. There are no shuttle buses to bridge the gap.

Newport Transport’s half-hourly service 29 connects Newport city centre to the hospital via 08 | 29 October 2021 PT252p08-09 8

Caerleon, but dozens of other towns in the hospital’s catchment area have no direct access by public transport.

Welsh Senedd members have received many complaints about transport to the hospital. One of them told Lee Waters, deputy climate change minister, that if the Welsh Government was serious about achieving modal shift to public transport and active travel, it could not continue investing in facilities such as the Grange without providing public transport links.

Waters said: “I think the Grange is a case study of something we need to learn really and not

allow this to happen again, and that’s why … it’s so important for the CJCs [Corporate Joint Committees] and the local authorities to come together and take their responsibilities seriously so they can plan transport alongside other services, so we’re not creating out-of-town developments that aren’t served by public transport.

“And of course, in this instance it’s the Welsh Government itself - it’s the NHS planning - that is to blame for creating a large tripgenerating site away from public transport networks. And never again I think we should say that this be allowed to happen.”

“I think the Grange is a case study of something we need to learn really and not allow this to happen again” Lee Waters, deputy climate change minister

Greenfield: Grange University Hospital

He was “frustrated” that the government had not been able to make better progress on bus services. A new service from other key centres was due to start within six months but depended on funding being identified. “I realise that is not as good as it should have been, and I apologise for that, but that is something we are still progressing.”

Bus industry commentator Roger French applauded Waters for recognising the transport difficulties out-of-town developments caused for many people. He said: “Parking at hospitals is often a problem, but you can’t blame people when the access to the site is poor because of its location.”

There were examples in Britain of hospitals being built or enlarged on sites which were near public transport networks. “In Brighton, they’re redeveloping the main hospital which is close to the town centre and close to frequent bus routes,” said French. “That’s the way forward. They’ve got to develop the close-to-town-centre sites that hospitals already have.”

Over-reliance on car access has caused the NHS difficulties, with parking charges to manage demand widely regarded as unethical - and abolished in many instances - while expanding parking provision on hospital sites is expensive. Some hospitals have their own park and ride bus services.

In August, staff at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary were warned that bus services could be diverted away from bus stops on the campus because traffic congestion was causing long delays. The situation had worsened with some people switching from bus to car as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the opening in July 2020 of the new children’s hospital on the ERI site. www.passengertransport.co.uk

27/10/2021 17:38

Team up with the event providers. Page 18

TfL gives the green light for Night Tube Late night network to return on two Tube lines in late November NETWORKS

Transport for London has confirmed the Night Tube service will recommence on November 27. The reintroduction of services on the Central and Victoria lines aims to support London’s night time economy in the run-up to Christmas.

The service had been suspended in March last year as a result of the pandemic and to shift drivers to daytime services. Plans had been made to resume services in the spring of 2021, but Andy Byford, London’s transport commissioner,

ARRIVA TOPS FOR PERFORMANCE German-owned operator at top of TfL’s table PERFORMANCE

Arriva and Go-Ahead-owned companies dominated the London bus performance league table in the early summer according to performance statistics published by Transport for London.

Arriva London South was the top operator in the capital in the 12 weeks to June 25, 2021. It scored an Excess Waiting Time (EWT) result of 0.66 minutes against a target of 1.09 minutes. Its EWT variance of 0.43 minutes was just ahead of the second place operator, Blue Triangle, part of Go-Ahead London.

At the other end of the table was independent Sullivan Buses. It scored an EWT variance of -0.30 minutes with actual performance in excess of its required minimum standard. www.passengertransport.co.uk

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scotched these plans due to a perceived lack of demand at that time.

TfL says that services on the other Night Tube lines - the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines - will return to service “as soon as practicable”.

It adds there are “resourcing issues” on these lines that have yet to be solved. TfL adds there are other considerations, including the forthcoming closure of the Bank branch of the Northern line for capacity upgrade works.

Resuming Night Tube services also aims to address concerns regarding crime at night. TfL says the network offers a safe and low crime environment for travel with

IN BRIEF

high visibility patrols by police and enforcement officers.

Growing demand is also a factor.

TfL added that as the capital has begun to emerge from the pandemic, off-peak leisure travel has been recovering more quickly than other types of journeys.

It continued: “There is now regularly more than 55% of journeys compared to before the pandemic on the Tube network on weekdays, but that has reached as high as 80% at weekends, while ridership on buses is regularly at 75% of pre-pandemic levels.”

Patronage on TfL rail services like London Overground is around 60% at present, with weekends reaching even higher.

LONDON BUSES OPERATOR LEAGUE TABLE - EXCESS WAITING TIME Source: TfL (12 weeks to June 25, 2021)

EWT MINIMUM STANDARD POSITION/OPERATOR (MINS) 1.

Arriva London South 1.09 2.

Blue Triangle (Go-Ahead) 1.02 3.

Docklands Buses (Go-Ahead) 1.08 4.

Arriva London North 1.12 5.

London General (Go-Ahead) 1.12 6.

Metrobus (Go-Ahead) 1.02 7.

London Central (Go-Ahead) 1.20 8.

Metroline 1.14 Network Result 1.12 9.

Metroline West 1.10 10. Abellio London 1.15 11. Abellio London (West) 1.05 12. East London (Stagecoach) 1.11 13. Selkent (Stagecoach) 1.14 14. CT Plus 1.06 15. London United (RATP Dev) 1.12 16. London Sovereign (RATP Dev) 0.99 17. Tower Transit 1.17 18. Sullivan Buses 1.00

ACTUAL EWT (MINS) 0.66 0.63 0.73 0.81 0.80 0.70 0.91 0.90 0.88 0.88 0.93 0.84 0.92 0.95 0.89 1.06 0.98 1.22 1.30

Q1 EWT VARIANCE (MINS) 0.43 0.39 0.35 0.32 0.32 0.32 0.29 0.24 0.24 0.22 0.21 0.20 0.19 0.19 0.17 0.06 0.01 -0.04 -0.30

COVID TESTING UPDATE Transport for London has reported that by September 6, its in-house Covid-19 testing service has tested more than 6,300 members of staff at five locations in the capital. Of these tests, the number testing positive averaged less than 0.6%. By the same date, TfL had also distributed more than 2,800 home testing kits to staff.

MASK PROSECUTIONS Transport for London has reported that between July 4 and July 18, when face covering compliance fell under management of its Conditions of Carriage, 4,365 Fixed Penalty Notices were issued by TfL’s investigations and prosecutions team for passengers failing to wear face coverings. Since June 9, 2020, 1,529 cases have been listed in court, with 205 defendants pleading guilty to the offence of not wearing a face covering, resulting in fines averaging £530. The remaining 1,259 defendants had their case proved in their absence due to not responding to the court summons.

TfL ADOPTS HYBRID WORKING Office-based staff at Transport for London have begun transitioning to hybrid working with a mix of home and officebased working. TfL says that “a hybrid working model is the most appropriate for our business in order to allow for diversity, collaboration, co-operation and learning and development”.

The shift to hybrid working commenced on August 17 on a voluntary basis and from midNovember staff will be required to return to office-based working for some of their time.

29 October 2021 | 09

27/10/2021 17:38

NEWS ROUND-UP

Severance scheme aims to reform rail staffing Staff are invited to apply to volunteer to leave current roles RAIL REFORM

The rail industry has announced plans to launch a voluntary severance scheme in a move that aims to allow the sector to react to “post-pandemic challenges”.

The Rail Delivery Group says the scheme would play a part in “a vital set of reforms to create a more modern, reliable and passenger-focussed railway” as it “builds back from the pandemic and responds to changing travel patterns”.

The scheme - part of an agreement between rail companies and trades unions signed earlier this year - covers train operator employees and will provide support for those who

are ready for a change and would like to volunteer to leave their current jobs. Eligible staff will be able to receive a calculation of the support available to them and then express an interest.

RDG said the industry has been working hard to adapt to a new, post-covid environment particularly within the commuter market which made up nearly half of all journeys. Trends towards changing travel patterns have also accelerated dramatically.

“From the outset of the pandemic, rail has received unprecedented levels of taxpayer support to keep vital services running and protect jobs,” it added. “Hundreds of millions of pounds a month of taxpayer support is still being provided and journeys are not expected to fully recover to 2019 levels for

some time.”

Meanwhile, employers and trades unions are reviewing “historic working practices so that the railway can respond to changing passenger needs and enable future growth”, RDG continued. “This includes helping employees to better support passengers at stations and on trains, and providing greater flexibility in ways of working to help passengers during disruption, minimising delays to services.”

“We must adapt, and we cannot take more than our fair share from the taxpayer,” said RDG chair Steve Montgomery. “Our aim is to secure even more rewarding long term careers for those that want them and offer support for those who would like to leave, reshaping the railway to deliver a strong, green recovery.”

RDG WARNS ON COMMUTING London lags behind on the return to commuting RECOVERY

The Rail Delivery Group has warned the slow return of commuters to London is putting its recovery at risk while other cities bounce back.

Commuting into London is lagging behind the rest of the country, with only 41% of pre-pandemic train commuters getting back to the office. Outside of the capital, train commuting numbers have been steadily increasing and are now over half (54%) of pre-pandemic levels.

RDG claims rail commuters spend, on average, £12 on food and drink, £8 on shopping and £6 on entertainment on each journey.

10 | 29 October 2021 PT252p10-11 10

RETURN TO OKEHAMPTON The government has announced regular passenger services will run on the Dartmoor Line, connecting Okehampton to Exeter, from November 20 as part of the Restoring Your Railway programme.

Pictured is Sue Baxter of the Dartmoor Railway Association campaign group.

RAIL CONTRACT ENGAGEMENT DAY

First step towards new passenger service contracts RAIL REFORM

The first phase of industry engagement on new passenger service contracts will get underway next month, the government has announced. The market engagement day will bring government and stakeholders together to ensure a joint focus on a more passengerfocused railway for the future.

The Department for Transport said passenger service contracts are a key tool in the government’s planned rail reforms. It added they will establish a new way of working between the public and private sector to provide high-quality, punctual and reliable passenger services.

It continued: “They will encourage greater private sector involvement, offering new market entrants and existing operators the chance to showcase innovation and expertise and work collaboratively with the new public body, Great British Railways (GBR), to deliver the reforms proposed in the WilliamsShapps Plan for Rail.”

The engagement exercise will provide potential bidders with the opportunity to learn more about the future commercial model, raise questions and have their say in the development of the contracts.

The DfT hopes to not only engage with existing operators, but also to encourage new entrants, including those from other transport sectors and those from outside the UK. It says this will bring in fresh ideas, investment and innovation from outside the rail network.

“I encourage all those interested in playing a central role in the future of Britain’s railways to engage with this process, helping build a railway that is fit for the future,” said rail minister Chris Heaton-Harris. www.passengertransport.co.uk

27/10/2021 17:44

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27/10/2021 17:44

ENVIRONMENT COP26

‘Road to Renewables’ tour heads to Glasgow Electric decker left London last week on journey to COP26 ZERO EMISSION VEHICLES

Transport minister Trudy Harrison last week signalled her support for a unique electric bus tour from London to Glasgow to celebrate low carbon energy and transport projects.

The 11-day tour kicked off on October 18 at Go-Ahead’s Northumberland Park bus garage in north London, one of the largest of its kind in Europe, to “showcase the people and places driving the transition to net zero”.

The site is also home to the Bus2Grid project, led by SSE, BYD, UK Power Networks, Transport for London, and other partners, which could enable electric buses to become two-way chargers capable of putting power back into the grid.

Northumberland Park can charge 100 electric buses overnight and

UK HYDROGEN ROADSHOW First-ever hydrogen decker is heading to Glasgow ZERO EMISSION VEHICLES

The first-ever double decker hydrogen bus tour of the UK set off from London on October 18 to shine a spotlight on the part hydrogen has to play in the country’s race to net zero.

The UK Hydrogen Roadshow, a partnership between bus manufacturer Wrightbus, hydrogen distribution firm Ryze Hydrogen, and hydrogen production company INEOS through its INOVYN subsidiary, will see the world’s 12 | 29 October 2021 PT252p12-13 12

London currently has 950 electric buses on the road or on order.

The vehicle being used on the ‘Road to Renewables’ tour is a BYD ADL Enviro400EV, built in Britain by BYD and Alexander Dennis with a range of 160 miles.

It is the UK’s best-selling electric double decker bus and one of 1,000 BYD ADL electric buses already on the road or on order.

Trudy Harrison said: “Today’s

launch event is a wonderful example of the collaboration and innovation required to reach our net zero targets ahead of COP26, and Northumberland Park is already playing a huge role by bringing cleaner air to London with its 117 EV buses in operation.

“The government has recently pledged a further £2.8bn to support the switch to cleaner vehicles and the Bus2Grid project

The tour kicked off at Go-Ahead’s Northumberland Park bus garage

first hydrogen double decker bus, the Wrightbus Hydroliner, travel a 600-mile route as it makes its way from London to Glasgow for the UN’s climate conference, COP26.

It will stop at various businesses along the way to highlight the potential that low carbon hydrogen fuel has to play in various industries.

The tour will visit pioneering zero emissions aviation firm ZeroAvia, transport provider National Express West Midlands, construction equipment giant JCB, heating provider Baxi Boilers, hydrogen storage, distribution and dispensing firm NanoSUN and gas distribution logistics experts Suttons Tankers

before making its way to a Glasgow school, where pupils will get to find out more about the potential of hydrogen as a fuel.

The roadshow will also mark the announcement of a partnership

Jo Bamford

based here is precisely the kind of research we need to power up the electric vehicle revolution, not just for cars but for public transport too.”

The tour includes meeting the young engineers who are based at the 500MW offshore windfarm at Greater Gabbard at the UK’s most easterly point, as well as those driving the decarbonisation of cities like Oxford and Peterborough.

The ‘Road to Renewables’ journey concludes in Glasgow on October 29, three days before COP26 begins. The bus will open an official charging garage for the climate change summit.

SSE is a major partner at COP26. Nathan Sanders, managing director of SSE Distributed Energy, said: “There could not be a better time to take to the road with our message that innovation and collaboration are key to tackling the climate emergency ... We’re excited by all the people and projects we’re showcasing on our ‘Road to Renewables’ and our innovative Bus2Grid project that could see buses become two-way chargers is a great place to start our tour.”

between Wrightbus, and INEOS, as the firms work together to create hydrogen solutions that will help decarbonise the transport industry and achieve its net zero goals.

Jo Bamford, executive chairman of Wrightbus and Ryze, said: “Hydrogen technology has the potential to create and sustain hundreds of thousands of high-quality jobs in all parts of the UK, covering many different sectors.

“At Wrightbus, we’re really walking the walk. Not only have we pioneered zero emissions transport but we‘ve increased the workforce from 56 to more than 900 in just two years and have introduced four zero emission buses in the last 12 months.” www.passengertransport.co.uk

27/10/2021 16:56

Transport planners call for road building review Transport Planning Society urges rethink ahead of COP26 ROAD BUILDING

The Transport Planning Society has urged government to review funding for high carbon road building projects ahead of the COP26 climate summit.

The society’s comments come in its response to the UK government’s Transport Decarbonisation Plan, which lays out how the government will decarbonise the transport industry and meet its net zero by 2050 ambition.

“We welcomed the Transport Decarbonisation Plan a world first plan for all modes of transport to be Net Zero by 2050,” said Transport Planning Society chair Mark Frost.

“With two weeks to go until COP26 it’s crucial we shift away from our dependence on the car, particularly with the electric revolution and the potential for an avalanche of e-congestion and e-traffic onto the network.”

Tom van Vuren, director of policy at the Transport Planning Society, said: “There is a disconnect in the policy document between the proposed interventions and the net-zero target that we need to achieve.

“Apart from immediate action to reduce emissions now, I want to see a more in-depth analysis of

whether all initiatives combined will get us anywhere near that target, and what else might be required to do so.

“Rather than focus on what the plan should have included, TPS’s response looks forward to COP26 and offers a number of recommendations for the government to act on leading up to the climate conference and beyond.”

The society’s recommendations to government (see panel) include suspending the road building programme and the introduction of road user charging.

“With two weeks to go until COP26 it’s crucial we shift away from our dependence on the car” Mark Frost, Transport Planning Society

TPS PROPOSALS More active travel funding must be committed each year.

The government should assess suspending new road building as an approach for England, or at least commit to a review of the current Road Investment Strategy.

Investment in infrastructure must be supported by behaviour change campaigns that encourage modal shift. These campaigns must be sustained, not on/off activities, and stress how important it is to move to sustainable forms of transport in the immediate future.

Economic levers should be reviewed. The government must consider a road pricing scheme to realise immediate carbon reduction from road travel.

A connected approach to spatial and transport planning is needed.

Future budgets must redress the imbalance in funding between roads and sustainable forms of transport.

FIRST’S BYD ADL BUSES OPERATE COP26 SHUTTLE

Fleet of 22 electric buses will service delegates ZERO EMISSION VEHICLES

First Bus will operate the delegate shuttle service at the upcoming COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow with a fleet of 22 BYD ADL Enviro200EV single deck zero emission buses.

The selection of First Bus as official transport provider follows a tender process run by Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) on behalf of the UK and Scottish Governments. The shuttle service will provide a fast and frequent link for all delegates attending the event. www.passengertransport.co.uk

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First Glasgow BYD ADL Enviro200EV electric buses 29 October 2021 | 13

27/10/2021 16:56

INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY

ting’s operating area

Dr Nik Johnson, mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough at the launch of ting

On-demand ‘ting’ for west Huntingdonshire

New service operated by Stagecoach East lets passengers book tailor-made service in real time via ‘ting trips’ app or local call centre for just £2 one-way DRT

Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority’s new demand responsive bus service to support rural communities across the western part of Huntingdonshire, began operating on October 25.

Operated by Stagecoach East, ‘ting’ lets passengers book an on-demand, tailor-made service in real time by using the ‘ting trips’ app or calling a local call centre.

It allows people across all age groups to order a bus from even the most remote locations and make any one-way ride for just £2.

Seats can be booked up to seven days in advance or on the same day of their journey. The service 14 | 29 October 2021 PT252p14-15 14

runs between 7am-7pm MondayFriday and 8am-4pm Saturday, but not Sundays or Bank Holidays.

The ting-branded fleet of four Optare solo, single deck vehicles, provides an “overlay service” and is not intended to replace the area’s conventional bus services.

The six-month trial has been put forward by the combined authority as a much-needed public transport option “to get people out of their cars” and supports its

plans to help the region’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

Dr Nik Johnson, mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough commented: “Using the car is often the only option for residents in many of our rural communities. They simply don’t have the same access to the public transport services which are available to their counterparts in our market towns and cities.

“Demand and the need for

“Demand and the need for public transport is changing and so is the technology that supports it”

Dr Nik Johnson, mayor of Cambs & Peterborough

public transport is changing and so is the technology that supports it. This new ting service is an amazing opportunity. It provides people of all ages, living in our rural communities with a viable option at the end of their fingertips, helping them meet up with their friends or teammates, get to their workplace, go shopping or connect to other public transport hubs, like trains and bus stations to take them further afield without first having to jump in their cars.

“I want to be able to offer the people of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough a world class, connected public transport service, and the outcome of this trial will be used to help decide whether demand responsive bus services can become a valuable addition to our public transport service in the future.

I believe this trial provides a more carbon friendly, flexible, reliable, affordable and convenient solution for rural communities.”

Stagecoach East managing director Darren Roe said: “ting will transform how customers use our services and will help to break down the barriers to bus travel, that some people experience, by allowing customers to facilitate on-demand, tailor-made bus trips that are not restricted by timetables ... We are excited to launch this new technology and give our passengers more control and freedom when it comes to bus travel.” www.passengertransport.co.uk

27/10/2021 16:56

Contract for UK’s first multi-city MaaS scheme Consortium wins £2.4m deal to develop MaaS for Solent region MAAS

Solent Transport has awarded a £2.4m contract for the development of a Mobility-as-aService solution as part of the region’s Future Transport Zone.

Established in 2007, Solent Transport is a partnership between the councils of the Isle of Wight, Hampshire County, Portsmouth and Southampton.The new MaaS product is intended to make it easier to access transport services in the region, which has a population of 1.3 million people.

The successful consortium, led by Trafi in partnership with Unicard and the Behavioural Insights Team, has already started work on developing the app which promises to make travel “easier, more accessible, more efficient and more customer focused”.

The first version of the product will be launched later this year.

MaaS provides journey planning and payment across every mode of transport in a convenient and compelling way. By integrating the various modes of transport in the region into the app, as well as the systems behind them, Solent Transport hopes to maximise the positive impact of more sustainable travel choices on outcomes such as car dependency, access to employment opportunities and emissions.

The MaaS project is part of the £28.8m of funding allocated to Solent Transport from the Department for Transport’s Future Transport Zone programme. The regional MaaS

app will be the first multi-city product in the UK and “will set a new standard for how to provide future transport services”.

The app, powered by Trafi, will consist of a journey planner, smart ticketing, payment system and will experiment with incentives to encourage travellers to use more sustainable modes. It will also include a carbon footprint calculator to help people make greener choices. Rail, ferry and bus connections, as well as bikes, e-scooters and car rental services will all be available from the app.

The Solent Go smart travel system, provided by Unicard, will ensure that the new scheme successfully integrates with existing travel and ticketing

“I’m excited to see how this app could change the way people in the local area travel” Trudy Harrison, transport minister

options. It will also provide viable options for users without smartphones.

Solent Transport and the winning consortium will work with the Universities of Portsmouth and Southampton to carry out research into how MaaS changes travellers’ behaviour.

Unicard is assisting with the research goals of the project by providing data on existing travel patterns in the region. The Behavioural Insights Team’s role will be testing how the MaaS product changes travel behaviour relative to a ‘control’ group of non-users and assist in developing the product to make it easier and more helpful for customers to use.

Transport minister Trudy Harrison said: “From making it easier for local residents to access transport to easing congestion and improving air quality, innovation in transport is vital, which is why Solent Transport’s Future Transport Zone has the backing of this government. I’m excited to see how this app could change the way people in the local area travel, making our journeys easier, cleaner and more efficient.”

GO-AHEAD’S NEW WEBSITES

NEW STREET WI-FI UPGRADE

Eight new websites for group’s bus subsidiaries

Passengers can now get free and unlimited Wi-Fi

ONLINE

CONNECTIVITY

Passenger has completed the roll out of its market-leading customer experience platform for Go-Ahead Group following the launch of eight new operator websites.

The websites have been designed to complement 17 new Go-Ahead operator apps, launched earlier this year, by bringing journey planning, and features such as live bus tracking and departure boards to the web and creating a joined up experience for customers.

Passengers at Birmingham New Street station can now get free and unlimited Wi-Fi that is fast enough to support video calls and streaming.

Network Rail’s upgraded service uses the latest technology so passengers can connect multiple devices without having to create an account to log in.

It’s certified as ‘Friendly WiFi’ which means it complies with the government’s safe filtering standards for the public and is child friendly.

www.passengertransport.co.uk

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EYE IN THE SKY Tyne and Wear Metro maintenance teams are now using drones to monitor infrastructure on the 77-kilometre network. The drone provides a live video-feed to an operator, who then uses special software, with more accuracy than the human eye, to identify any issues.

29 October 2021 | 15

27/10/2021 16:56

COMMENT

NORMAN BAKER

Travel by train?

The price isn’t right Rail travel is becoming optional. There is no longer a captive commuter market and the case for fares reform must be heard

Last weekend, the media was given the good news that £7bn was going to be spent on green transport in some of our major conurbations outside London, including Birmingham and Manchester.

This is not to be sniffed at. It is a substantial sum, even if around £5.5bn had already been announced, though now the allocation of the money is known too. Of course, re-announcing good news is not a new trend. Some government good news gets re-released more often than Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade.

By Monday some £26bn of budget announcements had been made to the media, infuriating the HoC speaker who regularly chastises the government for making important policy decisions outside of parliament first, just as John Bercow did before him.

This time he invoked the memory of Hugh Dalton, the Labour chancellor who in 1947 gave some details of his budget to a waiting journalist while entering the chamber to deliver his budget. The information appeared in the press at lightning speed before the House was told, and the chancellor had to resign. No chance of that happening now. The speaker can huff and puff as much as he likes.

It won’t change this government habit.

Selectively pre-leaking good bits of the budget over several days guarantees several days of good headlines. Naturally the bad news is not pre-released, sometimes not even present in the chancellor’s budget speech, but is only 16 | 29 October 2021 PT252p16-17 16

found days later by a diligent researcher on page 412 of the budget book, section 8, subsection 17.

Anyhow, back to that £7bn for green transport. Readers of this magazine will not need to be convinced that such investment helps social cohesion and helps meet the government’s carbon reduction targets.

And increasingly, green transport investment is being seen by ‘Red Wall’ Conservative MPs as a way of ‘levelling up’. (Was this phrase an invention of Dominic Cummings? It has certainly become the political phrase of the year).

The Network Effects report, backed by the Levelling Up Taskforce of 65 Tory MPs, analysed the numbers of jobs accessible variously by car or public transport. The report referred to “the crippling effects that broken public transport networks are having on access to jobs”.

So on the face of it, there is strong agreement across all political parties, perhaps for the first time ever, that significant investment in public transport is a really good idea. I am sure the £7bn would not have appeared without pressure from these Red Wall Tories.

“I am sure the £7bn would not have appeared without pressure from these Red Wall Tories”

BUT... all the investment in new zero emission buses, in reopened railway lines, and other public transport enhancements will count for nothing unless they are accompanied by an increase in passenger numbers. A new bus service to an area of employment, a bit of track electrification here and there, has to be accompanied by policies to get people out of their cars, perhaps also away from the homebased laptops, and onto buses and trains.

In the short term, the Treasury has rightly been pushed to ensure the welcome support it has provided over the last 18 months does not end in a cliff edge, to taper off support for the bus and train sectors until numbers are back to where they were.

But will they get back? The outlook for bus is perhaps more promising. Passenger numbers are already back to between 70 and 85%. Those who use public transport are disproportionately those who need it to get to work, or who have no alternative. Even so, interventions are needed, such as more bus lanes, workplace charging as in Nottingham, and, crucially, higher car parking charges.

The challenge for rail is altogether more difficult and more complicated. The issues of the architecture of the railway, notably the end of franchising and the creation of GBR (Great British Railways), have been addressed in the much delayed but finally arrived white paper.

Legislation will have to be introduced next year to give effect to this new structure.

But that otherwise comprehensive paper did not address very deeply at all how to get people back on trains. Indeed, there was one particularly gaping hole in that white paper: fares. I have little doubt that the issue had been addressed by the Department for Transport but was then taken out by the Treasury before publication. Without fares reform, rail will fail by some distance to reach its potential.

We are promised an integrated rail paper before Christmas which will hopefully finally grasp that nettle (probably slightly easier and less painful than biting the bullet). In the meantime, here is the recipe for success which the Campaign for Better Transport and I have put together.

Rail travel is becoming optional. No longer is there a captive commuter market that will put up with whatever price increase the government forces upon it. Many who were commuters now have the option of simply www.passengertransport.co.uk

27/10/2021 17:32

“We have had 11 years now of a freeze on fuel duty, during which time rail fares have risen 36%” staying at home. The Treasury needs to lose the simplistic mindset that they can put up fares without any reduction in numbers travelling.

The latest passenger figures for rail show patronage somewhere around the 65% mark, but that overall figure hides an important trend. Leisure travel has recovered very well.

Commuter traffic has not.

The government says it wants white collar workers - the sort who are staying at home - back in the office. The introduction of flexi season tickets, in reality carnets, earlier this year was recognition of the need to do something different. But the Treasury was scared to do anything too radical for fear of losing income, so the flexis have been something of a damp squib. On a small point it might help if they were valid for a calendar month, for example from the 17th of one month to the 16th of the next, rather than a fiddly four weeks.

It is noticeable that the government is reluctant to give any information as regards take up of flexis, even in response to parliamentary questions, citing commercial confidentiality. That tells its own story.

The Treasury is fearful of fares reform. It is like a rookie swimmer, a ring round its midriff and holding on to the end of the pool for dear life. It needs to let go and it will find it can swim. Or to put it in economic terms, it needs to speculate to accumulate.

The informed mutterings suggest that the last RPI+1 increase raised almost nothing as it actively pushed people off rail. Is it not possible that freezing or even reducing fares might gain passengers and actually increase the overall income take?

It is worth remembering that we have had 11 years now of a freeze on fuel duty, during which time rail fares have risen 36%. This compares with just 9% in motoring costs. The government has been encouraging modal shift to cars. Let us now have a fares freeze on rail.

With commuters in mind in particular, we need a much improved flexi season ticket offer. For those who might return to five day commuting, let us have a season ticket sale, of say a third off any season bought between now and the end of February. And given that the Friday morning peak is now much quieter than midweek, let us abolish the peak on a Friday so that all tickets that day are off-peak. More generally we need to end the 9.30am cliff edge www.passengertransport.co.uk

PT252p16-17 17

We’ve taken the message to No 10 and 11.

Will they listen?

between peak and non-peak.

More generally we need an early date set for the extension of Pay-As-You-Go in the London area, and its roll-out in all major conurbations, with a daily cap as applies to Oyster in London. But more than that, we need to ensure people are not financially penalised for changing modes. A to B by bus may be one journey but even in London, changing from bus to tube to get from A to B means you pay twice, albeit within the daily cap. That cannot be right.

We need to ensure that single leg pricing is introduced. It is indefensible that an off-peak single costs basically the same as an off-peak return. And we need to make sure that when people buy a ticket, or should I say permit to travel, they can be confident that they have got the cheapest appropriate fare for the journey, which might be the split ticketing option, and that this should apply whether they buy online or at a ticket office. A passenger should not need to have the railway’s fare structure as your specialist subject on Mastermind.

There are of course other steps that need to be taken to lure passengers back. As a central principle, the journey itself should not be regarded as an unwelcome necessity but rather as an enjoyable experience. Let us have comfortable seats rather than the ironing boards some official at the DfT decided were appropriate for the Brighton trains. It has been a long way down from the waiter service and clean table cloths of the Brighton Belle.

We cannot go back to that, but can we at least have someone selling tea and coffee?

The railway needs to adjust to meet the needs of those who want to use it, and for the moment that is predominantly optional leisure travel. Yet on many lines, off-peak services have been cut since the pandemic hit, which actually saves very little money as all the fixed costs are still there. But it means that when I travel up from Lewes to London off-peak, as I did last Sunday, the train was heaving with people standing all the way from Gatwick.

We need more off-peak trains.

We also need Network Rail to stop closing the railway on Sundays as if this is still 1954 and nobody wants to travel. Sunday is a busy growth day.

So the railway needs to adjust, and to be fair the industry is showing signs of beginning to do so. But it badly needs fares reform which legally can only be delivered by the government. The structure we have, which is essentially one created by British Rail decades ago, is hopelessly out of date and a bar to recovery and growth.

Treasury ministers and officials: are you listening?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Norman Baker served as transport minister from May 2010 until October 2013. He was Lib Dem MP for Lewes between 1997 and 2015.

29 October 2021 | 17

27/10/2021 17:32

COMMENT

ALEX WARNER

Team up with the event providers

Whether it’s live sport or theatre, transport providers must forge partnerships to counter Covid caution and an armchair mentality Regular readers of this column will be familiar with my penchant for sporting analogies to compare the approaches taken to managing public transport with on-pitch success and failure. However, it’s what happens on the terraces and in the stands that now matters most to the sector, particularly as attendances at matches have always been a key driver of revenue. For generations, boarding a train on a Saturday into and out of our cities and towns, one would instantly know that it was matchday as the carriage would be thronging with energy and folk chuntering about the game, different coloured scarves and shirts, matchday programmes being perused and generally some boozed up chanting and, less frequently in recent times, an air of tribal hostility.

There’s growing concern at the diminished post-lockdown attendances at events and this, of course, is bad news for public transport’s coffers. Big spectator occasions - theatres, cinemas, opera, exhibitions, pop concerts and the like are all uneasy about the sluggish pace at which customers are returning. My brother, Ed Warner, writer of sportinc.substack.com and City expert, recently wrote an instructive article that suggested the biggest threat to sport currently was from diminished attendances.

He illustrated how Rugby’s Super League has had a challenging time, perhaps inevitably so given that the season started more rapidly after lockdown restrictions ended, than football - the ‘Rivals Round’ involving local derbies attracting significantly fewer fans than pre18 | 29 October 2021 PT252p18-19 18

Covid. Hull R.F.C. undertook fan feedback surveys that suggested that supporters feel very uncomfortable going to games if the crowd is in excess of 15,000.

Whilst football attendances suggest, in the main, some recovery, there are many empty seats that have been sold to season ticket holders and corporate customers who haven’t bothered turning up. Premier League clubs also report challenges selling season tickets.

Of course, transport has its own direct problems to fret about, but it relies on those responsible for the ‘reasons to travel’ in the entertainment, leisure and hospitality sector to get their own house in order so that we can reap the benefits. However, that’s not to say we need to sit back and watch the situation unfold.

Clearly, the fear of Covid is a factor. We all Fans of Crystal Palace. Other football teams are available

seem to know someone who is beset with the virus - indeed, in my own team at work, three members who I rely on closely are holed up with it, one such yesterday claiming he caught it at the Manchester City game last weekend. My teenage son went down with Covid a couple of days after we got overexcited celebrating Crystal Palace’s goals in the away end at West Ham, hugging other, likely unvaccinated, youngsters and emitting our noxious, infectious south London breath into the air with every raucous chant. It doesn’t take many of these anecdotes to deter folk and it could be years before we’re in a situation where catching Covid is no longer viewed as an almost casually accepted, inevitable inconvenience of going to the match.

However, the transport sector could do more to help, in terms of incentivising and making it easier for folk to attend events. Bear in mind, the pandemic made many people realise that lowering the gears on their aspiration to go out wasn’t such a bad thing, after all - the cost of travel, food, admission, combined with getting up at some uncivilised hour at a weekend for an increasingly anti-social kick off time, when the match was on TV, has, for many, outweighed the benefits of going, particularly if your team is going to get stuffed.

Obviously, bus and rail companies can’t dictate the result, but they should be doing more to work with event providers to offer ‘all in one’ travel and admission tickets, as was the case at the Olympics and is planned for the Commonwealth Games. So too, maybe they could work with a nationwide food retailer to offer a discounted pre-match snack en route or something from the on-board buffet trolley?

Transport providers need to get into the minds of potential spectators. Many sporting fans shun the official websites of their clubs because they are full of sanitised self-congratulatory claptrap. Instead, they devour online message-boards and Instagram accounts run by fans. It’s almost unprecedented for a transport company to post on these and offer titbits or a promotional offer or two about how to get to the game, particularly for a future away match at some off the beaten track place. Even having a greater affinity with the local club would help.

There are a few examples of train companies sponsoring teams, but not enough - in a town or city, the bus company should proudly be www.passengertransport.co.uk

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“There’s growing concern at the diminished post-lockdown attendances at events” the official travel provider of their club and be seen by fans as synonymous with the team and fans in pursuit of success on and off the pitch.

There are also more practical ways in which the transport companies and authorities can help. For years, there’s been almost a ‘that’s just the way it is’ shrugging of shoulders when big games, most notably at Wembley, are scheduled for evening kick-offs making it impossible for fans to travel home by public transport afterwards without requiring an overnight stay. Or, even if the kick-off time is attractive, engineering works are too often on the stadium’s doorstep. In some cases, discussions don’t even ensue because the fragmented nature of the rail sector - worsened during these transitional times when no one accepts accountability - mean that anyone outside the industry, in the events business, for instance, hasn’t the slightest clue who they would approach to influence travel arrangements.

Worse still, most rail professionals wouldn’t even know themselves who to contact to make it happen, even if they had the slightest conviction to do so.

In the seventies and eighties, football special trains were part and parcel of the matchday experience and a good, affordable way of providing point-to-point transportation to the game, whilst keeping boisterous fans from disturbing families and the like on normal services. These are pretty much no more. So too, coach charters - the demise of many of the smaller, independent coach operators, hastened by owners retiring, difficulties in finding drivers and the impact of the pandemic, means there are fewer opportunities to get a coach to an event. Sometimes, the problem, though, is that the larger transport providers don’t think creatively - whilst some owning groups run shuttle buses to and from railway stations on matchday, it’s only at a sprinkling of venues and they could also provide longer distance charters to games beyond a subsidiary’s heartland.

Train companies and Network Rail could work collaboratively to create a compelling charter proposition for big matches, but it’s too much hassle. There’s all the effort that goes into timetable planning, finding the stock and crew, marketing the service and so on. In the new, unified world of GBR, surely there’s an opportunity to make this easier, just as it was ‘bread and butter’ in the old days of British Rail?

For those attending big events not far www.passengertransport.co.uk

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away, public transport can have a rare joyous moment of ascendency against the likes of Uber, with surge pricing meaning they are cost prohibitive once the big match has finished.

They’re not only unaffordable for fans, but unappealing for drivers don’t wish to get stuck in traffic trying to find their way to the stadium and their customer.

It’s not all about sport, of course, and with cinema attendances barely at 50% of prepandemic levels and theatres teetering on the brink, the transport industry should be helping out. The Netflix and Deliveroo revolution, combined with a generation of youngsters growing up viewing e-sports as attractive as going to or playing sport, it’s not going to get any easier to entice folk from their sofas, particularly as the cold dark winter nights draw in. We all too often think it’s someone else’s problem, but if there’s nothing to do and no reason to travel, then patronage will always remain sluggish. Admission to the theatre has become so costly that it’s now an experience that is almost entirely the preserve of the elite and those who, quite often, wouldn’t be seen dead on a bus or train. Surely, there is a way in which a discounted ‘travel and ticket’ offering can be more readily available for the masses to a wide range of shows and theatres, not just at the big venues but the small independents?

As there are fewer theatres around, they tend to require longer distance journeys for customers, more so by rail, than bus. However, cinemas have always been a feature of the typical town centre landscape and akin to the demographics of your average bus customer.

For years, bus tickets have offered on their reverse money off for a meal in KFC or McDonalds - recognising again the parallel tastes between a bus and fast-food customer.

Why not have a discounted entry voucher or free popcorn on the back of a bus ticket, to encourage customers out? Bus companies need also to be savvy about the proposition serving cinemas - many haven’t properly tweaked their networks and frequencies to reflect that over the past 15 years cinemas have experienced a flight into out-of-town retail parks, with their free car parking. Some companies stop services in the evenings well before the credits have even appeared on the screen too.

The role of digital marketing must be stepped up - transport companies have chuntered on about this for years, but

attempts have been inept, particularly those within the bus sector. When my inbox is able to proactively inspire me with a suggested extension to my model railway even before I’ve visualised it myself, I can’t comprehend why my local transport provider can’t check out the Surrey County Cricket Club, Crystal Palace and Walton Casuals F.C. fixtures and give me an itinerary and the best fares option to get me to the home or away game. In fairness, Surrey, like other clubs, provides helpful emails about arrangements for their home games, including travel, but it feels as though they do this off their own back as a customer-centric host, more than with any encouragement or support from the transport sector. They do more to get bums on our own seats than we do ourselves.

Finally, as if this wasn’t enough to worry about, it’s not just spectator numbers that are suffering, participation figures are too. My bro points out in his article that governing bodies and clubs are taking a financial hit from reduced memberships and also from extending membership years to reflect lockdown months.

England Athletics suffered a 24% fall in membership in the first year of the pandemic, England Netball incurred a drop of 25% in affiliation fees, whilst some rugby and cricket clubs are reporting a 50% loss of members. As fewer folk are going out, all of this, of course, has an impact on public transport.

With Covid caution, coupled with the armchair mentality, it promises to be a worrying pre-Christmas period and one that’s traditionally crucial for businesses and transport in terms of demand, before the bitter, quiet months of January and February.

When you pass the local Odeon or Vue and there’s no-one in the queue outside or if you see swathes of empty seats whilst watching the match, then you should be really worried as this will be yet another societal change setting in to add to an already mounting list of patronage problems for public transport. We must work together with event providers to unlock demand and it’s a shared challenge for us all. Neither sector can do it alone.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Alex Warner has over 28 years’ experience in the transport sector, having held senior roles on a multi-modal basis across the sector

29 October 2021 | 19

27/10/2021 17:26

COMMENT CONSULTATION

NICK RICHARDSON

How do we seek the right answers?

Public feedback on schemes and plans has never been more important but consultation may point in the wrong direction Quite rightly, consultation has become part of the transport portfolio in all sorts of ways with regular invitations to respond to policies and schemes. However, there are signs that the process may be drifting away from having a useful role to becoming adversarial and irrelevant.

Transport affects everyone in some way, so understanding people’s views and experiences can be very helpful in refining proposals and dealing with the detail. There are many different ways of talking to people from public events, focus groups and online media including questionnaires to collaborative working now made possible through bespoke software packages. Other techniques such as stated preference surveys can help those tasked with developing proposals. These can attract large audiences if proposals are on a sufficient scale but a fundamental weakness is that the respondents are self-selecting i.e. they volunteer their involvement on the basis that their opinion matters. If the approach is more targeted then particular individuals with potentially useful contributions can be invited. However, there remains the premise that people have some knowledge about what is being asked of them. For example, I was facilitating a group in Uganda which enthusiastically supported bus rapid transit although none of them had seen or experienced it. They had some idea of the concept and had high hopes but nothing more substantive, their opinions being based solely 20 | 29 October 2021 PT252p20-21 20

on what they had been told and the desire for something better than their usual battered minibus offer.

Consultation or engagement?

Consultation differs from engagement although the two terms are often used synonymously; lots of terms are used ranging from dialogue to collaboration with engagement somewhere in between. Effective engagement implies working together to develop whatever the proposal may be rather than plain consultation which tends to be more opinion-seeking about something that has already reached a more advanced stage.

Some invitations are still difficult to respond to because they are far too complicated and

People love to express an opinion on what should be done

require background knowledge - which may or may not be easy to obtain - and often requires answers to precise technical questions.

This may be off-putting for many would-be respondents because it’s all too difficult and time-consuming. It leaves little scope for free thinking and may even be exclusive to the extent that respondents have no opportunity to say if they agree with the main principles presented or not. Online surveys may have a limited box for comments but this is not always sufficient.

The problem is that while more people have access to information, it doesn’t always answer the question. Firstly, not everyone can access it given that many people are not comfortable or proficient at online activities or have no internet access in the first place.

Secondly, their views are framed in a way that precludes greater involvement because they have to express a specific opinion about a specific question. Responding anonymously is discouraged so respondents become part of a pool of consultees in which they are constrained by the sponsor’s rules.

Inclusion is not guaranteed. What used to be called ‘hard to reach groups’ are by definition unlikely to get involved. Other terms such as ‘vulnerable groups’ are often sought to ensure that a wide range of views is considered but spokespersons may not be fully representative of all aspects of that particular vulnerability and it raises a question of whether or not their views should have more weight than those of others.

Voicing opinion Conversely, an open consultation on anything to do with transport means that everyone is an expert. People love to express an opinion on what should be done, usually simplistic solutions that no-one else has thought of because their views carry more validity than others. This is always galling to transport professionals. Apparently, anyone who has ever used a car knows all about junctions, road layouts and traffic management. For passenger transport, people want lower fares because they deserve it given their own personal circumstances and they want it now. It could be argued that we make proposals that on the face of it are straightforward, then we complicate them and mire them in processes that confuse matters, the default scenario being that www.passengertransport.co.uk

27/10/2021 17:13

IN ASSOCIATION WITH: www.ciltuk.org.uk Tel: 01536 740100 @ciltuk

nothing happens. This came to a head during the pandemic when temporary schemes were put in place to promote walking and cycling while enabling social distancing which in some cases were detrimental to bus movements but in others took space away from cars. The inevitable backlash followed with highway authorities being tarred as anti-car and therefore generally incompetent. This flows from selecting evidence to suit one’s position and putting forward theories that have no basis in reality.

Having more information available than ever before doesn’t help because it is used selectively and there are no filters to ensure that anything appearing online is correct. It offers a means of spreading nonsense such as 5G masts causing Covid-19 and similar which can be well orchestrated but fundamentally wrong.

Those who shout the loudest have a tendency to be heard. The secretary of state for transport wrote to local authorities about the temporary pandemic schemes and rebuked some of them for not taking everyone’s views into account (ie. car users). There were genuine problems with some but clearly no-one made the connections with established policy at national or local levels. If they had, they would know that perpetuating roads for car traffic is rooted firmly in the past and we are now adopting a more sustainable approach.

Some of the shouty types can be very loud however, so consultation can result in bringing down perfectly reasonable proposals. Thus consultation becomes a referendum which is wholly inappropriate but sadly still influences decision-makers. While no politician will oppose road safety measures or air quality initiatives, many are still staunchly defensive about not upsetting car users, evidence-based or not. This is why we are introducing low emission zones that apply to buses but don’t affect cars despite car traffic being the main cause of the problem.

Raising expectations A further tendency is scope creep because respondents are told what they want to hear. This over-promising may build to a point where the proposals are undeliverable; ultimately no-one is satisfied because the compromise is unsatisfactory. Designing by committee has an inevitably inappropriate outcome. This is why the objectives of the www.passengertransport.co.uk

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New road building should be confined to the past - we are now adopting a more sustainable approach

“Perpetuating roads for car traffic is rooted firmly in the past” scheme needs to be clear. For example, if the scheme intends to improve bus punctuality, then it needs to focus on how to achieve this rather than diluting it until it is an unsatisfactory compromise. The default option is to do nothing but while this satisfies some people in the short term, it represents giving up and promotes the inertia that prevents anything useful being achieved.

The Bus Service Improvement Plans now emerging required an element of consultation and it will have been challenging for any authority to fit this in with the government’s compressed timeframe. Although the national bus strategy for England talks about being bold and the BSIP guidance emphasises the need for more adventurous proposals, local decision-makers may hold different views. These views may be entrenched, based on personal experience and gossip but can persuade some to dismiss evidence as irrelevant. Understanding what passenger transport services are for is not guaranteed

and may simply galvanise opposition. I heard about a Local Economic Partnership where the chair took aside the technical advisor after a meeting where they were told to drop the public transport schemes from the list for consideration because that wasn’t what they wanted. This sort of bias is widespread and those who think that climate change is irrelevant are incapable of linking poor air quality and environmental degradation with their own behaviours.

In this respect, consultations such as those on BSIPs can be difficult in the sense that most people would like to see better bus services so asking them if they want them is rather superfluous. Participation in policy and design is always welcome but not when it becomes tokenism or a means of not delivering anything useful.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Nick Richardson is Technical Principal at transport consultancy Mott MacDonald, chair of CILT’s Bus and Coach Policy Group and a former chair of the Transport Planning Society. In addition, he has held a PCV licence for over 30 years.

29 October 2021 | 21

27/10/2021 17:13

SPECIAL REPORT FIRST BUS

Janette Bell joined First Bus in October 2020

“So often when you are in an industry and you’ve been there a long time, you can’t see the wood for the trees,” said Bell. “You’re so close to the picture, you can’t see the dots. The downside is that it’s difficult to then change you get entrenched - but the other thing, and I’ve always though this quite sad, is that when you are too close to the dots, you actually don’t stand back and think about how brilliant you are as an industry. Things that you take for granted, day in, day out, and you make them look really easy, well they’re not as easy as you think. Sometimes I think that our industry doesn’t take that opportunity to pause and pat itself on its back. It’s sometimes quite important to pat yourself on the back.”

Learning on the job

Bell is equipped for First Bus challenges First Bus MD Janette Bell spoke to the Young Bus Managers Network about her career and her plans for the bus operator

Janette Bell joined FirstGroup as managing director of its First Bus operations in October last year. Her first year in the Andrew Garnett role has been something of Deputy Editor a baptism of fire within a sector still battling the effects of the pandemic and facing wholesale changes to its structure as a result of England’s National Bus Strategy that promises to transform the landscape of the deregulated bus market outside London 22 | 29 October 2021 PT252p22-25 22

forever. Despite these potentially stormy skies, Bell appears passionate about the future of not only her business but the wider sector too, and she enthused members of the Young Bus Managers Network earlier this month at the organisation’s first face-to-face conference in two years at Southsea.

In a heartfelt keynote presentation, she told the young managers present how they should grasp the opportunities offered by change and underlined it was a theme that had permeated her own career.

Bell revealed more about her background, describing her career as “very varied” and one that started at Tesco after graduating with a degree in biochemistry. She applied for a role in HR but was told her skills would be of far greater use in the buying team as part of the supermarket chain’s first mass intake of graduate management trainees.

“I went into a buying floor which was full of men,” Bell remembered. “I was the only woman in the whole department and it was quite an aggressive place in 1988. If you read some of Terry Leahy’s books, it was actually called the ‘Wild West’. It was the end of the Jack Cohen [the founder of Tesco] era and I arrived just as they centralised the business. Prior to that store managers were the kings of their very own fiefdom. They went out and did all their own buying... it was all deal-led - pile it high, sell it cheap. In 1988 that changed. We were saying, ‘If we really want to grow this business, it’s about consistently offering the customer what they want’.”

Bell stayed at Tesco for eight years and in that time went from a graduate trainee to senior buying controller. She said the biggest thing she learnt from that era came from the mouth of future Tesco chief executive Terry Leahy - who was marketing director at the time. His mantra was you needed to know what your customers wanted, you then needed to ensure you had that on the shelf at the right price, and then you had to solve the commercial problem of the profit margin on the product.

“I became the coffee buyer and Nescafe had 50% of the market,” she explained. “Tesco www.passengertransport.co.uk

27/10/2021 16:52

“We’re looking to get people on buses because without them we don’t have a business” earned a one percent margin on it and they wanted to make 20%. So my predecessor had decided the way to solve that was by just not giving Nescafe any floor space. My biggest lesson from that was that you can earn 20% but if it’s 20% of nothing because half your customers have gone down the road to Sainsbury’s to buy Nescafe, then you’ve shot yourself in the foot. You have to understand your customer and you have to get your proposition, your pricing and your promotion right. Only then should you put your commercial hat on and think about how you’re going to deliver the P&L, and I think that is something that has stood me in good stead.”

Bell on First Bus: ‘We employ from the community, we are from the community and we serve the community’

Moving to British Gas After a stint at Pricewaterhouse Coopers as a consultant and time off to have two children, Bell moved to British Gas as head of business development. But on her first day she was told the planned role had changed and she was now in charge of strategy.

“I found myself in a brand new industry and I certainly didn’t know anything about gas or electricity or service engineers,” she confessed.

“But I found myself in a business, and - you’ll start to see a theme here - that was at a big point of change.”

Centrica, British Gas’s parent company, had just reorganised the business to bring together the energy and service parts of British Gas. When Bell arrived she said it felt at times that nobody in the business understood why the two parts had been merged. “Services had been part of the AA, which Centrica owned,” she said. “They were devastated they were going to be part of British Gas Energy and there was a real tension in the organisation.

Nobody understood it and I turned up understanding nothing about the industry but understanding the strategy - to find myself in a business where nobody understood the strategy.”

There were further tensions. British Gas was 18 months into a major IT upgrade that would not only modernise the billing of customers, but also its customer relationships. The problems came as this system was being defined by junior managers who didn’t understand the company’s wider strategy. It ended in court.

“That was a very big lesson for me with IT and that’s something that’s stayed with me throughout,” Bell recalled. “Big is not always www.passengertransport.co.uk

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beautiful. Sometimes taking things in bite-sized chunks is a better way of doing things.”

She spent five years with British Gas, working her way up to director level of the services business. She notes the period was formative, allowing her to learn a great deal about “the absolute meaning of customer service” and how to grow a business.

“Everyone [in the services business] told me, ‘We’ve got 90% market share, there’s not much room to grow’,” she explained. “We had four million customers at the time, but I thought, hang on, there’s millions more homes in the UK and most of them have gas boilers, so how can we have 90% of the market? Actually we had defined the market in the way in which we wanted to serve it, which was through contracts and there was a whole massive market around on-demand boiler break down and we’d chosen, because it didn’t suit us operationally, not to serve that market.”

Bell instigated a big change to grow into that on-demand market, to the extent that it dwarfed what had been the original business.

That also became the jumping-off point to

“In a partnership, if one side is winning then it’s probably not a partnership”

transform the wider services organisation by being able to serve both the on-demand and contract markets. “That was a big lesson,” she said. “When you are looking to grow - and we’re looking to get people on buses because without them we don’t have a business thinking outside the box is a really big lesson.”

Building partnerships After some years with British Gas and Centrica, Bell moved to Hammerson, a major owner and operator of shopping centres. “My friends said, ‘gosh, Janette, you really do like a challenge,’ and this was perhaps a challenge too far,” she admitted. As commercial director Bell was tasked with making the business more customer-centric but instantly came up against complex relationships between Hammerson and its shopping centre tenants. She defined this as the relationship between landlords and tenants or, as she was told by those within the business within days of joining, as the “landlord, who is lord, and the tenant, who is the ant”. “You know, what is a shopping centre without shops?” she asked. “Not very much.”

She described the landscape within which Hammerson operated as complex, with rent reviews that only seemingly went upwards and “very adversarial” relationships with tenants.

“During my time there, the biggest thing I CONTINUED ON PAGE 24 29 October 2021 | 23

27/10/2021 16:52

SPECIAL REPORT

achieved was getting Hammerson and John Lewis talking,” she revealed. “The two CEOs would not even talk to each other. We had three big developments in the pipeline and we really wanted them anchored by John Lewis.

Andy Street, who was CEO at John Lewis at the time, had three big stores in his pipeline, yet for five years they hadn’t been in the same office and spoken to one another. What I did there was set up how you go about building B2B partnerships, to unlock joint business aims and to get things moving. It is painful, but you need to leave your ego at the door. In a partnership, if one side is winning then it’s probably not a partnership. It’s about how to get the best solution and move forward.”

Bell spent several years with British Gas tranforming its services division

The challenges of Brexit and Covid At that point “P&O came calling”. Bell joined in 2012 as commercial director and left in 2020 as the chief executive. She describes P&O as an “absolutely amazing business” taking in not only ferries but also a large pan-European logistics business too.

“This was very much a service industry and it is a business I loved,” she added. “I was really sad to step away from it, but as with anyone’s career, I’d got to a natural end point.”

She tackled two major challenges for the business under her watch - Brexit and Covid-19. On the latter she says P&O, like its rivals, didn’t receive any financial support from governments on either side of the Channel.

Bell continued: “When the bus industry talks about where it is right now... remember it’s a lot tougher if you have a loss-making business that is a lifeline. 30% of the UK’s food comes over the dock in Dover and every time P&O sailed a ship [during lockdown] it lost money. Where do you stand on your conscience with that one? How do you square that circle? It was a very challenging part of my career, but the business is now financially stable and getting to that point allowed me to step away to join First Bus.”

It’s about assets and people “What is the common thread of my career?” asked Bell. “Well, assets - all of these businesses had enormous assets, whether its Tesco with it’s 4,000 stores, Hammerson with its 17 shopping centres, British Gas with its 9,000 engineering vans and P&O with its ships, lorries and trains. So asset management 24 | 29 October 2021 PT252p22-25 24

is a theme throughout my career.”

But, more importantly than that, Bell said her career had revolved around people - and businesses that employed large numbers of them, plus improving customer service. “That is an absolute thread that comes through this,” she added. “These businesses have millions of customers every single day and for me that’s the thread, it’s a thread that brought me to First Bus. Not only are they customer and people businesses and they are service businesses, they are service businesses that are actually providing services that truly matter to the markets that they serve, whether that be heat, light, food or connectivity. You are at the sharp end of a service industry that absolutely truly matters. From a personal perspective, that is something that has motivated me throughout my career.”

A real opportunity at First Bus Bell has now been in post at First Bus for a year and she outlined what she believed the philosophy for the business should be; the overwhelming theme is to place both customers and partners at its heart. “We are in the foothills of the Himalayas at the moment,” she admitted. Bell noted that, like

“We are in the foothills of the Himalayas at the moment”

with her time at Hammerson, a lot of effort would be expended on building partnerships.

Meanwhile, she is keen to improve customer service too. “How do we do that?” Bell asked.

“It’s by getting it right for our people.”

But she added that bus operators also played a key role in local communities. On that she believes there is “an amazing opportunity”.

“We employ from the community, we are from the community and we serve the community,” she explained. “But how much is that balanced with our enthusiasm for decarbonisation? Could we do more? We also need to do more on diversity and inclusion. A question I would leave you with is where do you think the industry sits on that diversity and inclusion agenda? My own personal view is that we at First Bus are not where I want us to be, but I also believe fundamentally we have to get the environmental, social and corporate governance objectives in balance in order to get a sustainable business.”

Linked to that was the gradual emergence of First Bus from the Covid pandemic. Bell believes her company has a growing awareness that it is “a service business that matters”. “If your business doesn’t understand its purpose, and you’re not really clear about what your purpose is, I would argue it would be quite difficult to deliver against your goals. So we need to be challenging and we need to be working hard on it, but if you’ve got a clear purpose then the rest will naturally follow.” www.passengertransport.co.uk

27/10/2021 16:52

“Our public transport policies seem to me to be falling apart somewhat”

COMMENT

GREAT MINSTER GRUMBLES

We’re stuck in a policy time warp

Our Whitehall insider imagines what’s going on inside the minds of the mandarins at Great Minster House, home of the DfT

When you read this, the chancellor of the exchequer, Rishi Sunak, will have delivered his three-year Comprehensive Spending Review.

I have little doubt that there will be some eye-catching headline spending commitments, and doubtless some will be transport related.

But it’s worth bearing in mind that our national debt now stands at over £2 trillion and is at 95% of GDP - something I am sure the chancellor will be at pains to tell us. So I am also sure that there will be cuts a-plenty, even if the detail will be buried away. It could be more of a Comprehensive Savings Review than a Comprehensive Spending Review!

And we should also, finally, know the fate of the easterly leg of HS2 Phase 2b. If this is axed, and as I write there seem to be growing rumours to that effect, then I am sure there will be much gnashing of teeth up north!

For all of the optimism that our secretary of state generated when he published our rail white paper and bus strategy for England, all is beginning to look a little less rosy.

With material severances expected among train operators, we can expect some serious industrial action on the railways to come - or at least we should certainly plan for it. Then on the bus strategy I’m told that not all of the £3bn funding that has been set aside to support the industry in this parliament will actually go to the local transport authorities, as the bus strategy implied. No, some of it will be top-sliced and given to the operators instead.

This seems to me to make a mockery of the www.passengertransport.co.uk

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Bus Service Improvement Plans and the fact that the local transport authorities are meant to determine the best network for their areas.

If this comes to pass then we seem to have contradicted our own bus strategy before it’s even had time to be properly implemented.

Our public transport policies seem to me to be falling apart somewhat, or at least not quite delivering in the way we expected. If subsidy to support rail passenger services is cut - as surely it must be - then rather than heralding in a new golden era for the railways, the WilliamsShapps white paper will herald in a period of retrenchment. And likewise for the bus industry. The optimistic world view set out in

the bus strategy is going to be so hopelessly out of kilter with reality it’s hard to find the words.

And then when you look at the government’s recently published net zero strategy, there was almost nothing new in there from a public transport perspective.

Just repetition of previous announcements.

We seem to be stuck in some kind of policy time warp where we keep on announcing the same things over and over again!

I’m not really suggesting that we need to keep on coming up with new policy initiatives.

On the contrary, sometimes the status quo is no bad thing. Our problem is that the political and policy rhetoric isn’t matched by what is delivered on the ground. The bus strategy is a classic case in point, and when it comes to the railways we have ministers insisting that there is a big role for the private sector, but then we tell the industry that ending rail franchising will create a “master-slave” relationship with train companies in thrall to the state.

To be fair to Peter Wilkinson, our mananging director of passenger services, these comments, which he is reported by the press to have made in a virtual meeting with industry representatives, may well have been taken out of context. But it shows just how careful one needs to be, especially as remarks like this are always likely to end up in the media.

Mind you, the train operators have been in a “master-slave” relationship with the state for some years now given the highly prescriptive nature of the old franchise contracts, so actually there was nothing especially new or controversial in what Peter had to say.

So, with money tight, and our flagship public transport policies in difficulty as a result, where do we go from here? To my mind there is only one way forward: we must introduce road pricing. So it’s good that the Transport Select Committee is currently holding an inquiry on this very issue, and some of the witnesses giving evidence have been correct in saying that road pricing is only a matter of “when” not “if”. Road pricing does seem to be creeping into discussion a little more. Road pricing can achieve so much. It will reduce congestion and pollution, it will encourage modal shift to public transport and it will help address the growing black hole in the Treasury’s income from motoring taxes. What’s not to like about all of that? Really, when will ministers be prepared to grasp the nettle?

29 October 2021 | 25

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Hodgson rows back in plans to quit Stagecoach ‘Period of reflection’ sees Stagecoach South boss remain with group PEOPLE

Stagecoach has announced that Edward Hodgson, managing director of Chichester-based bus operator Stagecoach South, is to remain in the role despite announcing his decision to leave in September (PT249).

Hodgson, who has had a thirtyyear career in the bus industry, had made plans to take a career break, but after discussions with Stagecoach colleagues and careful consideration, he has decided to remain with the Perth-based group and to continue in his role.

Rupert Cox, interim regional director south for Stagecoach said: “We’re delighted that Edward will be staying with us at

Stagecoach. He has been a valued member of the team and as we start to rebuild from the impact of Covid-19 and deliver the improvements to services planned as part of the Department for Transport’s National Bus Strategy, we need experienced people like Edward.

“Working with our local authorities in the south, we have

Edward Hodgson

great plans to deliver improved bus services for our customers, and I’m glad that Edward will be here to support that.”

Hodgson added: “I’ve had a fantastic career at Stagecoach and after a period of reflection, I’ve decided that I’m not ready to move on and instead look forward to playing my part in the future of the business.

“There are some exciting times ahead as we work towards the delivery of bus service improvement plans in our region and I’m excited to be leading on this for Stagecoach in the south.”

Hodgson joined the bus industry as a travel sales clerk when he was 17 and first started working for Stagecoach in 1989. He has been managing director of Stagecoach South since 2016.

‘DILIGENT’ASTBURY WINS SOE AWARD NXWM manager slashed vehicle breakdowns AWARDS

Darren Astbury, chief technician at National Express West Midlands, was named Society of Operations Engineers’ Road Transport Engineer of the Year at a ceremony in Birmingham earlier this month.

Astbury has been recognised for his diligent interrogation of vehicle breakdowns. His dogged determination ultimately led to a 47% reduction across National Express West Midlands’ 1,600-strong fleet. Through detailed root cause analysis he was able to develop and implement preventative long-term fixes to breakdowns.

26 | 29 October 2021 PT252p26-27 26

Left to right: Mike Curran of FCL, Darren Astbury and Sir John Parker, patron of SOE

Fabian Amini

TRANSDEV MAN JOINS GO-AHEAD Fabian Amini to head up group’s German business APPOINTMENTS

Go-Ahead has announced the appointment of Fabian Amini as chief executive of its rail operations in Germany. The group says Amini is a highly experienced leader in the rail industry with a track record of delivering passenger growth and commercial success. He will join the group from January 2022.

Amini began his transport career at Deutsche Bahn, where he held a series of senior roles in corporate strategy, management and oversight of rolling stock over the course of 11 years. Since 2015, he has been at Transdev, most recently as chief executive of the company’s rail transport services in Bavaria, BRB. Go-Ahead began operating local rail in Baden-Wurttemberg in 2019 and the group is due to expand by taking on two additional rail networks in Bavaria in 2021 and 2022, with initial services starting in December. The group employs more than 550 people in Germany.

“This appointment underlines our commitment to the German market, where we see positive opportunities for the future,” said David Brown, Go-Ahead chief executive. “We are well underway in mobilisation for our additional network in Bavaria and we look forward to beginning passenger services there shortly.” www.passengertransport.co.uk

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DIVERSIONS

Bend it, stretch it with Heathrow Express Train operator launches on train yoga classes As part of its Tranquil Trains campaign, Heathrow Express held a special seat-yoga exercise class earlier this month.

Yoga influencer Celest Pereira developed the 12-minute yoga and meditation session to help travellers relax, and it’s believed to be the first time a yoga class has taken place on a moving train.

“Travelling can get very fraught there’s lots going on and it’s very deadline driven - so it can

BBC’S FOOT IN MOUTH DISEASE

With the COP26 summit in Glasgow just days away, the BBC launched a special quiz for readers on its website to test how climate aware they are.

Squeeze into a seat

be a very intense experience,” said Celest. “We’re hoping to alleviate those pressures”.

And with the legroom on some trains these days, the yoga will surely come in handy!

Amongst the questions about recycling and household energy behaviour, the BBC asked readers to choose which would have a bigger effect on emissions switching your petrol car for an electric car or staying with a petrol car but using public transport for local journeys?

It’s perhaps notable the question was illustrated by a picture of a clapped out 30-year old bus (a Dennis Dart/Plaxton Pointer for our spotting chums) juxtaposed with a brand new Tesla electric car.

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EXPIRY DATE

METRO ON TRACK FOR NEW LIFE First it was old Pacer trains and now it’s old Metrocars. Nexus has launched a competition to give away existing members of the Tyne and Wear Metro fleet which will be ‘upcycled’ into community assets and venues when the 40-year old fleet is withdrawn from service in 2023.

The aim is to donate up to five Metro carriages for community use after they have been decommissioned, and expressions of interest are now being sought.

Meanwhile, Nexus has also confirmed the two original prototype Metrocars will be donated to museums.

Of course, you’d think the answer would be public transport, but the BBC surprisingly decided this was not the case. While it acknowledged public transport use cuts emissions, it still called on readers to switch to electric cars.

As Jim Waterson, The Guardian’s media editor noted on Twitter: “Where is ‘simply stop people driving cars to make space on the roads for lovely cheaper public transport, because private car ownership is bad and annoying and stressful unless you live in the middle of nowhere’?”

Francis with ‘Dick Mabutt’

JUST BE MORE LIKE FRANCIS It would seem trainspotter Francis Bourgeois’s star is well and truly in ascent. Fresh from his appearance in Diversions in the last edition of Passenger Transport, the TikTok star posted a clip from Brighton station where he awaited the arrival of an engineering train.

When 73962 arrived it’s fair to say Francis was more than a little excited. TikTok followers also enjoyed Francis’s, erm, unique pronunciation of the train’s name - ‘Dick Mabutt’.

So far the video has been viewed over five million times and Francis has quit his job to trainspot full time. As one viewer noted: “Your account works better than my antidepressants.”

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