Passenger Transport: January 14, 2022

FO EV RT ER NI Y GH T

ISSUE 256 14 JANUARY 2022

NEWS, VIEWS AND ANALYSIS FOR A SECTOR ON THE MOVE

Covid forces operators to amend timetables

The rapid spread of the Omicron variant has seen a spike of Covid-related absences among passenger transport staff, forcing operators to respond Passenger transport operators throughout the country faced a challenging start to the New Year.

Rising coronavirus infection rates saw swathes of employees forced to self isolate, leaving operators with insufficient staff to deliver their full timetable. The inevitable result was the hasty introduction of temporary timetables.

Among them ScotRail made temporary changes from January 4, mainly focused across the central belt, as a result of staff absences. Explaining the decision, operations director David Simpson said: “Like most businesses, ScotRail is not immune to the impact of

coronavirus. We’ve been working flat out to run a safe and reliable railway in really difficult and rapidly changing circumstances.

As we continue to battle against the impact of coronavirus, we want to provide customers with a level of certainty, which is why we are introducing some temporary changes to our timetable.”

Passenger representatives endorsed this response. “Amending

“We want to provide customers with a level of certainty” David Simpson, ScotRail

timetables is a pragmatic response to rising staff illness if it prevents chaotic last-minute cancellations.

But services must still meet the needs of those who have to travel, especially key sector workers,” said Anthony Smith, chief executive of the independent watchdog Transport Focus.

“Operators must protect first and last services, provide enough space to keep passengers at a safe distance from each other and flexibility so that tickets can be used on alternative routes or times. Passengers will want to see a reliable timetable and accurate information so they can plan their journey with confidence.”

NEWS

‘We want to be more than just contractors’

03

Go-Ahead’s vision for its future role in rail

INNOVATION & TECH

Making public transport personal

14

We speak to Ticketer about its plans

COMMENT

Hold tight!

Bumpy road ahead

16

Norman Baker on the outlook for buses

COMMENT

Stop giving a free ride to fare dodgers

18

Alex Warner on revenue protection

SPECIAL REPORT

We identify 51 rising stars ICH BIN EIN BERLINER ADL has delivered the first series-production Enviro500 buses for Berlin public transport operator BVG at the start of volume deliveries which will take the German capital’s fleet of ADL double deckers to 200

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24

Talented individuals within our sector

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CONTENTS

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

The recovery will take time.

Patience will be required It’s been a tough start to the New Year for passenger transport operators. The rapid spread of the Omicron variant saw a spike in Covid-related absences among their staff - with some having tested positive, others awaiting PCR test results, Robert Jack and many others self-isolating as a result of being in Managing Editor close contact with someone who has tested positive.

The New Year is a time when we traditionally think about fresh starts, but this was a stark reminder that the pandemic is still impacting on the passenger transport sector, stalling its recovery.

With the bill for the pandemic rising inexorably, the Treasury will be understandably keen to bring a swift end to emergency funding for public transport. There will be fears that the sector could become hooked on it permanently. But there should also be recognition that the sector’s ability to bounce back has been hindered by the spread of Omicron and the tightening of Covid restrictions that has taken place in some parts of the country. It seems likely that some kind of additional funding support will be required throughout 2022.

Led by CPT, the bus and coach sector is urging people to get back on board with new TV advertisements. It’s a positive step but one that needs to be maintained, and with the fulsome support of government. It will take a lot of positive messaging to offset the negative impact of the ‘Coronavirus gets the bus/train’ campaigns.

Recovery is going to take time, and government must be patient.

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IN THIS ISSUE 20

WE SHOULDN’T ACCEPT SHODDY BUS STATIONS

Bus stations and bus stops are a shop window, says Ray Stenning.

Too often they are neglected and we shouldn’t declare ‘that’s nothing to do with us’. “I’ll keep on saying it until the message is tattooed on everyone’s arses,” he writes.

ORGANISATION

PAGE

Alexander Dennis 1 Alstom 6 Avanti West Coast 11 CAF 6 ComfortDelGro 4 Eurostar 7 Falcon South West 4 First Aberdeen 8 First Bus 9 First Glasgow 8 First Scotland East 8 Go-Ahead Group 3, 10 Greater Anglia 10 HS2 Ltd 6 Hitachi 6 LNER 7, 11 Megabus UK 4 Merseyrail 11 National Express Group 4 National Express West Midlands 8 Office of Rail and Road 11 RATP Dev London 8 RMT 7 ScotRail 1, 11 Scottish Citylink 4 Siemens 6 Stagecoach Group 4 Stagecoach East Scotland 8 Stagecoach West Scotland 8 Stagecoach Bluebird 8 Stagecoach Highland 8 Talgo 6 Tower Transit 8 Tramlink Nottingham 9 Transdev Blazefield 8 Transport for London 9 Uno 8 Urban Transport Group 7

12

‘ROAD TO NET ZERO IS AMONG TOUGHEST’

22

RETHINKING RURAL TRANSPORT PROVISION

33

THREE PREDICTIONS FOR THE NEW YEAR

The UK transport sector faces one of the hardest journeys to decarbonisation, according to a new report. The Journey to Net Zero report identifies transport, alongside manufacturing and construction as sectors that will struggle most.

Exclusion is widening for our rural areas where transport more often than not means car-dependency.

How can we change that? “The whole funding issue has been exacerbated by years of imposed austerity,” says Nick Richardson.

Great Minster Grumbles: Our Whitehall insider imagines what’s going on inside the minds of the mandarins at Great Minster House, home of the DfT. “What joys does 2022 hold for us?” they ask. “I might have a bit of fun and make a few predictions!”

REGULARS NEWS ENVIRONMENT INNOVATION & TECH COMMENT GRUMBLES CAREERS DIVERSIONS

03 12 14 16 33 34 36

www.passengertransport.co.uk

12/01/2022 18:16

ROUND-UP NEWS

‘We want to be more than just contractors’ Martin Dean, managing director, business development at Go-Ahead Group, wants private sector expertise to retain a place in railway operation RAIL REFORM

The Go-Ahead Group is urging the government to ensure that the skills of the private sector are harnessed in the best possible way when the Williams-Shapps rail review is implemented.

Martin Dean, managing director, business development at Go-Ahead Group, said that his company welcomes the creation of Great British Railways and recognises the need for a more joined-up railway. But, speaking to Passenger Transport last month, he said “we want to be more than just contractors that carry out our instructions”.

Go-Ahead has published its own vision of rail. It calls for the creation of an incentive regime which focuses on growing passenger numbers as the railway recovers from the pandemic, drawing on train operators’ expertise in marketing and customer service, and encouraging innovation and better customer service.

It urges the government to continue to take advantage of the private sector model to drive down costs, draw upon a wider pool of expertise and open up access to alternative sources of capital.

This includes the use of private sector expertise to anticipate, meet and respond to customer demand, owning the end-to-end customer interface in a way which makes operators best placed to understand and meet their need.

It also calls on the government to prioritise the role rail can play www.passengertransport.co.uk

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in tackling the climate emergency via modal shift and getting the railways to net zero carbon as soon as possible.

Dean acknowledged that the pendulum had swung away from light touch regulation. But he said that there was a question about how far it should continue to swing as the railways move into a new era.

“We want be seen to be making the most of our skills because we have done a lot of work in the past about growing patronage,” he told

Passenger Transport.

There are differing views over how much credit the commercial train operating companies can take for the doubling of patronage that took place after the railway was privatised in the mid-1990s.

Some attributed this to private sector commercial focus while others pointed to exogenous factors, like the growth of central London employment.

Dean believes that the picture is mixed but he believes that roughly half of this growth can be

“We want be seen to be making the most of our skills because we have done a lot of work in the past about growing patronage”Martin Dean, Go-Ahead Group

attributed to the commercial nous of Go-Ahead and its peers.

“There’s incontrovertible evidence the patronage has pretty much doubled during the privatisation era,” he said. “There are definitely some things that we’ve done there in terms of focus on the customer that we would like to keep on doing.”

The Department for Transport seems certain to take back revenue risk from the private sector, but Dean believes that there are other ways to incentivise private sector train operators. He cites the example of Transport for London’s contracted bus services, for which Go-Ahead is the largest provider.

He explained: “I think it’s a really interesting parallel because you have got that overarching transport authority that specifies quite tightly and heavily but within that there is a very, very strong incentivisation regime and that does allow that innovation to come out.”

He believes that it’s important that the industry shares its view on what the new model for rail should look like.

“It’s clear that there are some gaps in terms of risks and rewards and who takes responsibility for what,” he said. “I think it’s really important that we push in a positive way what the private sector has done.”

He added: “We agree there should be a single guiding mind.

We are right behind all of that ... But it’s just where does the private sector fit within that? And with appropriate reward we would like to still take on some risk to make sure that we get the right sort of outcomes.

“We want to be more than just contractors that carry out our instructions. We think there’s a role for us to take a slightly broader look at things.”

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NEWS ROUND-UP

End of an era as NEG snaps up Stagecoach The ‘Big Five’ become the ‘Big Four’ as National Express and Stagecoach agree to combine in a move that creates a 40,000 vehicle transport group ACQUISITIONS

The boards of National Express Group and Stagecoach announced before Christmas they had reached agreement on the terms of a recommended all-share combination of the two groups following months of talks.

The enlarged group is expected to have a fleet of around 40,000 vehicles, a workforce of approximately 70,000 people, and more than a billion passenger journeys made annually on its services. Stagecoach shareholders will end up owning approximately 25% of the combined group and NEG says it intends to continue using the Stagecoach brand.

The move will also see Stagecoach sell its 35% interest in Scottish Citylink, the marketing, retail and customer service activities of Megabus UK and

the Falcon South-West coach service between Plymouth and Bristol to Singaporean-owned transport group ComfortDelGro, Stagecoach’s Scottish Citylink partner (see story below).

Stagecoach says the sale of these operations, for a total of £8.75m, “proactively addresses potential regulatory considerations” in relation to the acquisition by NEG. “Through this transaction, Stagecoach ensures that those businesses will continue to thrive under the ownership of the world renowned CDG brand,” said Stagecoach chief executive Martin Griffiths.

On the combination of the two groups, NEG says it intends to move quickly to bring the National Express and Stagecoach businesses together.

ComfortDelGro snaps up coach operations Singaporean group becomes major express coach player ComfortDelGro has announced it expects to complete the purchase of the Megabus UK business, the Falcon coach service in the south west of England and Stagecoach’s remaining 35% stake in Scottish Citylink at the end of next month.

The move will propel the Singaporean-owned transport

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group into a major player in the UK express coach market and it has announced plans to target ambitious growth of these operations in the future.

“The Scottish Citylink, Megabus and the Falcon service acquisitions provide us with an excellent platform to further grow our coach business in the UK,” said Yang Ban Seng,

Upon completion, the combined group will be headquartered at NEG’s current head office in Birmingham, with its headquarters functions located in both Birmingham and London.

It is expected that Stagecoach’s existing headquarters functions and related roles will remain in Perth and London and its Stockport-based administrative

Stagecoach brand will be retained

ComfortDelGro’s managing director and group CEO. “We intend to leverage on the experience we have gained in our existing operations to roll out new and innovative services for our passengers in England, Wales and Scotland as we position ourselves for postCovid recovery.

“We will continue to look at opportunities to grow our businesses in the UK, which remains one of our most significant investment destinations.”

functions will remain there, pending the outcome of a detailed post-completion review.

That review, which is expected to take up to six months, will provide the basis for an integration programme. The initial focus of this review will be on potential cost savings through corporate and administration efficiencies and NEG warns this could have an impact on duplicated roles in “corporate, head office and senior management positions”. The remaining aspects of the review will also focus on other back office savings, non-depot property and office footprint rationalisation.

NEG says it will use Stagecoach’s depot network to run and maintain its existing express coach operations. Those depots will also become hubs for NEG to facilitate the acceleration of the expansion of National Express Transport Solutions (NETS), NEG’s non-scheduled and private hire coach and contracted operations business.

It is intended that the board of the combined group will comprise a combination of National Express and former Stagecoach directors. Stagecoach chairman, Ray O’Toole will become chairman of NEG, succeeding Sir John Armitt in the post.

NEG CEO Ignacio Garat, and National Express’s CFO, Chris Davies, will become CEO and CFO respectively of the combined group. Tom Stables, CEO of National Express UK and Germany, will become CEO of UK and Germany. Carla StocktonJones, Stagecoach’s UK MD, will become the managing director of the group’s UK bus division.

Martin Griffiths and Ross Paterson will leave their respective roles as chief executive and finance director of Stagecoach Group. www.passengertransport.co.uk

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How do we make public transport personal? Page 14

Wales explores electric bus transformation Welsh Government mulls options to make zero emission switch VEHICLES

The Welsh Government is exploring ways to convert more bus routes from diesel to electric operation.

Wales is lagging far behind its counterparts in the UK. England and Scotland have been providing grants for new, greener buses for many years and the Northern Ireland Executive is funding more than 180 new electric and hydrogen buses. Translink placed its first hydrogen double deckers into service last month.

Last year the Welsh Government helped Gwynedd Council to procure six new electric buses for two TrawsCymru routes, from Blaenau Ffestiniog to Caernarfon and Llandudno. Planning issues delayed progress on the vehicles’ new depot in Blaenau Ffestiniog

ASYLUM SEEKERS GET FREE TRAVEL Pilot scheme will run until the end of March

CONCESSIONARY TRAVEL

Asylum seekers are the latest group to be offered free travel in Wales, with the Welsh Government launching a pilot scheme this month.

Wales-wide free bus travel for pensioners and disabled people was launched in 2002. The scheme was subsequently extended to men aged 60 and over, to injured services personnel and to four railway lines as well as buses. Before the pandemic, free travel was available on the www.passengertransport.co.uk

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and the electric buses are expected to enter service later this year.

The government is also assisting with conversion of the T1 service, between Carmarthen and Aberystwyth, to electric operation. This requires eight new vehicles and charging infrastructure.

Transport for Wales is now helping the government to develop plans to accelerate the switch on Welsh bus routes.

A TfW spokesman said: “The Welsh Government is currently exploring a range of options to support the transformation of local bus services, including the conversion of routes from diesel to zero emission bus operation over the next few years, and Transport for Wales is assisting with this key work.

“Whilst this review is ongoing, Transport for Wales has not yet directly placed any orders for new zero emission buses.”

TfW did not plan to order any electric buses this year, he said, and no decisions have been made on whether the government should emulate Northern Ireland and place bulk orders for economies of scale. Some figures in the Welsh bus industry believe that bulk ordering by the government is the only practical way for the government to achieve its aim of eliminating all diesel buses from Wales by 2028, since Wales has many small independent operators.

Despite its historic reluctance to fund green buses, the Welsh Government hopes that a factory will be established in Wales to produce electric buses.

Deputy climate change minister Lee Waters told the BBC he wanted bus manufacturing to generate green jobs for Wales, because the manufacturing was something “Welsh taxpayers are going to be paying for”.

government-funded TrawsCymru bus services on weekends. Last month, Swansea and Newport councils provided free bus travel for all, to encourage people to visit high streets and leisure facilities without cars.

The government believes that free bus and train travel will help asylum seekers to orientate themselves and contribute to their local communities in various ways, including taking up volunteering or education opportunities while their applications or appeals are processed. It says that they receive less than £40 per week, are not allowed to work and can struggle to form supportive social networks while waiting for their

claims to be processed.

The pilot ends on March 31, and will be shorter than the three months originally planned. The government had not launched it as Passenger Transport went to press this week.

The maximum available budget for the pilot is £250,000. It covers Cardiff, Swansea, Newport and Wrexham, which are the areas where most asylum seekers in Wales live.

“The scheme will collect data relating to usage by those with different immigration statuses, enabling us to be informed about usage when future eligibility for schemes is considered,” said a government spokesman.

COUNCIL PROBES OPERATOR BUY

Pembrokeshire steps in to secure ‘fragile’ operations ACQUISITIONS

Pembrokeshire Council has revealed it is in talks to purchase the business and assets of a local bus operator. The purchase of the as-yet unnamed firm was backed by council cabinet members at a meeting this week, with discussions to get under way as quickly as possible.

Darren Thomas, the council’s head of infrastructure, told members the bus industry in Pembrokeshire was “very fragile” with limited large bus operators. “Over the last seven years five bus operators have ceased trading in Pembrokeshire,” he said.

Thomas said the pandemic had worsened the situation with a driver shortage and cost implications due to fuel, vehicle parts and labour costs.

“Feedback from local authorities across Wales identifies a shortage of operators to undertake transport contracts and where they do they are being quoted two or three times the average cost,” he added. “This is obviously unsustainable.”

The operator in question is one of Pembrokeshire’s main bus operators.

It receives £900,000 per year from the council to operate a network of tendered school and public routes.

Thomas told members that an estimated extra £300,000 per year would be required to maintain the current network with an alternative operator contractor.

The company owners have said they are amenable to selling the company’s depot along with the equipment and vehicles. If a purchase is agreed, the council’s existing in-house bus fleet would move to the facility.

When asked by members why the proprietors were seeking to sell the business, council transport manager Hubert Mathias, said they “wanted out as soon as possible”.

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NEWS ROUND-UP

Hitachi and Alstom JV win HS2 train contract Contract will see 54 new 200-metre long trains supplied ROLLING STOCK

The government has announced that the Hitachi/Alstom JV has been awarded the contracts to build the fleet of high speed trains that will launch services on the HS2 rail route later this decade.

The contract had been due to be awarded in 2020, but the impact of Covid-19, plus a series of legal challenges from bidders during the tendering stage had delayed the announcement.

HS2 Ltd’s board is understood to have made the decision to award the contract to the joint venture between Hitachi and Alstom several months ago, but there have been subsequent delays in gaining government approval.

However, the joint venture has now been named as the winner to supply 54 trains, ahead of rival bids from CAF, Siemens and Talgo.

The new trains will have a top speed of 225mph

The design, manufacture, assembly, and testing of the new trains will be shared between Hitachi Rail and Alstom. The first stages including vehicle body assembly and initial fit-out will be done at Hitachi Rail’s facility at Newton Aycliffe. The second phase of fit out and testing will be undertaken at Alstom’s Litchurch Lane factory in Derby.

Bogies for the trains will both be assembled and maintained at Alstom’s Crewe facility - the first

time since 2004 that both jobs have been done in the UK. The first train is expected to roll off the production line around 2027. Following testing and commissioning, the first passengers are expected to be carried between 2029 and 2033.

Capable of speeds of up to 225mph (360km/h), the fully electric trains will also run on the ‘classic’ rail network, allowing HS2 services to reach Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester.

Alongside, design, manufacturing and testing, the contracts also include 12 years of maintenance which could be extended in the future to cover the estimated 35-year life of the rolling stock. The fleet will be maintained at a new maintenance depot being built by HS2 Ltd at Washwood Heath on the outskirts of Birmingham.

It is expected the trains will run in a single 200-metre long formation, but there will also be the option to couple two units together to form a 400-metre, 1,100-seat train.

They will also benefit from Hitachi Rail’s pioneering low noise pantograph. The government claims the trains will also be 30% lighter than comparable trains in Europe.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps said the order placed “Britain firmly at the forefront of the high-speed rail revolution”.

He continued: “This is another landmark step in the delivery of HS2 which will open up new employment and leisure opportunities for millions of people, levelling up opportunity for generations to come.”

WORK STARTS ON LARGEST VIADUCT

TBMS PREPARE TO HEAD FOR LONDON

CONSTRUCTION

CONSTRUCTION

Work has commenced on the first of 56 giant concrete piers that will support the UK’s longest railway bridge and carry HS2 over the Colne Valley on the outskirts of London.

Stretching for 3.4km, each pier of the Colne Valley Viaduct is designed to support the full weight of the deck above and rests on a set of piles going up to 55m into the ground. The first pier was cast by engineers from main works contractor Align JV.

HS2 Ltd has confirmed that two tunnel boring machines have now been delivered to the project’s worksite in West Ruislip. They will allow tunnelling work through London to commence later this year.

The two machines will be the first of six TBMs that will bore 13 miles of twin bored tunnels underneath London where HS2 services will run.

They will join eight other machines operating on Phase One of HS2.

First of 56 piers will create UK’s longest railway bridge

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London tunneling work to commence this year

HS2 creates first of 56 giant piers for UK’s longest railway bridge

www.passengertransport.co.uk

12/01/2022 17:10

Rethinking rural transport provision. Page 22 IN BRIEF OKEHAMPTON GROWTH More than 10,000 people have travelled on the Dartmoor Line between Exeter and Okehampton in the first two weeks since its reopening on November 20, new patronage figures from Great Western Railway have revealed.

The 14-mile route was incorporated into the national rail network thanks to a £40m investment from the government’s Restoring Your Railway scheme.

EUROSTAR FUNDING PLEA The RMT union has appealed to the UK Government to make emergency funding available to international high speed rail operator Eurostar after the French government imposed stringent border restrictions on UK citizens as a result of the Covid-19 Omicron varient last month. RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said the move would “prevent any risk of the operation tipping over”.

City regions seek rail reform involvement UTG calls for ‘seat at the table’ in pushing forward rail reform RAIL REFORM

The Urban Transport Group says that the city regions must have a seat at the table when decisions are taken about how the government’s reform of the railways is implemented.

The group - which represents transport authorities for the seven largest urban areas in England, including London, the West Midlands and Greater Manchester - calls for the reforms to build on the success of the devolution of rail powers which has already taken place, and for “structured and meaningful involvement for the city regions in how the rail reform plans unfold”.

It claims the devolution of

responsibilities for rail has been one of the big success stories on rail in recent years, leading to more investment, higher levels of passenger satisfaction and more reliable services.

As a result of this success, UTG has published a statement that sets out a range of scenarios for how the proven benefits of devolving further responsibilities for rail could be extended to more passengers and places. These include options for extending and deepening local control and accountability for rail services, infrastructure and investment in the future.

The statement says: “We recognise that the railways are now embarked on a long period of restructuring and reform and we want to play our full part in making these reforms a success

for the people and places we serve.”

It was a theme that was taken up by Tobyn Hughes, managing director of Transport North East, and the UTG board member who leads on rail issues.

“Rail is critical to so much of what city regions are trying to achieve,” he said. “Yet too often in the past, local rail services have sat outside the wider local public transport - remote and unresponsive to local need.

“The Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail offers the opportunity to change that, and we want to play our part in realising the opportunity that this reform process offers to ensure local rail services form part of wider integrated public transport networks for our largest urban areas.”

TEESSIDE REGAINS LONDON LINK Move aims to spark Teesside regeneration ROLLING STOCK

Train operator LNER has launched direct Azuma services between Middlesbrough and London King’s Cross. The move creates a direct rail link to the capital from Teesside for the first time in 31 years.

Initially a daily return service, with an early morning departure from Middlesbrough and a late afternoon return from London, is being offered but additonal services are planned in the future following the completion of further works around Middlesbrough station and following a planned major timetable change on the East Coast Main Line. www.passengertransport.co.uk

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Teesside to London rail link restored after 31 year absence 14 January 2022 | 07

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NEWS ROUND-UP

Applications open for free bus travel scheme Young people now invited to apply for Scottish scheme CONCESSIONARY TRAVEL

The Scottish Government has announced a ‘soft launch’ of applications to the free bus travel scheme for children and young people aged between five and 22 which is due to start on January 31.

Given current public health guidance in Scotland to reduce contact and mixing, the full marketing launch of the scheme which will benefit nearly a million young people in Scotland - will take place at a later date.

However, in recognition of the fact that some young people need to travel for essential purposes, for example, as key workers or for education or health or care reasons, the application process

has now opened as anticipated.

The scheme, which will see users issued with an ITSO smartcard, will give free travel on any bus in any part of Scotland on registered bus services, although some services, such as premium night buses and sightseeing services, will be excluded.

Transport minister Graeme Dey said that although there was stay at home guidence in Scotland, there are many essential reasons for children and young people to travel by bus and he was keen that they benefit from the scheme at

“We are excited about the positive impact that free bus travel will have”

SCHEDULER OF THE MORE BEAR FUNDS YEAR FINALISTS FOR SCOTLAND Winner will be announced at special event in February

£6.2m awarded to 20 Scottish operators

AWARDS

EMISSIONS

The finalists for the Joe Wood Scheduler of the Year competition have been revealed. They are Adriana Catalina from Stagecoach; Graham Atkins from Yellow Buses; Mariusz Przybylski from Abellio London; Mat Hidson from National Express West Midlands; and Stuart Fillingham from First West Yorkshire.

The winner of the competition will be announced on February 25, 2021 at a special virtual event that will also feature a special ‘roundtable’ discussion with senior industry figures. You can register to attend the event at bit.ly/SotY2021.

The Scottish Government has awarded a further £6.2m in grants to 20 Scottish bus and coach operators to help with the financial costs associated with engine and exhaust retrofitting.

The fourth round of the Bus Emission Abatement Retrofit Fund (BEAR) will see 379 older buses and coaches adapted to achieve Euro 4 standards, through the installation of accredited retrofit technology.

This brings the total number of mid-life buses and coaches to be upgraded to over 1,000.

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the earliest opportunity.

“We are asking that only those for whom bus travel is essential apply at this time,” he said. “This will help to minimise pressure on local councils, also impacted by the pandemic, which will be processing applications and responding to queries.”

The introduction of the scheme has been welcomed by youth organisations in Scotland. “We are excited about the positive impact that free bus travel will have on the lives of young people,” said Kirsten Urquhart, interim chief executive of Young Scot.

Around a third of the Scottish population are already entitled to free bus travel through schemes for older and disabled people. Around 930,000 young people in Scotland will be eligible for the new scheme.

The biggest beneficiary of the scheme has been First Aberdeen.

It has received funding of £2.1m to retrofit 129 vehicles. Stagecoach East Scotland has secured £1.1m to convert 74 vehicles, ahead of First Glasgow which has received £814,000 to convert 49 buses.

Other major operators securing funding include Stagecoach West Scotland (£538,489 for 31 vehicles), First Scotland East (£473,235 for 28 vehicles); Stagecoach Bluebird (£283,670 for 20 vehicles); and Stagecoach Highlands (£232,016 for 16 vehicles).

A variety of smaller Scottish independent bus and coach operators have won the remainder of the funding. This will allow a total of 32 vehicles to be upgraded to Euro 4 standards.

IN BRIEF MERGER COMPLETED RATP Dev London and Tower Transit jointly announced that they have completed their UK tie-up on schedule and will now operate under the new name of RATP Dev Transit London.

Together the new company will operate 1,250 buses, serving 112 bus routes from 10 garages. The joint venture will have around a 14% share of the London bus market by the end of 2022.

UNO’S RAPID REWARDS Hertfordshire-based bus operator Uno has launched a new mobile ‘rewards’ scheme on their mobile ticketing platform, in coordination with Rise Digital Media. The scheme gives passengers reward ‘points’ for every pound spent on mobile tickets, which are then automatically converted into vouchers for future tickets.

NXWM FREEZES TICKETS National Express West Midlands has announced it has frozen ticket prices for the fifth year in a row. In addition to not raising standard ticket prices, the bus company is cutting some fares. A single trip will remain £2.40 with the Day Saver ticket £4 - a cheaper £3 Day Saver remains available for use in the Outer Birmingham, Sandwell & Dudley and Walsall areas. Flexible ticket bundles of 10 Day Savers have been reduced to £34.

TRANSDEV RENEWS £1 DEAL Transdev Blazefield has launched a £1 evening fare deal offer across its entire network until the end of March. The offer was first launched in June 2021 and helped create a revival that saw patronage reach 85% of prepandemic levels.

www.passengertransport.co.uk

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Hold tight! Bumpy road ahead for buses. Page 16

TfL wins breathing space with interim deal Government seeks clarification on mayor’s funding plans FUNDING

The government announced just before Christmas that it had agreed to extend the current emergency financing agreement with Transport for London until February 4.

The move follows an initial sixday extension that was approved on December 11, when the existing funding package had been due to expire. Since May last year, TfL has received taxpayer support in excess of £4bn.

However, further funding is pending clarification about how London mayor Sadiq Khan will raise additional revenue to plug the hole in TfL’s battered finances.

Khan has published a consultation document on the proposed 2022-23 budget for the Greater London Authority. It

sets out a range of proposals that aim to help support TfL’s finances by raising revenue.

“The government is still refusing to properly fund London’s public services, particularly Transport for London,” wrote Khan in the consultation document.

He added the pandemic was the only reason TfL was facing a financial crisis and that a condition of the emergency funding was that the GLA raised additional revenue through measures, like council tax, that “will unfairly punish Londoners for the government making our transport network so dependent on fares income”.

He continued: “That’s why I’ve been left with no other choice than to include a proposal to raise council tax by £20 next year to help ensure London’s transport network avoids collapse.”

Responding to the extension

of TfL’s current emergency funding deal, London transport commissioner Andy Byford said there would be no UK recovery from the pandemic without a London recovery and “there is no London recovery without a properly funded transport network in the capital”.

He continued: “It is therefore essential that discussions with government continue so that we can agree the sustained long-term government funding that is vital for the coming years if a period of ‘managed decline’ of London’s transport network is to be avoided.

“Working together we must achieve this longer term funding settlement that ensures London’s transport network can remain reliable and efficient, can support the jobs and new homes that rely upon it and can support the economic recovery of the capital and the country as a whole. This vital job is far from done.”

ARRIVAL ON TEST Start-up electric vehicle manufacturer Arrival has announced it has commenced trials of the Arrival Bus at the MIRA test track in Warwickshire. Once these trials have been completed, the vehicle will enter trial service with First Bus. Series production will start in the second quarter of 2022. “This is a key milestone for Arrival and we’re thrilled to have started proving ground trials,” said Franck Dessenis, the company’s vice president of bus platform. www.passengertransport.co.uk

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NOTTINGHAM TRAM EXPANSION PLANS PAUSED Impact of pandemic sees plans ‘delayed indefinitely’ LIGHT RAIL

Three planned extensions to Nottingham’s tram network have been “delayed indefinitely” due to the financial impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the government’s recently published Integrated Rail Plan.

Three separate extensions had been proposed. The first would see the line to Clifton South extended into a yet-to-be-built 3,000-home Clifton Pastures estate, expected to be one of the largest housing and business space developments in the East Midlands. The second would extend from Toton Lane into Long Eaton via the now axed HS2 station at Toton. The third would see a new route built towards Colwick via Trent Bridge.

Funding had been allocated to progress the planned extensions, but the impact of the pandemic has been such that they have now been paused for the foreseeable future.

Speaking to local media, Tim Hesketh, chief executive of concession holder Tramlink Nottingham, said there was now “an aspiration, althought not necessarily the finances, to extend the tram network”.

“At the moment those are all on hold,” he said. “We would like to take the development of those further forward and as part of our financial restructuring we would like to release some funds back into the project to allow that to happen.”

Meanwhile, Tramlink Nottingham has reported an annual loss of £21.4m in the year to March 31, 2021 as the pandemic decimated revenues at the business. These losses would have been far wider without emergency Covid grant funding of £18.5m from the government.

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NEWS ROUND-UP

Government opts for 3.8% rail fare increase Mixed response as regulated fares set to increase from March RAIL FARES

The government has announced regulated rail fares will increase by 3.8% from March in line with July’s Retail Price Index (RPI) measure of inflation. However, this is not a repeat of the RPI+1% formula used last year.

Then rail minister Chris Heaton-Harris announced the increase in December before his move to the Foreign Office as minister of state for Europe. He said the increase fares of 3.8% was well below the current RPI figure of 7.1%.

He added that delaying the increase from January to March would give passengers more time to purchase cheaper flexible and

season tickets at the existing rate.

“Capping rail fares in line with inflation while tying it to the July RPI strikes a fair balance, ensuring we can continue to invest records amounts into a more modern, reliable railway, ease the burden on taxpayers and protect passengers from the highest RPI in years,” he said.

“Delaying the changes until March 2022 offers people the chance to save money by renewing their fares at last year’s price” Rail Delivery Group director general Andy Bagnall said the decision to hold fares down in line with July’s inflation is welcome

when compared to last year’s above-inflation increase and the current rate of inflation.

“It is important that fares are set at a level that will encourage more people to travel by train in the future,” he said. “We know the railway must not take more than its fair share from the taxpayer, which is why the rail industry is working to create a financially sustainable and more passengerfocused service.”

However, passenger and campaign groups have been more vocal in their criticism of the decison to increase fares now.

Anthony Smith, chief executive

“Rail fares should have been frozen to match the fuel duty freeze for car drivers” Campaign for Better Transport

of watchdog Transport Focus said: “As some fares rise it is even more important that Great British Railways, when it is set up, gives life to the government’s ambition to make rail fares better value for money. The need to boost passenger numbers and revenue through innovative rail ticket retailing and offers will be vital.”

Meanwhile, Paul Tuohy, chief executive of the Campaign for Better Transport, said the fare rise was far from fair. He added that while rail fares have risen at or above inflation, fuel duty for drivers has been frozen for more than a decade.

He continued: “Rail fares should have been frozen to match the fuel duty freeze for car drivers. If the government is serious about shrinking transport’s carbon footprint it should make rail the affordable choice. Instead, it is asking some commuters to pay hundreds of pounds more for their season tickets, which risks driving people off rail and onto roads instead.”

GREATER ANGLIA AXES FIRST CLASS First Class now only available on Intercity CUSTOMER SERVICE

GO-AHEAD LAUNCHES IN BAVARIA Go-Ahead Group has launched its first rail services in Bavaria, Germany with an initial route between Munich via Memmingen to Lindau, provided by a new fleet of 22 Stadler EMU trains. The operation will further expand in December 2022 when the company takes over the regional service on the high frequency Munich - Augsburg - Ulm, Augsburg - Donauwörth - Würzburg and Donauwörth - Aalen lines.

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Train operator Greater Anglia has declassified First Class seating areas on all trains on the Great Eastern Main Line except for its flagship Intercity services.

The move aims to avoid confusion while services are operated with a mix of new and old trains - Greater Anglia’s new Class 720 Aventra EMUs do not have First Class seating in a move that aims to create more seats for Standard Class passengers.

The only First Class offered on Greater Anglia services is now on Intercity services on the NorwichIpswich-Colchester-London route. www.passengertransport.co.uk

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Stop giving a free ride to fare dodgers. Page 18

Vere admits to peers that IRP lacks detail Minister admits detailed plans for IRP have yet to be decided HIGH SPEED RAIL

Transport minister Baroness Vere has admitted to members of the House of Lords that the government has yet to understand how the controversial Integrated Rail Plan “will actually work on the ground”.

Vere told peers during a debate about Northern Powerhouse Rail the IRP on December 16, which she described as a “wonderful Christmas present on the last day of term”, that she would be unable to provide detailed plans about the capacity that would be delivered. She also admitted that she could not reveal what lines would actually be upgraded as “we do not know that now”.

Vere continued: “This is a plan, and there is an enormous amount of work to do to move from the plan to the next level down - to

the detail about how this will actually work on the ground.

“While in some places we can be very clear about what capacity improvements will be available, in others there will be an enormous amount of designing to do and engineering options to look at, particularly when it comes to upgrading lines.”

Vere admitted that as a result service frequency, capacity and duration of journeys may be subject to change, “but, of course, we always want to maximise

Vere: ‘This plan... is a good one’

Select committee to probe IRP proposals Inquiry will investigate £96bn Integrated Rail Plan The parliamentary transport select committee has announced it plans to scrutinise the potential effect of the Integrated Rail Plan on rail capacity and connectivity and on the levelling up agenda.

The committee has outlined the areas of inquiry that it is particularly interested in receiving written evidence on.

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They are: The contribution that the IRP will make to rail capacity and connectivity for passengers and freight in the Midlands, the North of England and the UK; Whether and how the IRP will ‘level up’ communities in the Midlands and the North; How the IRP will affect rail infrastructure and services

capacity, increase service levels and reduce journey times”.

However, she said the underlying case for investment in the rail network in the north and Midlands “remains very strong”.

“Regional connectivity is at the heart of everything we do on rail improvements in the north,” Vere told peers. “Again, integration is absolutely key. I have made the case before that plans were previously set out in isolation. They connected very large economic nodes, and kind of forgot about everywhere else in between. Many of the smaller places... will benefit from the improvements coming down the track through the IRP.” Vere admitted she should could not answer many of the questions tendered by peers as the answers do not yet exist.

“However, from where I am at this moment, this plan... to be delivered over the next 30 years, is a good one,” she concluded.

outside the Midlands and the North of England; The challenges to central government, Great British Railways, regional and local authorities, transport bodies and other stakeholders; How the rail schemes in the IRP will integrate and interact with HS2; How the rail improvement schemes in the IRP were selected; and Whether the IRP represents value for money for UK taxpayers.

‘RAIL HAD STARTED TO SEE RECOVERY’ Prior to Omicron, rail patronage was growing PATRONAGE

Despite the obvious impact that the Omicron variant of Covid-19 has had on the industry in recent weeks, new quarterly patronage figures from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) have revealed how rail patronage had started to rebound over the summer of 2021.

Train passenger journeys across Britain’s railway in the summer increased by more than a third (36%) in July to September 2021, with 248 million people travelling by rail compared to 182 million in the first quarter of 2021-22.

ORR’s statistics found that the 248 million trips made by rail were the most in a single quarter since the start of the pandemic.

The regulator’s analysis also shows the average journey lengths were shorter in the second quarter of 2021-22 compared with two years ago for all ticket types, despite the overall increase in journey length.

Total passenger revenue was more than half (54%) of pre-pandemic levels - with £1.5bn of revenue coming from passengers in Q2.

ORR’s statistics show that journeys in the long distance sector were at 63% of pre-pandemic levels, with 23 million journeys made in the second quarter of the year. East Coast operator LNER saw relative usage hit 89% compared to two years ago and Avanti West Coast was at 57%.

In the regional sector, usage hit 57% of pre-pandemic levels this quarter with relative usage ranging from 69% for journeys on Merseyrail to 48% for ScotRail. Journeys in London and the south east were at 54% of pre-pandemic levels, with 166 million journeys made this quarter.

There was also an increase in the use of (so-called) ordinary fare tickets at the expense of season tickets.

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ENVIRONMENT

‘Transport’s road to net zero is among toughest’ Transport is one of the top three industries that will struggle most to decarbonise, says new report. Enabling behaviour change is key challenge DECARBONISATION

The UK transport sector faces one of the hardest journeys to decarbonisation, according to a new report. The Journey to Net Zero report, commissioned by insurer Zurich UK and conducted by the University of the West of England, identifies transport, alongside manufacturing and construction as sectors that will struggle most to reduce their emissions and meet UK net zero targets.

The transport sector’s position as the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases makes reduction crucial, but the report highlights consumer behaviour and demand as a significant barrier to effective decarbonisation. 90% of the

ADL/BYD DELIVER ELECTRIC BUSES New fleets enter service in Perth and Nottinghamshire ELECTRIC BUSES

Electric buses supplied by Alexander Dennis and BYD have entered service in Perth and Nottingham.

Nine BYD ADL Enviro200EV single deckers have begun operating on Stagecoach local services in Perth.

The buses were part-funded by the Scottish Government’s Ultra Low Emission Bus Scheme.

The vehicles are operating on busy Perth routes 1 and 2, connecting housing areas with the city centre, retail and leisure developments, Perth Royal Infirmary, educational establishments and the local football ground.

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emissions generated by transport come from road transport, with private vehicles making up the majority of road users.

Transport also stands out as one of the few sectors continuing to increase emissions year on year, with just three of 17 industries studied in the research found to be following this trend.

Convincing consumers to

“It is clear from the report that behaviour change is necessary” Sam Thomas, Zurich

A launch event in December was attended by Scottish minister for transport Graeme Day. ADL and BYD have meanwhile delivered four Enviro200EV buses to Nottinghamshire County Council.

They are the first 10.2-metre electric buses to be delivered by ADL/BYD to a customer outside of London.

The first two of the four vehicles joined Nottinghamshire County Council’s expanding fleet of ECOconnect buses, operated by Stagecoach East Midlands, last month. In addition to funding from the Department for Transport’s Ultra-Low Emission Bus Scheme, real estate developer Lindhurst Group has contributed towards the running of two of the new buses, which will operate on the Berry Hill Flyer (240) route in Mansfield.

change their relationship with private road travel is the biggest challenge facing the sector. The study suggests that success in this area hinges on improving the experience of public transport, in addition to encouraging the take up of electric vehicles.

Without both sides of this issue being addressed less advantaged communities will be disproportionally impacted due to implementation gaps.

Though adjusting consumer behaviour will require a number of different strategies, finding ‘win-win’ options offers an effective method for changing minds, according to the study.

Linking a reduction in car use

with the positive impact it has on air quality will be crucial in breaking carbon-intensive habits.

Reducing aviation emissions will also require consumer behaviour change, but there are policies that could be implemented to help lessen the environmental impact of flying.

Sam Thomas, head of mid-market at Zurich UK said: “If we are to reach net zero by 2050, it is crucial that we decarbonise the transport industry. It is clear from the report that behaviour change is necessary, but the government also must play a key role in empowering and supporting consumers and businesses to make the required changes, whilst providing the vital infrastructure required to make sustainable travel accessible for all.

“We are now seeing vehicle use increase close to pre-pandemic levels. It is more important than ever that we combine cross sector expertise with ambitious plans that help us reach our net zero goals.”

Nottinghamshire has taken delivery of four buses

Nine buses are entering service in Perth

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12/01/2022 16:24

“Our goal is that the whole fleet will be zero emission by 2030”David Bradford, NXWM

Hydrogen buses enter service in West Mids Wrightbus-built fleet of buses are now carrying passengers HYDROGEN

Birmingham City Council’s 20 hydrogen double deckers started to roll out in service on National Express West Midlands route 51 to Walsall via Perry Barr last month. Outside of London, they are the only hydrogen buses operating in England.

Supplied by Northern Irelandbased Wrightbus, the buses have been purchased as part of the council’s Clean Air Hydrogen Bus Pilot. NXWM managing director David Bradford, said: “These state-of-the-art buses are a sign of our commitment to sustainability. National Express bought our last diesel bus in 2019, and our goal is that the whole fleet will be zero emission by 2030.

“So we’re working with Transport for West Midlands to get hundreds more electric and

hydrogen buses on routes across Birmingham, Solihull and the Black Country.”

The project is funded through OLEV (Office for Low Emission Vehicles), GBSLEP (Greater Birmingham & Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership), Birmingham City Council and JIVE project funding from the FCH JU (European funding from the Fuel Cell Hydrogen The vehicles are being used on route 51 to Walsall via Perry Barr

Go-Ahead agrees hydrogen supply deal Air Products to supply fuel for 20-strong fleet The Go-Ahead Group has agreed a 15-year hydrogen supply deal with Air Products, a world leading industrial gas company, to power a fleet of fuel cell buses for deployment in the Gatwick Airport, Crawley and Horley area.

The single-decker GB Kite Hydroliner buses, manufactured

by Wrightbus in Northern

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Joint Undertaking) under grant agreement. The FCH JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Hydrogen Europe and Hydrogen Europe Research.

The council is also collaborating with ITM, who are producing and dispensing the hydrogen fuel from the new re-fuelling hub at Tyseley Energy Park.

Ireland, will be delivered in June 2022. They will be the first hydrogen powered vehicles in Go-Ahead’s fleet of more than 6,000 buses.

It is the intention that the hydrogen to power the buses will meet, or exceed, UK government standards on sustainable fuel for public transport. Hydrogen will be

stored at the Metrobus Crawley depot in liquid form, before being converted to gas held in tanks on the roof of vehicles.

The single-decker fuel cell buses are funded in part with money from UK Government and European Union zero emission bus schemes, plus investment from Gatwick Airport. A further order of 34 buses would bring the fleet to 54 vehicles, which would be the largest local fleet of hydrogen buses deployed in Europe to date.

HS2 WILL RUN ON ZERO CARBON ENERGY ‘These commitments from HS2 are vital steps’ DECARBONISATION

HS2 trains will be powered by zero carbon energy from day one of operation, offering a clean alternative to long distance car journeys and domestic flights while supporting the government’s 2050 net zero target.

This commitment will play a key part in HS2 Ltd’s aim to make the project net zero carbon from 2035, with targets of diesel-free construction sites and major reductions in carbon emissions from the steel and concrete used to build the railway.

HS2 minister Andrew Stephenson said: “We know that the climate crisis demands urgent action and these commitments from HS2 are vital steps towards achieving cleaner UK travel. HS2 is a once-in-a-lifetime investment and we want to ensure the country’s biggest infrastructure project, supporting thousands of jobs and businesses, is underpinned by the government’s ambitions for a greener transport and construction future.”

HS2’s Net Zero Carbon Plan, published this week, sets out how HS2 will achieve new carbon reduction milestones, support the decarbonisation of the UK construction sector and reduce the carbon footprint of the programme.

Major new targets include aiming for diesel-free construction sites by 2029, with the first one expected in 2022. Carbon emissions from steel and concrete will be reduced by 50% by 2030 compared with 2021 levels. To help achieve this, HS2 is collaborating with research organisations to accelerate innovation in low carbon technologies, such as alternative fuels and renewable energy.

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INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY TICKETER

How do we make public transport personal?

Having acquired FARA in 2019, Ticketer is starting to expand its portfolio.

John Clarfelt and Solveig Ellila Kristiansen told me about their plans It was 12 years ago that Ticketer burst onto the scene, providing Robert Jack electronic Managing Editor ticket machines and associated technology to Britain’s bus operators. Relishing the role of underdog, and spurred on by its charismatic founder, John Clarfelt, the company quickly gained market share from established players who many perceived as complacent.

Today Ticketer is a major player in the UK’s bus ticketing systems market. The expansionminded company continues to grow, diversifying and targeting new markets. This ambition was demonstrated by its 2019 acquisition of FARA, a Norwegian company which also has offices in Poland, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. FARA (an old Norse word for travel) also offers ticketing systems - and much more besides.

FARA shares the same core philosophy as Ticketer, of making travel easier for passengers.

Through electronic ticketing machines, back office software and passenger facing apps, it focusses on providing real time information for use on board, online and on mobile to increase the use of public transport.

Last month I had an online chat with Clarfelt, who these days has a roving role with the job title of ‘founder’. While Ticketer is no longer the underdog, he’s eager to show that complacency is 14 | 14 January 2022 PT256p14-15.indd 14

not creeping in. “I tell everyone never get complacent because the day you get complacent is the day you’re dead,” he says. “It’s really easy to help the underdog.

Our operators helped us grow to this stage and we will be forever thankful for that. And we owe it to them to still be the underdog, to still strive to be better, to still keep developing.”

Ticketer prides itself on its record as an innovator. Clarfelt says it was a very emotional day last year when the company received the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise, Innovation.

And he says that the need to keep innovating and improving its offer to customers was one of the reasons it bought FARA.

He explains: “I think we are good at what we do over here, and that comes down to having a great relationship with our operators who tell us what really is needed, and we try to deliver it for them.

“We’ve had that, but our view was that there were going to be connected cities and MaaS [Mobility as a Service], and all of those things. And, rather than grow into that organically like we did with Ticketer, we decided to go out there and find a really good mirror supplier who already had experience of that. That’s why we went for FARA because they’ve got great experience of connected cities.”

He continues: “We want to expand abroad because we have

Mobility hub visualisation

“Our job is to stitch public transport together for the passenger” John Clarfelt, founder, Ticketer

got a lot of coverage in the UK. International markets have different requirements, something we feel would really benefit the UK as this is the way the sector looks to be going.”

Ticketer’s mission is now to “make public transport personal”, and this requires the company to be ever mindful of the needs of the end user. “My greatest strength is a complete lack of knowledge of anything,” Clarfelt declares.

“So I just sit there thinking ‘what would I want as a passenger?’.

And what I want as a passenger is absolute ease. I want to know where are my public transport is.”

He cites the example of bus loadings data during the pandemic as an example of what can be achieved when people focus on the needs of passengers: “When I first joined Ticketer I said that my dream is that you should have on a bus, ‘this bus is 80% full but don’t worry because there’s one behind and it’s four minutes away and it’s got space’. Everyone laughed at me. “You know what, during Covid, we developed an occupancy feed and were displaying live on the front of those buses, and on apps, ‘this bus has got four seats left’.”

Clarfelt hasn’t stopped dreaming up ways to improve the supply of information to passengers. For example, London Hammersmith Bridge is currently closed to traffic and he’d like to see e-scooters help bus users to complete the final leg of their journey, with real-time information on their availability fed to bus passengers like himself via apps and on-vehicle displays.

“That’s what helps make people travel on public transport and we’ve got to co-ordinate at all,” he says. “FARA have a huge experience of that and that will come to the UK.” FARA’s portfolio is much www.passengertransport.co.uk

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“You can think of the bus as part of a big network. The bus is going to be the centre”Solveig Ellila Kristiansen broader than Ticketer’s. It also offers ticketing solutions - but in addition to that it provides complete solutions to real time information. The client base is different too. Whereas Ticketer’s customers are private sector bus operators in the UK, FARA’s are predominantly municipalities in the Nordic region.

Today, the combined group employs around 270 people.

FARA, which employs around two-thirds of them, is based in the Norwegian city of Trondheim.

Ticketer’s HQ is in Hungerford, Berkshire, although its people are scattered around the country.

“We actually discovered we could be more efficient distributed than wandering into an office,” Clarfelt explains.

Ticketer and FARA continue to operate under separate brands.

Ticketer Group is happy to let them merge steadily over time rather than force the process.

We are joined on our Teams call by Solveig Ellila Kristiansen, Ticketer Group’s chief commercial officer. Kristiansen blends engineering expertise and commercial experience having held senior roles at a number of international IT companies, including general manager for Dell Norway and Iceland.

Explaining the role of the bus in connected cities, she says: “The bus is like a detector. It’s sending data, receiving data, communicating to the passenger, to the bus driver, to the traffic control - and that live thing is even becoming much more now with 4G and 5G. We actually have a superhighway of communication to the bus ... You can think of the bus as part of a big network. The bus is going to be the centre, and I think that’s going to take more cars away from the streets.”

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need to fully participate in this hyper-connected world. “Our job is to stitch public transport together for the passenger,” says Clarfelt. “You put it all together and you give your operators the tools to run more efficiently.”

For example, he says that Ticketer will tap into the vast amount of data it collects in order to provide new services to its customers. This could enable them to put a system in place that takes a vehicle off a high frequency route on a sunny day, when people are happier to walk, and reallocates it to a beach-bound service that is experiencing increased demand.

“If we can squeeze 3% more operating benefit out by knowledge of data and so on that’s going to add 50% to some people’s margin,” he says. “So it’s taking this wealth of data and actually feeding it back in a way that people can use rather than leaving it for data scientists. It’s there now but you can’t use it. If I’m a small operator sitting in an office I need something quick and easy that I can look at, and we’ve got to serve it up in that way. We’re looking at very much utilising the knowledge on our hub.”

Kristiansen shares this goal.

FARA bills itself as an innovative partner, ready and willing to Solveig Ellila Kristiansen, Ticketer Group’s chief commercial officer

fulfil any requirements its clients have in relation to data. “All that needs to work every day for the passengers to be happy,” she says.

“It’s quite an exciting journey to be on for us because they test us.

I think we will see big changes in this industry in the coming years.”

Recent innovations that have been demanded by FARA’s clients include integration with e-scooters, alarms that alert students when they have arrived at their stop and a ticketing system for autonomous buses.

Ticketer and FARA believe they can offer seamless solutions for multi-operator, multi-modal travel and MaaS. In Clarfelt’s view, MaaS as a concept has been “oversold”, but he believes that a multi-modal transport utopia can be achieved over time, through incremental improvements and integration.

“I never understood what MaaS was,” he says. “It was this great, amorphous thinking ... But we are getting there because things are starting to come together.”

Clarfelt believes that tapping a card on a reader as part of a multi-modal solution is one of the foundation blocks of MaaS. Kristiansen agrees, pointing out that capping fares can give users confidence by ensuring that they receive the best value fare for the

NEXT STOP: RAIL? Ticketer may look to expand into the rail sector. Founder John Clarfelt finds the complexity of rail tickets “frightening and off-putting”. He believes that passengers would benefit from simplication of fares, and the rail industry might benefit from new partners. “As it get simpler maybe that opens it up to other suppliers,” he says. “It’s an expensive area to get into.”

journeys they have made. “I think that’s where we have to go,” she says. “Really motivate people back to public transport.”

Ticketer is meanwhile keen to help integrate demand responsive transport with mainstream public transport. Clarfelt observes that there are different types of DRT. Some are more like a shared taxi, offering point-to-point journeys.

Others require users to meet at a nearby ‘stop’ and feed into mainstream public transport.

Clarfelt says this approach minimises the cost of providing DRT (shorter services, fewer vehicles) while boosting the viability of public transport (more passengers).

But this requires a seamless ticketing and information proposition that instills faith in its users. Can they purchase a single ticket that covers both legs of their journey, and can it be done on a system that is easy to administer for the operator(s)? Can a bus be held up a minute to enable a partner DRT service to integrate with it? Ticketer, working with DRT tech firms Via and Padam, is seeking answers to these questions.

Clarfelt explains: “It’s those sort of small things that aren’t expensive that make a difference and get you towards what we all want, which is more people on bus.”

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COMMENT NATIONAL BUS STRATEGY

NORMAN BAKER

Hold tight! Bumpy road ahead for buses

Ministers have shown imagination and commitment in producing the National Bus Strategy, but its lofty ambitions risk falling flat There may have been champagne corks popping when the government finally committed to introduce a National Bus Strategy for England, something the Campaign for Better Transport and others had been pressing hard for.

It all seemed to good to be true. We were promised a transformation in services, new routes where there were none, cheaper fares, and a modern greener bus fleet.

The government adopted a pro-bus policy like none we had seen before in living memory.

We even had the prime minister, of course formerly mayor of London, talking fondly about making models of buses, even if nobody quite believed him and thought it more likely he was spending his time with other sorts of models. £5bn was set aside for this transformation, and even if the cycling lobby managed to divert two-fifths of that, that still left a sizeable £3bn chunk. Local transport bodies enthusiastically worked up plans that would qualify them for some money from this new pot of gold, and all 79 accordingly produced a Bus Service Improvement Plan within the tight timescale demanded by the government.

Yet instead of record growth, we are now in danger of record decline, with a tsunami of cuts to services fast approaching. The champagne has well and truly gone flat, lying morosely in its glass as a symbol of what might have been.

So what went wrong and what can be done now to salvage the situation?

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Most obviously, the arrival of Covid inevitably blew many government initiatives, including bus policy, off course. To be fair to the government, they were commendably quick to put in place emergency support for the bus sector (though not the coach industry), support which is still continuing.

But the public health messaging adopted, while well intentioned, was unfair and unhelpful to bus and train operators.

Remember those dreadful Dracula-style “Coronavirus Takes The Bus/Train” posters issued by the Cabinet Office?

The consequence, as Jeff Counsell, the managing director of the highly-regarded

independent operator Trentbarton has put it, has been that “buses were framed by the media as plague-ridden boxes to be ridden only by Derry-booted construction folk or NHS workers on their way home from a long night shift.”

Unhelpful clearly, but also unfair because operators have striven with success to keep their vehicles clean and safe. Yet while people are free to mingle in pubs and clubs, jostle at the bar, and dance and snog in nightclubs, in England at least, passengers on buses and trains are reminded every 10 minutes that “you must wear a face covering ... always follow the latest government advice.”

That government advice has been driven to a degree by politics rather than health. It should be obvious to all that a pub setting where people mill around in close proximity is more of a health risk than a public transport vehicle where people sit down and then do not move for the duration of their journey.

But the government dares not take on the hospitality sector unless it absolutely has to.

It has no such qualms about taking on the public transport sector.

Moreover, a recent study from University College London, and reported prominently a few days ago in the Daily Mail, produced evidence to show that a person was more than twice as likely to catch Covid by going shopping as opposed to travelling by tube, itself the form of transport regarded as most risky by the man or woman on the Clapham omnibus - or actually probably not on it.

The National Bus Strategy was launched by the prime minister in March 2021

www.passengertransport.co.uk

12/01/2022 16:32

“The DfT, which is doing its best, told me that they intend to help all those who have submitted plans” The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and Transport for London have been particularly robust in requiring mask wearing, even when this was not a national requirement. Again, I am sure this was well-intentioned and health experts generally support the view that mask wearing has limited the opportunity for the virus to spread.

But the mayor is wrong to conclude that the enforcement of mandatory mask wearing helps give confidence to people to use the bus or tube. Rather it reinforces the unfounded fear that public transport is inherently unsafe, and by definition more of a health risk than popping down to the supermarket or into the pub for a quick pint or two - the exact opposite of the truth.

The upshot of all this is that a significant percentage of the population who were using buses and trains before the pandemic are no longer doing so. Even before the latest variant struck, passenger levels had plateaued at around 80%, and of course that figure has dropped sharply since.

Some of the lost passengers may now be home working rather than commuting, but others have switched to the private car, with traffic levels now back to, or above, prepandemic levels. And congestion in urban areas is calculated to cost the economy £11bn a year.

Meanwhile, the amount of money available to invest in delivering the National Bus Strategy has shrunk and shrunk. The £5bn became £3bn, then that pot was used to provide the emergency short-term funding to keep routes running, a situation that looks likely to further deplete the pot if emergency funding continues past its current deadline of March 31, as it needs to.

So it seem, there will be at most £1.2bn to distribute for enhancements, plus a further £200m for zero emission buses. But the 79 local transport authorities, having all been encouraged to be bold and radical, have submitted BSIPs which will cost in total at least £7bn to deliver. The Department for Transport would need £2.8bn to fund just the four biggest of the 79 BSIPs that have come in.

Clearly, there are going to be a lot of disappointed authorities, who will feel they have been marched to the top of the hill, and marched down again, even if the toxic Duke of York has not been involved.

In November, Passenger Transport, for www.passengertransport.co.uk

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instance, reported that through their BSIP plan, the West of England combined authority was aiming for every community with 1,000 people or more to have a minimum hourly bus service, improvements to every bus stop, and a completely zero emission fleet by 2033.

Well, good luck to them.

How is the residual £1.2bn, or less if it is further raided to support emergency funding, going to be distributed? The DfT could decide to get the biggest return by investing in those big urban areas where bus services are already well established and the opportunity for growth in passenger numbers is greatest.

Yet it is acutely conscious of the need to deal with those shire counties where bus services are threadbare.

The DfT, which is doing its best, told me that they intend to help all those who have submitted plans. This is a laudable aim but unless they can deliver a miracle with loaves and fishes, a lot of local authorities will get nothing, or the funding will be spread so thin as to make it almost meaningless.

Even those authorities who do receive something may well be left in the unwelcome position that their carefully crafted scheme becomes unviable as it holds together as a whole but does not work in bits.

It is useful that flexibility in the arrangements for notification of route changes to the traffic commissioner has been maintained, but there is a definite echo from cans being kicked down roads. The reality is that in places such as Oxfordshire, Tyne and Wear and South Yorkshire, we are already seeing cuts. And TfL is talking grimly of “managed decline” as its direction of travel.

Over the last decade, cuts have mainly come to those supported services paid for by councils, with the 80% or so of services which have been commercially run being relatively untouched. But this time we are seeing, and will see, commercial services cut too, and cash-strapped local councils simply do not have the cash to pick up the slack.

A further issue fast looming relates to the funding of concessionary fares. Councils cannot be expected to continue to pay for nonexistent journeys, yet to relieve them of this burden will seriously further undermine the economics of the bus operators.

So, the picture is bleak, but all need not be lost. Here is my recipe for recovery:

The government is going to have to continue the emergency funding regime, probably for another six months at least. The money for this must not come from what is left of the funds set aside for the National Bus Strategy.

An early announcement, ideally within the next fortnight or so, is needed to allow for some forward planning.

The government should maintain the payments to operators for concessionary fares, but recompense councils for the element that relates to non-existent journeys.

The government, especially the Treasury, must not adopt a defeatist attitude that this is the “new normal”. Rather, they should resolve to pursue policies that drive up passenger numbers.

As part of that, they need to change the perception that the bus is somehow unsafe in health terms. Let us see the prime minister and the chancellor on a bus, and let us see a vigorous public information campaign from the government to tell people the bus is safe to get back on. My belief is that there is a proportion of the population, maybe as high as 20%, that is waiting for that lead from government before they return to the bus.

We need sufficient funding and political support for measures that increase bus priority in our urban areas. As people return to their private car, we will see increased pressure to reduce the hours of, or even take out, bus lanes. Ministers must be vocal in supporting bus priority measures, not hide behind local councillors.

The government must recognise that they need to deploy the stick as well as the carrot. We need action to limit the use of the private car, through higher car parking charges, workplace charging schemes such as in Nottingham, and an end to the counter-productive freeze in fuel duty that has now gone on for 11 years.

Ministers have shown imagination and commitment in producing the National Bus Strategy. It would be a great shame if that now all fizzled out.

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.

14 January 2022 | 17

12/01/2022 16:32

COMMENT REVENUE PROTECTION

ALEX WARNER

Stop giving a free ride to fare dodgers

The rail industry is giving the impression of a complete dereliction of duty when it comes to taking steps to prevent fare evasion Between Christmas and New Year, I caught two trains and a tram with my son across London and the outskirts. When I arrived home, I realised I’d actually lost our tickets and had made the journey all the way without having my ticket checked once. This trip was on the back of three return journeys in December from London to the North without having my ticket checked at stations or on trains at any point. Rather than feel embarrassed as to how I would have dealt with the situation if confronted by a railway employee, I reflected instead on my growing dismay at the rail industry’s abdication of its revenue protection responsibility - a problem that has become much worse since Covid threw out the rule book in March 2020, and not wearing a face mask neatly over both nostrils became a more heinous crime than travelling from one end of the country to another for free.

It needs to be said, just in case you hadn’t noticed, the rail industry is now giving the impression of a complete dereliction of duty when it comes to taking steps to prevent fare evasion. There’s a growing excuses book, some moderately justifiable, others not. Firstly, in the Covid world of Emergency Recovery Measures Agreements, the TOCs no longer carry the revenue risk, so in truth the only incentive to check tickets and staff gatelines is in the event that someone from the Department for Transport might be travelling and get wind that it’s, in some cases, a free railway. As the number of employees at the DfT in ‘franchise 18 | 14 January 2022 PT256p18-19.indd 18

management’ roles are probably less than 15 and most of them are working from home, the likelihood of them getting wind of the free for all, is low, unless there’s a blabbermouth out there, like me.

Secondly, the railway is claiming that it is beset with the same problem that means we wait longer to get service in a restaurant or coffee shop or anywhere, for that matter the pingdemic - caused staff shortages that became endemic when Omnicom surfaced

“There’s a growing excuses book, some moderately justifiable, others not”

It wasn’t always like this. Pictured is South Central boss David Franks checking tickets in 2002

several weeks ago. Ticket gates, in particular, are always seen as the least important area to resource, hence why in many cases the roles are outsourced, with perhaps one or two exceptions, to suppliers who are barely capable of making their staff look moderately smart or friendly. This is despite them being the point of first and last impressions for customers.

Ticket gates are static, they don’t move people, like trains do, so it’s understandably of greater importance is to find a driver or guard, though the role of staffing them doesn’t require onerous technical competencies and could be carried out by managers and support staff. They might learn a thing or two about customer needs by welcoming customers on and off stations or walking through trains, as part of roving patrols. Their presence would also create to other employees and indeed customers a sense of genuine customercentricity, setting the benchmark. We all know how defining the presence of a manager greeting a customer in a restaurant and showing them to their table can be in terms of how driven by customer needs the service to then follow will be.

Mismanagement of revenue protection sends such a dismal signal out to customers around the motivation and ability of management across the railway. Indeed, it’s sometimes worse when it is done half-heartedly. How completely idiotic it looks to customers when at a major station, half the gates are staffed diligently and the others are left wide open. You can hear the fare evaders sniggering as they see employees sweating vigilantly only for their efforts to be made a mockery of when folk are able to walk to an alternate side of the station and enter the network unchecked.

So too on trains when the conductor walks through and says, ‘any tickets from Loughborough’ (or any station for that matter) and you know you only need to avoid eye contact and keep your head down and you’ll get away with it. Or being able to just waltz through the side gate, maybe take a kid, pram or walking stick with you to feign mobility needs and rapidly show any ticket in the direction of the overworked or apathetic gateline employee.

Then there’s the logic of choosing to travel on a train that you know the guard will not get through either because you know s/he won’t fancy it, late in the evening, at a weekend or if it is crowded. Indeed, it’s fair game to assume www.passengertransport.co.uk

12/01/2022 16:32

“The current attitude and approach to revenue protection is a national disgrace” revenue protection officers won’t be out there on late evenings, weekends and bank holidays when did you last see them?

Engineering works too offer a free ride as the gates will be wide open to ease the flow of customers onto buses or staff will be diverted to bus co-ordination duties. The bus drivers won’t give two hoots whether you’ve paid or not and none will be trained in ticket recognition (made harder by the range of barcodes on phones and e-tickets on offer these days - issues that impact all railway employees).

In the case of RPOs, I’ve a suspicion that some operators haven’t even agreed they can resume interactions with customers, such as ticket checking or issuing penalty fares, in these times of Covid. Many are probably hanging around stations not engaged in activities that will involve prolonged dialogue with customers of the type that occurs when dealing with ticket irregularities, others will be shoved in an office doing ‘light duties’. Indeed, I ask you another telling question - when did you last see either a penalty fare issued at a station or on a train or even a conductor issue a full, standard fare on an inter-city train because a customer either had no ticket or did not have a valid ticket for the specific service they were travelling on? Exactly.

Back in the day, all of the basic revenue protection disciplines were carried out - gates staffed, on-board ticket checks were effective and there was round the clock coverage, as well as poster campaigns warning of the life-changing effects of being caught carrying out fare evasion or ‘theft’ as much of the foreboding publicity claimed it was. I even recall many covert exercises into specific types of fraudulent travel conducted by the elite revenue protection officers, generally undercover and many planned over several weeks, like the kind of CID operation you see in crime documentaries. During several years of overseeing revenue protection departments, these kind of activities were ‘bread and butter’ and were the reason why folk sought to progress from more mundane frontline roles into revenue protection. Sometimes I talk to TOC management teams about these initiatives, and I am met with bewilderment.

The problem is that if these basic disciplines aren’t being undertaken, the more sophisticated stuff that we always found a challenge isn’t even being touched upon, such as proper analysis of www.passengertransport.co.uk

PT256p18-19.indd 19

ticketless travel and thence revenue at risk rates on a company, locational and more granular level, as well as data driven deployment of resources to prevent fare evasion. Other activity such as pinpointing fraud rates by demographic type and psychological profiling by offender types, as a precursor for targeted and impactful publicity-based educational campaigns has been largely consigned to yesteryear.

The issue is also one of ‘vested interest’.

Suppose for a second that those responsible for managing stations and others in positions of responsibility at TOCs owned a shop and a gang of steamers were coming in looting their shelves on a daily basis. They would be having sleepless nights and in acts of desperation would be literally fighting off the hoodlums alongside drafting in security guards, putting shutters on the windows and engaging relentlessly with the police. Of all the retail owners I’ve spoken to over the years, they all tell tales of woe about seepage due to shoplifting and their dealing with it being in their top three priorities. Right now - at a railway station near you - looting is going on and it is being tolerated by officialdom. The problem is that those in charge invariably don’t see it as ‘their money’.

Clearly the issue of a lack of ‘vested interest’ is exacerbated by a financial model in which TOCs don’t take a revenue risk. But even when they did, there wasn’t a consistent clamour among management to feel the pain of every unstaffed gate or train in which a guard didn’t walk through and check tickets.

I’ve seen bursts of animated interest managing directors suddenly seeing a shortfall in revenue and creating urgency by organising a series of ‘revenue protection days’. However, these have seldom been sustained and there have been few leaders obsessed about closing all the loopholes to the network and tackling the problem of fraudulent travel.

Forgive me, if in a rare bout of immodesty I confess to being someone who has always led by example in this vein when working for TOCs. I’d be out and about at the weirdest and roughest places at the most anti-social times and days of the week, clocking and addressing unstaffed gates and hauling errant guards out of their comfort zone to check tickets. I’d be the bane of the revenue protection officers’ lives, constantly demanding greater visibility and productivity and making it harder for them to hide. I did this through personal pride and

because it was something I could see as being a potential quick win and within my gift to make a difference.

I don’t ever recall having a financial incentive to do so, nor do I genuinely recall my bonus being linked to reducing the ticketless travel rate, or even linked to passenger revenue. To be honest, I cannot remember ever fretting about the attrition of customers and their revenue in the context of an impending bonus conversation with my boss, certainly not in the way that I have done in roles I have undertaken in the logistics and consultancy sectors.

The rail industry mindset is one where excuses can be made easily. As the industry is heavily reliant on demographics, there’s often a shoulder-shrugging approach when revenue drops. How can your TOC marketing manager or station manager feel they’ve blood on their hands if the numbers are down? It’s never down to their rubbish publicity campaigns or the unattractive customer proposition at their station, but always a result of something so complex - like bad weather, a recession, a riot, a fuel crisis in France, conflict in the Middle East or everyone buying stuff online and not wanting to go out ever again. Funny how, pre-pandemic, the Rail Delivery Group’s stock press release reaction to bad news was to pat itself on the back whilst lauding how privatisation had delivered record passenger numbers, as though it was all down to the brilliance of those in the industry. But when the figures go south, it’s not our fault, guv.

The current attitude and approach to revenue protection is a national disgrace. It needs someone to put their head above the parapet and demand that everyone pulls together and urgently address this malaise.

It needs galvanising leadership. It’s so sad because in effect, so much of the work done by previous generations in taking an analytical, as well as action-orientated approach to the issue, whilst working at educating customers, communities and fare-evaders to change mindsets has been lost. We’re starting from scratch and that is an absolute outrage.

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

14 January 2022 | 19

12/01/2022 16:32

COMMENT

RAY STENNING

We shouldn’t accept shoddy bus stations

Bus stations and bus stops are a shop window. Too often they are neglected and we shouldn’t declare ‘that’s nothing to do with us’ I’ve already remarked that if we are truly serious about getting people to switch to bus, then we must make their travelling experience so much better than it is on far too many vehicles at present. In my previous column in this magazine (PT249), my travels on some ordinary routes in the South East revealed far too many decidedly dreary, deafeningly noisy, rattly, uncomfortable vehicles that would not attract people to buses but send them scuttling away, never to return. But what about the whole travelling experience? Oh dear, what about it...

I’ll reveal for those who didn’t already know, the journeys a small group of we industry professionals undertook over four different days took us round the extremities of the old London Country (aka London Transport Country Area pre-1970) through some relatively posh bits of counties bordering the capital, areas where you really must make an effort to seduce customers. Anyone deciding to try the bus from Aylesbury or Harlow, for example, will have their worst prejudices confirmed and magnified. This is shameful.

But Harrogate is a bit posh, isn’t it? I was there before 7am on an autumn Sunday and people were travelling on buses and enjoying the experience. The bus station there is looked after and loved by a company that truly understands how important this portal to bus services is and how it has to be well designed, welcoming, appealing and well-tended. There are beautifully planted ‘window boxes’ of 20 | 14 January 2022 PT256p20-21.indd 20

flowers by each departure bay and - just listen to this - the flowers are largely colour-coded according to the colour of the bus that leaves from that stand. That is just so spot on, isn’t it!

And unlike the trend unthinkingly followed by a number of local authorities and big groups, leaflets were out on display for all the services - yes, at 7am on a Sunday morning!

The company was reaching out to customers in their moment of need. And so it should be.

Aylesbury bus station is one of those disgusting planning decisions where someone thought it was a good idea to put the bus station in the basement of a characterless, provincial, pattern-book, under-cover, identikit shopping centre and car park complex with access through lifts and bare corridors, past toilets, dingy stairs or running the gamut of dark, labyrinthine narrow walkways with buses looming round corners at any moment. Although a bit of effort has more recently gone into providing a coffee shop in the waiting area, it is still suffused with depressingly Stygian gloom. You even have to cross the River Styx to get on to

“We should make this portal to the journey uplifting, exciting, enticing, absolutely gorgeous and thrilling”

the buses, with puddles of water on the apron between walkway and bus door. It is an unkempt, unloved, unwelcoming, dark, gloomy, daylight-free, scary nightmare of a place, not likely to make a new customer think going by bus was a good idea and certainly not encouraging existing users to want to continue using buses.

Information points held on with gaffer tape is bad enough, but them not working either demonstrates nothing less than total customer disdain. The amplified din of buses entering and leaving the low-ceilinged acoustically unrefined cavern is deafening. And someone thinks this acceptable? It’s cruel, sadistic and terrible business sense. It’s plain offensive.

I remember talking to an architect of another bus station and explaining how we wanted to cover and decorate his deeply unattractive, mean-spirited, bare breeze block interior walls because we wanted to create an ambience that makes people choose to use the bus. The look on his disbelieving face was priceless but chillingly shocking. He just couldn’t understand why anyone would want to choose to go by bus. It was totally beyond his pathetic, petrolhead comprehension.

That’s what we’re up against, my darlings!

I can’t help wondering if other architects and planners are of a similar mindset; perhaps local authority bigwigs also believe that, because some of their raison d’être is to provide for their disadvantaged, then buses should not be more than a safety net for those without a car and ratepayers would object to the authority spending more than just the minimum on the basics. It feels like the attitude is that the poor don’t deserve style and should be grateful they’ve got anything at all!

I hope and pray I’m obscenely wrong, but that’s how it all too often comes over.

And it certainly looks like that in Harlow.

I and one of my industry colleagues have visited the bus station there on a number of occasions in recent years and it’s a desultory, distasteful, disappointing, dirty disaster of an experience. No point in mincing words here. Glass on the covered waiting area was filthy and covered with smears and adhesive residue of old notices. There were new, quite unfriendly notices then stuck haphazardly on the less than transparent glass, some flyposted, several already out of date.

Bus departure information was mostly www.passengertransport.co.uk

12/01/2022 18:02

“If it impacts the customer experience ... you should get snotty, angry, awkward” unattractive to look at, incomprehensible unless you were already extremely au fait with the network, much of it undecipherable without a scheduler’s experience or a degree in complex spreadsheet recognition, counterintuitive to understand and in some cases wait for this - out of date. Someone thinks it’s perfectly OK to lie to the travelling public!

Bus stations - bus stops, too - are a shop window. We should make this portal to the journey uplifting, exciting, enticing, absolutely gorgeous and thrilling. My heart sinks, and I get so angry at the industry I love and have dedicated my life to, when I hear a bus company official saying to a customer: “That’s nothing to do with us, that’s the council’s responsibility.” Maybe, but if it impacts the customer experience, mostly YOUR customers, you should get snotty, angry, awkward and completely unhinged with whoever’s responsible it is, until change begins to happen. Use blackmail, anything, but get something bloody done.

I think one reason too many companies fail to make the effort is that they still fundamentally (and some, solely) see the business of public transport as merely providing transport - ie. the logistics of getting a bus from A to B and back again, not about enticing, seducing and cossetting the customer to make them want to make another journey with them as soon as possible. So, come on guys and girls in charge. The public transport business is not ONLY about supplying something that moves from A to B, or JUST a way to make a profit.

I’ll keep on saying it until the message is tattooed on everyone’s arses, but when the paying customer travels with you, you have a duty to make the time they spend with you the best it can possibly be, so they can’t wait to come back to you over and over and over again. Profit will follow. Job satisfaction will skyrocket. Future generations will thank you.

The world will be a better place then. As the well-known advert says, “just do it.”

Would this make you feel welcome?..

But it can be better..

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ray Stenning is the award-winning Design Director of Best Impressions, which provides creative services to the passenger transport sector. Email ray@best-impressions.co.uk

www.passengertransport.co.uk

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14 January 2022 | 21

12/01/2022 18:02

COMMENT RURAL TRANSPORT

NICK RICHARDSON

Rethinking rural transport provision

Exclusion is widening for our rural areas where transport more often than not means car-dependency. How can we change that?

The problems of transport in rural communities are getting worse. This is perpetuating car-dependency to reflect the needs of the current population but in doing so is leaving behind those who don’t drive or have a car available. Local train and bus services remain essential but resources are squeezed and the core problems are not being addressed.

This scenario is far from new and there have been various attempts to deal with it over the past few decades, some partially successful.

However, we seem to be asking the wrong question. It isn’t ‘Should a bus or train service be maintained’ but more ‘Is someone willing to pay for rural transport?’. It is very unlikely that most rural services can ever become viable let alone generate any worthwhile revenue surplus, particularly because operating costs continue to rise. Pay rates for bus operators need to be improved and more services provided to enable any flexibility for users.

This simply isn’t going to happen unless there is a serious and sustained injection of cash to support services rather than hand-to-mouth support for which there can never be lasting commitment. Propping up services is dealing with the symptoms rather than the causes of poor mobility.

Re-thinking resources Rural buses continue to be in decline because there aren’t sufficient users to cover the operating costs and/or because there is no 22 | 14 January 2022 PT256p22-23.indd 22

operator to take on the financial risk unless the relevant local authority has funding to spare.

The whole funding issue has been exacerbated by years of imposed austerity with the result that services have been lost or reduced to match whatever funding can be scraped together. If the consensus is that spending money on rural mobility is poor value for money, then there should be a recognition that hardship will result; this is hard economics in practice.

Evidence that local rail services are important can be seen across the country but while station improvements and support groups are very welcome and effective, creating a rail service that is preferable to car use is a big step. Some train users will park JustGo North Lincs: small scale schemes like DRT could work

and ride but others are concerned with how they get to the station in the first place, not what train services are available. For people who find it difficult to get around due to some impairment, this problem is amplified. As always, any growth in demand for passenger services is likely to come from car users.

Inviting people to travel by train may mean longer journey times and perceived additional cost which is never going to work in its most basic form - something really good is needed.

A recent example is Okehampton in Devon with its restored rail service from Exeter St Davids. Next to the station at the end of the line is a youth hostel (with another nearby), a residential adventure centre and cycle hire. However, the town itself is some fifteen minutes’ walk downhill, largely with no footway. What happens at the destination is every bit as important as providing the train to take you there.

Rural buses Hence we turn to the value ascribed to local bus services. The rural population supports buses in the same way it supports every other local facility - by not using them sufficiently. The village post office, school or pub all fall into the same category where there is outcry if they dissolve away but the reason they fail is because not enough people use them. People like the idea of having a bus service for when they might need it but many of them perpetuate car-dependency because they have cars and use them instead.

However, this doesn’t include everyone and the loss of a service can have profound effects on those left behind. Older people, people who don’t drive or don’t have a car reasonably have the expectation that there will be some means of getting around, without which there is significant hardship. Critically, users include younger age groups, their relocation undermining the rural population structure.

Another scourge is second homes, which are unoccupied for much of the time, to which their city owners or paying guests drive. First not second homes are what is needed in some areas and non-car transport is an important ingredient of rural life.

Various initiatives have shown that small scale schemes can work, creating on-demand services based around smaller vehicles.

Needless to say these also cost money and www.passengertransport.co.uk

12/01/2022 16:30

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

while plugging a gap to some extent are not the total solution. We need to move away from the perception that smaller vehicles imply significant cost savings and that funding is ‘subsidy’ rather than investment in the community. Coordination of services has long been thought of as the salvation - government’s Total Transport initiative sought to achieve this - but for a multitude of reasons doesn’t fulfil expectations. It never will until funding is addressed. We continue to deal with a combination of community transport options, often charitably funded, assorted remnants of supported bus services, occasional trains and voluntary car schemes.

What is missing is a realistic level of funding commitment; if rural communities are valued, then proper mobility solutions are needed.

Okehampton station recently reopened - but the town is a difficult 15-minute walk away

Too little, too late In the meantime, the form of rural settlements changes, with more affluent residents overlooking the inevitable loss of mobility when they can no longer drive everywhere. The younger generation departs for places where they can get around which have opportunities such as jobs. For them, broadband is not the total solution because they need real interaction. For many older people, access to decent internet is not an option either.

The solutions continue to elude. Greater coordination between trains and buses and between buses, taxis and community transport is all possible but to make it work requires more than community goodwill. However, there are huge opportunities in areas with a large influx of visitors where car users can transfer to buses - this generates benefits of reduced traffic and good visitor experiences.

The problem is that it works best when cars are excluded by parking constraints, a step too far for some. Asking people nicely if they would like to transfer to a bus is a very different proposition compared with making it much harder to drive and park where they want. For environmentally sensitive areas, people visit because they want the outdoors experience, not to contribute to traffic and struggle to find a parking space. The benefits of reducing or eradicating car use in specific areas are overwhelming and create more opportunities for healthy rural economies, not fewer. Again, we can return to the question of value: funding passenger transport into www.passengertransport.co.uk

PT256p22-23.indd 23

“Various initiatives have shown that small scale schemes can work” an area should be seem in the context of the negatives of mass car use. Think air quality, traffic around visitor attractions, detrimental visual impacts and an inability to walk around (and spend money). Common sense is heresy for those for whom car use is a core plank of their existence but until the penny drops, solutions to poor mobility will be stuck at the aspirational level.

On the brighter side In areas that are relatively sparsely populated and without a major visitor function, maintaining communities requires better transport arrangements and some imagination.

Identifying when and why people travel and making appropriate provision may mean a shift away from traditional bus services in some instances. It may also reinvigorate others if community services take users to an interurban bus route. Experience tells us that

people don’t like transferring from one form of transport to another but if done properly at hubs including features such as guaranteed connections, a sensible transfer point (shop, pub, petrol station or similar) and seamless ticketing all help to create worthwhile journey opportunities. By definition, it is unlikely that a successful rural transport network can be created unless there is adequate funding. It can be a hard sell because revenue support isn’t nearly as exciting as new infrastructure or vehicles but the benefits are often substantially greater.

It would be interesting to see if government would support pilot schemes on this basis so that outcomes can be assessed rather than simply ignoring the problem.

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.

14 January 2022 | 23

12/01/2022 16:30

SPECIAL REPORT

Trailblazers The ‘Rising Stars’ List

51 rising stars in passenger transport Who are the rising stars in UK public transport? Passenger Transport has teamed up with Tracsis Transport Consultancy, the executive search, selection and interim management specialists, to identify 51 dynamic passenger transport professionals to keep an eye on Our industry continues to adapt to change, and we owe a lot to our talented individuals across the sector.

It’s because of this that Passenger Transport decided Alex Warner Tracsis Transport to team up with Tracsis Consultancy Transport Consultancy to identify rising stars in the industry and shine a light on their impressive achievements to date.

It has been a mammoth task for our judges. We have had a staggering number of nominations and it’s been a real challenge deciding who should make the list. We have finally selected 51 to make the cut! This is a challenge we face on a daily basis at our

Executive Search & Selection department within Tracsis Transport Consultancy, where we work with such an exceptional talent pool across the sector. Our rising stars are united by their contribution to keeping our customers happy and safe, and championing public transport at this crucial time.

I’d like to thank everyone who put forward suggestions and to our fantastic judges (see below) who have given up their time to evaluate and consider the candidates.

We’ve split the feature into four categories, but there’s no ranking, so if your name is featured then you should be very proud.

We hope you enjoy hearing about these amazing people as much as we have!

THE JUDGING PANEL: Alex Warner, MD, Tracsis Transport Consultancy and chair, West Midlands Grand Rail Collaboration; Giles Fearnley, former MD of First Bus and Tracsis Advisor; Jane Cole, MD, Blackpool Transport and president CPT (2021); Andrea Higginbottom, head of business development, Tracsis Transport Consultancy; Robert Jack, managing editor of Passenger Transport; Luke Bodin, director of BA Events; David Sidebottom, director, Transport Focus; Neil Micklethwaite, business development director at Stagecoach Group and vice-president of Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport; Abu Siddeeq, head of customer experience at LNER and Trustee on the board of Women in Rail; George Chilcott, Young Rail Professionals; Emma Gascoigne, director, Big Foot Communications

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Marta Hilton Marketing and Publicity Manager, Oxford Bus Company Polish-born Marta joined Oxford Bus Company in 2015, making a big impression with her enthusiasm, commitment, and customer focus. She progressed to a leadership role in 2020 and is helping to attract new people to the bus with Covid-19 recovery campaigns and original initiatives like the launch of an Oxford Ghost Tour.

Stevie Chambers Commercial Projects Manager, Lothian Buses Stevie is part of a small team responsible for ticketing and systems at Lothian Buses. He implemented Scotland’s first Model 2 Contactless Payments scheme, co-developed and implemented integrated ticketing for Transport for Edinburgh and consistently pushes the boundaries to deliver improvements in customer journeys. www.passengertransport.co.uk

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Dan Champion Head of Air Quality, Environment & Technology Sponsorship, Transport for London Dan has risen through the ranks at Transport for London after initially starting in the lost property office. His clear passion for sustainability has seen him take a lead role in delivering the Mayor of London’s transport strategy with the aim of 80% of trips to be made by foot, bike or public transport by 2041.

Leanne Riley Head of Corporate Sales, CMAC Group

Philip Gerhardt Head of Route Performance, Arriva London Starting as a graduate trainee for East London Bus Group in 2008, Philip has worked for a number of bus companies in operations and performance. He is also a mentor for the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport and regularly contributes to Intelligent Transport magazine.

Andrew Yates Business Development Manager, Bus Éireann Previously head trader, then marketing manager for Celtic Bookmakers, Andrew joined Bus Eireann in 2011. Starting out as regional manager, he rose to the role of business development manager before being recently appointed to head up the intercity coach business Expressway. Hugely energetic and with a razor-sharp commercial lens, customer is at the heart of the agenda for the highly-regarded Andrew.

Stephen Bryce General Manager, Ipswich Buses General management roles at Dunn Line preceded Steve becoming operations and HR director for easyBus. In 2019, versatile Steve joined Ipswich Buses as general manager, where he is responsible for the management of the business on a day-to-day basis. He has presided over several customer service initiatives and is renowned for his flair and customer-centric approach.

Leanne started her career in sales roles in the retail sector, before becoming business development manager for Sixt rent-a-car.

She joined leading transport business continuity provider, CMAC Group, in 2018 and is currently its head of corporate sales. Leanne has a stellar reputation for her dynamic, charismatic approach to developing propositions that drive customer satisfaction for clients.

Mary O’Neill Development Manager, GWR

Mary has worked at GWR for over 16 years earning her stripes as a conductor and a guard, before continuing her progression to development manager where she is now a sponsor for GWR projects. Mary is the chair of the GWR Women in Rail group and is also on the steering group of Women in Rail South, helping to inspire other women to realise their own ambitions in rail. www.passengertransport.co.uk

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Jason Wade Head of Retail Operations, Northern Thomas Bell Innovation Manager, Great Western Railway After a successful stint at South Western Railway, Thomas has already shown that he’s able to improve the customer experience with his energetic and enthusiastic style. He’s now doing the same at Great Western Railway, and also responsible for founding the Pride Employee Network at South Western Railway.

During his 22-year career on the railway in the North, Jason has navigated his way through great change, successfully ascending the ladder from various operations delivery roles before becoming head of retail operations for Northern in 2019. His exceptional knowledge of the region, combined with his dependable commercial and operational skills and customer-driven approach, has earned him great plaudits in the industry.

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SPECIAL REPORT

Inspiring leaders

Ruth Busby HR Director, Great Western Railway

Matt Kitchin Operations Director, Stagecoach Manchester

Charlotte Whitfield Customer Experience Director, Arriva Rail London There are few more versatile than Charlotte.

She has held senior operational roles in and out of the transport industry, including time at First Bus (where she helped prepare for the 2012 Olympics) and G4S. Her Arriva journey started in the bus sector as general manager, before moving to a similar role for Arriva Rail London (ARL). In September 2021, her unstoppable rise continued when she was promoted to customer experience director at ARL.

A former First Bus graduate trainee, Matt is an all-rounder who held key commercial and operational roles within its Hampshire and Dorset subsidiary before heading up Go Ahead’s Southern Vectis business. Matt made the move to Stagecoach Manchester in 2016 as operations director, where he has initiated several employee engagement activities to drive customer service improvements.

Dervla McKay Managing Director, First Aircoach

A graduate from University of Ulster, Dervla joined First Group’s bus division in 2008, undertaking business and general management roles before becoming managing director of First Aircoach in Ireland in 2019. Her mix of operational, customer service and commercial acumen makes her very much an all-rounder, complementing her exceptional leadership and stakeholder relations expertise.

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Despite being a relative newcomer to the transport sector, joining GWR in 2018, Ruth has already established herself as a key figure in the industry. It’s no wonder she was recently named as ‘HR Director of the Year’ in the HR Personnel Awards. Ruth is involved in a number of industry-wide activities including Rail Wellbeing Live and the Women in Rail and RIA Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Charter.

She is also co-chair of Women in Rail South.

Mark Goodall Operations Director, Chiltern Railways

Guillaume (Gee) Lefevre Managing Director, Teneo Gee leads Teneo’s work on international transportation, hospitality, and consumer behaviour. He is an expert in using innovative techniques - including cell tower data - in measuring and forecasting consumer demand, bringing new thinking to the transport industry.

A Network Rail graduate trainee, Mark has enjoyed a hugely diverse career, encompassing freight and passenger services. He became head of cross city services for London Midland in 2013, then general manager for West Midlands operations before making the move to Chiltern Railways as operations director in 2019. Heading up all aspects of the service, including stations, Mark is renowned for his calm, measured, dependable approach and strong leadership skills. www.passengertransport.co.uk

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IN ASSOCIATION WITH: Tracsis Transport Consulting www.tracsis.com

Simon Mohammad, Operations Director, First Bus

Kam Gill Operations Director, Stagecoach Midlands Kam began his career on the Stagecoach management scheme, spending time in Perth and Dover before taking root in the Midlands.

Having worked in several management roles, he was recently promoted to operations director where he also mentors rising talent in the industry, inspiring those people in the BAME community to take up leadership positions.

Vittorio Pizzuti Operations Director, Transdev Blazefield

Simon worked his way up the ranks at Cardiff Bus, becoming its head of operations in 2010, before joining First’s Hants, Dorset & Berkshire business as operations manager, then as its interim head of operations. In August 2021 he was promoted to operations director for its Somerset Passenger Solutions business.

Simon is a charismatic, hugely engaging, galvanising leader with an obsessive focus on the detail of the customer proposition.

Starting his career as a bus driver at Trentbarton in 2004, Vittorio made an early impression on commercial director, Alex Hornby. He rose up the ladder through various operations management roles before following Alex to Transdev Blazefield where he is now operations director. Vittorio is highly regarded for his energetic and engaging leadership approach and ‘can do’ mentality, as well as his fixation with driving up customer satisfaction.

Martin Gibbon Operations Director, Stagecoach West Kathryn Pulham Finance Director, Pulham & Sons (Coaches) Ltd Kathryn has built on a fabulous reputation for her family-run business by continuously investing in the fleet, developing the business, growing her client base and further improving what they do best. She is also consistently helping others through her role as chair of youth mental health charity Headspace. www.passengertransport.co.uk

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Awarded the Young Manager of the Year at the UK Bus Awards in 2015, Martin’s commercial and operational prowess has helped him to quickly rise through the ranks.

He is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, a committee member on BusMark (CILT’s Bus and Coach Benchmarking Group) and has been a board member for many Business Improvement Districts across the country.

Tony Baxter Director East Region, Northern Railway Tony learned his trade at Royal Mail, where he headed up its letters business in Wales and held senior operational director roles in the Midlands and North West. He joined Northern Railway in 2020 and oversees all aspects of its East Region. Tony is highly regarded for his personable style, results-driven approach and relentless focus on customer service.

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SPECIAL REPORT

On the front line

Steven Toogood Senior Guards Manager Central Region, Great Western Railway

Building a better future

Steven started as an operations management graduate for First Group and has gone on to be a guards manager and is now a senior guards manager. Stephen is well respected and a solid performer - he’s also involved in a number of performance and safety projects and has overseen the introduction of four new train types and new ticket machines.

Sian Handley Head of Drivers for MTR Elizabeth Line Laura Whitehurst Train Manager, Chiltern Railways Before joining Chiltern Railways three years ago, Laura had previously held roles in aviation, coach transportation and property management sectors. She has taken the company by storm with her consistent focus on customer service. Laura also leads and facilitates the ‘Everyone Home Safe Every Day’ culture change programme within Chiltern.

Emma Hales Onboard Service Manager, Great Western Railway Emma has moved from being a customer host, to senior host and is now onboard service manager covering the Wales region. She has natural leadership skills and champions and supports her colleagues. Emma is driven by a passion to help them progress within their roles and the business.

Kevin Mayers Kings Cross Station Ambassador, LNER Kevin has an infectious smile and a positive outlook that puts customers at ease as they travel through Kings Cross station seamlessly.

He is well respected and liked by his colleagues and displays a natural leadership quality and an ability to work under pressure.

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Sian followed in her mum’s footsteps joining the railway, starting with GWR on the front line as a customer host in 2008. She’s consistently risen through the ranks and this year was promoted to head of drivers for the MTR Elizabeth Line.

David Kipling Head of Train Crew Strategy, Great Western Railway David is a real subject matter expert with an intricate knowledge of his area and has even authored a number of RDG papers and guidance documents on workforce planning and resourcing. David is also an active member of Young Rail Professionals Western Region.

Sultana Pasha Safeguarding Manager MTR Elizabeth Line

Sultana has progressed quickly since joining MTR as a customer and community ambassador in 2015. She moved to become the team leader and has been working as safeguarding manager for over two years, responsible for many industry-leading initiatives, such as developing 72-hour fatality reviews and suicide prevention plans. She is also a visible and active member of Muslims in Rail and partakes in other community and voluntary activities too.

Vinay Parmar Managing Director, National Express Accessible Transport Vinay oversaw contact centres in the financial services sector before joining National Express in 2015. Since then, he has enjoyed a stellar rise being UK customer and digital experience director before becoming managing director of accessible transport in 2019. He is an exceptional communicator and leader.

Oliver Craig Scheme Sponsor for the Redevelopment of Euston’s Conventional Station, Network Rail Starting as a graduate in 2018, Oliver has rapidly made a big impact. Before his Euston responsibility, he was Associate Sponsor for the TransPennine Route Upgrade at Network Rail, sponsoring the resilience scope of all of the diversionary routes that will be used during the programme. He’s also the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (CILT) Next Generation UK chair.

Shane Jackson Field Service & Projects Manager, Alliance Transport Technologies Starting as a mechanical apprentice two years ago, Shane moved from an engineer into a managerial role and is making a big impact.

At just 23 years old, he’s already project managed the successful installation of over 1,000 emissions control retrofit systems. www.passengertransport.co.uk

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IN ASSOCIATION WITH: Tracsis Transport Consulting www.tracsis.com

Stephen Foster Head of HR IT transformation, Network Rail Stephen started in Transport for London where he gained experience in HR roles and change management. He also spent time at South West Trains, Stagecoach bus, LNER and more recently at Network Rail. He’s currently working on workforce modernisation and is part of the GBR Transition Team, shaping the future of the organisation.

David Heckles Transport Systems Manager, Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Organising Committee Before entering the bus industry as a graduate trainee with First in 2013, David was a semi-professional athlete and ski instructor.

Progressing from the graduate scheme, he took on project management and business support roles within First Bus, before moving into operations management within various companies up and down the country.

Peter Gillan Senior Chartered Planner, SLC Property/ Ethical Partnership

Emma Palmer Strategy Lead, Rail Delivery Group Emma started in the rail industry at Chiltern Railways in 2008 where she made her name as a ticketing innovator and inspiring manager. After working in other roles, she joined the Rail Delivery Group as strategic lead for innovative ticketing in 2016. She is also leading conversations in the rail industry to improve diversity and inclusion as co-chair of the Ethnic Minority Network.

Tanya Rahman Scheme Project Manager, Seconded to Network Rail Tanya started her career with a summer internship in Network Rail’s Digital Train Control Team, while completing her final year at the University of York. After graduating, she joined Mercury3 Consult as a graduate consultant and is now seconded to Network Rail to provide project management and commercial support. www.passengertransport.co.uk

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Working hard behind the scenes on new railway stations and lines, Peter manages planning and related consents needed for these complex infrastructure projects. His talent and enthusiasm were recently recognised with a ‘highly commended’ award in the Royal Town Planning Institute ‘Young Planner of the Year’ awards and the Newcastle University ‘Rising Star Alumni Achievement’ Awards.

Charlie Woodhead, Accessibility & Inclusion Manager, LNER Charlie has been with LNER since graduating in Law in 2018, where he is responsible for leading accessibility improvements. He’s also the chair of the industry’s EDI Charter working group and is a finalist in the CILT Awards for Excellence 2022. With his love of trains and passion for equality, Charlie is helping to guide and shape the industry.

Flora Ofori HR Business Partner - Employee Relations, South Western Railway Flora joined South Western Railway as a dispatcher and is a role model for others in how to make the most of all the career opportunities in the industry. Having been seconded to many different roles and taking up the opportunity to further her experience, Flora has climbed the ladder and is now the HR Business Partner. She is also the chair of the SWR gender equality group, Inspire.

Simon Rawling Service Delivery Manager, Chiltern Railways Victoria Garcia Accessibility and Communities Manager, Brighton and Hove Buses and Metrobus Victoria came into transport quite late in her career and has been working in the bus industry for the last 12 years. She previously led the customer experience team before being appointed to the accessibility position.

Since then, she has been leading big industry initiatives such as dementia friendly flooring on all Brighton and Hove buses and creating safe spaces at travel shops and offices.

After studying music at Royal Holloway and being a professional violinist working for the BBC and Dame Vivienne Westwood, Simon joined the Chartered Institute for Railway Operators (CIRO) before moving to Chiltern Railways’ train planning team in 2017. He moved into fleet planning within Chiltern’s engineering and safety department, and in recent months was promoted to service delivery manager, where he is now leading two teams of engineers. Simon has continued to support the work of CIRO and is helping to attract new talent to the industry.

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SPECIAL REPORT

Obsessed with customer service Sophie Morris, Head of Customer Experience Strategy, West Midlands Trains After studying English with Media, Culture and Society at the University of Birmingham, Sophie worked for a number of businesses in recruitment and HR roles, before moving to London Midland (now West Midlands Trains) in 2015. A jack of all trades, Sophie has had a number of roles at West Midlands Trains, including duty station manager, acting regional manager and customer relations manager.

She’s had a rapid rise to head of customer experience strategy and has a desire to put customers at the heart of everything.

Peter Farnham Head of Customer and Performance, West Coast South Network Rail Peter’s CV is very rounded - managing drivers and overseeing operational standards at South Western Railway then head of operations strategy for Arriva Rail London, before moving to Network Rail. Throughout his career, Peter has been renowned for ensuring that the customer is at the heart of all operational plans, initiatives and behaviours.

Lucy Wootton Head of Grand Rail Collaboration

Starting her career as an office administrator at Chiltern Railways, Lucy rose to the role of station manager at Marylebone before being seconded in 2021 as head of the West Midlands Grand Rail Collaboration. Working with TOC MDs, the Department for Transport, Network Rail and other key stakeholders, Lucy is driving customer service improvement throughout the region.

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Holly Bruce, Customer Contact & Engagement Manager, LNER Holly joined LNER in 2016 as customer contact team leader and soon earned plaudits for her relentless pursuit of customer satisfaction and the way she brought people with her on the journey. She was promoted to customer contact operations manager, overseeing LNER’s call centre before becoming customer contact & engagement manager in November 2020.

Cariad Morgan Senior Information and Customer Experience Manager, South Western Railway Cariad joined the then South West Trains in 2016 and is now managing the team she joined and working to transform the information delivery service at South Western Railway.

One of the UK’s youngest chartered managers at just 27, she’s proven to be an adept young leader exemplifying the qualities of a capable leader and a stand-out performer.

Karen Cooper Head of Stakeholders, Blackpool Transport Services

Kemar Gilbert Fleet Strategic Planning Manager, East Midlands Railway Starting off his career in a frontline customer service role, Kemar has gone on to hold leadership and management roles in customer service, operations and now engineering.

He has strong leadership skills and a passion to make a positive impact for both customers and his colleagues. Kemar also coaches new managers and aims to encourage new talent to the transport industry.

Alan Riley Head of Stations, LNER

Key roles at Virgin Trains, Serco and GWR preceded Alan joining Chiltern Railways in 2012 where he rose to the role of customer service director. Renowned as a strategic thinker with a hands-on approach, he joined LNER as head of stations in 2020. Under Alan’s leadership, Wakefield Westgate achieved Britain’s Best Large Station at the National Rail Awards this year.

Karen lives and breathes customer experience and in her current role as head of stakeholders at Blackpool Transport she has a diverse responsibility for customer experience, marketing, training, development and stakeholder management. She engages directly with community groups to understand their needs and helps implement their ideas.

Alex Whybro Service Quality Regimes Manager, DfT Alex has just moved into this newly created Department for Transport role and we’re expecting big things from him after his time at c2c, where he was in charge of the service quality regime, accessibility, customer policy, customer engagement events and panels, car parking and customer information strategies.

Karen Tiley Regional Manager for London and South East and East Midlands, CPT With over 20 years at the Confederation of Passenger Transport, Karen continues to support the bus and coach industry with a consistent focus on customer service. This has never been more important following the pandemic, and her support has made life easier and helped to keep services operating. www.passengertransport.co.uk

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“There will be uproar from those that lose out, complaining that they have been misled”

GREAT MINSTER GRUMBLES

COMMENT

precise number!) and there will be uproar from those that lose out, complaining that they have been misled into thinking that so long as they submitted an improvement plan some kind of funding would follow.

3. Train service cuts

Three predictions for the New Year

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

What joys does 2022 hold for us here in Great Minster House, I wonder? I think I might have a bit of fun and make a few predictions! Let’s see how many come true - or how hopelessly out of touch I am with our transport policies!

1.A new transport secretary First, I’ll stray into the political world and predict that there will be a reshuffle at least in the first half of the year, if not sooner. There was quite a bit of chatter in the run up to the Christmas break that the prime minister might carry out another reshuffle to “reset” his government after a few torrid weeks during November and early December. I reckon our secretary of state, Grant Shapps, was pretty disappointed not to have been moved in the last cabinet reshuffle and there must be a high chance that when the next one comes along he will be moved, probably promoted. So prediction number one is that Grant Shapps won’t be our secretary of state come June.

I won’t predict who might replace him, as I simply don’t have a clue, and right now I am sure the prime minister doesn’t either, but I think it will be a current minister of state promoted into the cabinet for the first time.

Of course all of this assumes that there isn’t an early leadership challenge and Boris Johnson remains as prime minister when the next reshuffle comes along! Tempted as I am to make a prediction as to whether he is still prime minister either at that point or is challenged for the leadership at some point www.passengertransport.co.uk

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this year, I think I will pass on that as the political world is so volatile that any prediction here would surely be unwise!

2. BSIP uproar Now for our public transport policies. Let’s deal with buses first. We must soon announce the allocation of funding for the first Bus Service Improvement Plans, which must come into effect on April 1. Everybody knows that the funding available is only fraction of what has been bid for so there are going to be a lot of disappointed local transport authorities and combined authorities when the allocation is announced. So prediction number two funding will be limited to no more than 15 or so transport authorities (please don’t hold me to a

Now to rail. This should be easy as there has been a fair bit of coverage in the media, but prediction number three is that we will see train operators increasingly make service cuts in order to reduce the subsidy requirement.

Service cuts as high as 25% of current levels will be made by some operators. I think we can be pretty confident that rail will remain very much in the glare of the media as these cuts take effect even as fare increases are introduced.

Enough of predictions. But while on rail issues, I want to make a brief observation on the recent call for evidence for the Whole Industry Strategic Plan. I was struck by how emphatic the call for evidence is that any responses which focus solely on bids for new investment would not be considered, and that the Strategic Plan will have to recognise the restraints on public finances. Quite right too.

I couldn’t agree more. But it just highlights to me that the railways are going to have to go through a period of real restraint over the next few years. But, you will say, the government has just announced an investment plan of £96bn for the Midlands and the North though the Integrated Rail Plan. Yes indeed, but this is a long term plan and I wonder how much of this will actually see the light of day - or when.

The call for evidence reminds us of the government’s five strategic objectives that have been set for the Strategic Plan over the next 30 years, and when I re-read them I wondered if some are actually incompatible, especially in a financially constrained environment. One objective is to reduce the cost of the railways to the government, while another is to reduce the cost for transport users. I’m not sure how you reduce the cost of the railways to government and to users when patronage is depressed. To be able to do so we need a seismic reduction in the cost of running the railways in the first place don’t we? And achieving that has long been a holy grail, yet to be achieved. Sure, this is a 30 year plan, but...

On that cheerful note, a Happy New Year to you all!

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CAREERS

Fowles leads honours list Former Nottingham City Transport MD awarded OBE for transport and charity work Senior transport figures and frontline staff alike were recognised in the New Year Honours List.

They include former Nottingham City Transport managing director Mark Fowles - who retired from the operator in April 2021 - who has been awarded an OBE for his services to the transport industry and to charity.

A former vice chair of the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) Bus Commission, he was also chair of CPT’s East Midlands region between 2003-05. In 2009 he was appointed to the board of Traveline UK, becoming chair in 2013. He was chair of the ALBUM independent and municipal bus grouping between 2017-19 and president of The Omnibus Society in 2018. He has also worked extensively in the charity sector, raising over £125,000 for a muscular dystrophy research fund.

Also awarded an OBE is Barclay Davies, director for Wales at Bus Users. He is recognised for his services to public transport and government.

In his current role Davies has facilitated over 200 events bringing together passengers with local transport providers.

Other recipients of an OBE are Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee chair Keith Richards and Alan Benson, chair of Transport for All. Meanwhile, Laura Shoaf, chief 34 | 14 January 2022 PT256p34-35.indd 34

executive of the West Midlands Combined Authority and the former managing director of Transport for the West Midlands, has been awarded a CBE for services to economic regeneration in the region. She also chairs the Urban Transport Group.

Transport for London bus driver policy implementation manager George Macar has received an MBE for his work to improve accessibility in the capital. He has worked for over 40 years to promote bus travel for elderly and disabled people and created the ‘Big Red Book’ for bus drivers.

At Network Rail, Milla Mazilu, Akthar Hussain and Vince James all receive British Empire Medals. Mazilu is recognised for her work in the pandemic and voluntary work in Africa. Hussain and James are recognised for volunteer and community work.

Also receiving a BEM is Stagecoach Manchester bus driver Cornel ‘Junior’ Grant for his extensive work within the local community and for charity.

Over the years, he has supported a number of charitable causes in the local area and he was selected as a torch bearer for the Olympic Torch Relay in 2012.

Meanwhile, Richard Holliday, TransPennine Express’s learning and development manager, also receives a BEM for services to charity. A volunteer with Samaritans, he is credited with being a strong advocate of suicide prevention on the railway.

APPOINTMENTS FIRST BUS First Bus has announced the appointment of Duncan Cameron as managing director of its bus operations in Scotland. He has served as interim managing director since May 2021, following the promotion of Andrew Jarvis to portfolio managing director.

KEOLIS AMEY DOCKLANDS Richard Graham has been named as the new managing director of Keolis Amey Docklands (KAD), the company responsible for the operation and maintenance of the Docklands Light Railway. Since 2019 he has served as the performance and development director of Keolis UK. He was also on the board of directors for Keolis Amey Operations in Wales and KAD.

SCOTRAIL ScotRail has announced the appointment of Joanne Maguire as chief operating officer. She succeeds Ian McConnell in the role - he has chosen to move on when Abellio hands over the franchise to Scottish Rail Holdings, the public body that will own and oversee ScotRail Trains from April 1. Maquire joins from the University of the West of Scotland, where she is currently vice principal - resources.

LUMO FirstGroup has announced Helen Wylde has stepped down as managing director at startup open access rail operator Lumo. Phil Cameron, First Rail’s commercial projects director, will act as interim managing director.

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12/01/2022 16:29

CALL NOW TO ADVERTISE 020 3950 8000 or email sales@passengertransport.co.uk

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DIVERSIONS NXWM REWINDS CLOCKS TO 2014

The things Scousers say when on the bus Liverpool Echo readers reveal what they’ve heard The Liverpool Echo recently reported on some of the conversations their readers had overhead when travelling by bus in the city. Some of the responses certainly tickled us.

“I remember hearing two old dears chatting on a bus,” reported reader Mandy. “One said, ‘Aww poor Mary buried her husband yesterday’. The other replied, shocked, ‘Aww, did he die?’

‘Certainly hope so love!’”

Like a giant dressing up box...

WHAT’S LOST AND FOUND IN OXFORD?

Oxford Bus Company has published its annual list of some of the strange items that have ended up in its lost and found cupboard during 2021.

Domestic?

Meanwhile, Allan reported hearing a young man striking up a conversation with a fellow passenger. “‘What’s your job,’ he asked. She said, ‘A domestic’. Lad goes, ‘That’s bleach isn’t it?.’”

Among the belongings left on the firm’s buses and coaches were some Ann Summers lingerie, a coffin shaped wallet, an NYPD hat, a vehicle registration plate, a guitar and a large toy sword.

The most common items left on vehicles were face masks, mobile phones, umbrellas and shopping.

Staff at the Oxford Bus Company customer services department recorded 1,688 items lost in 2021 and 345 items were returned. Perhaps reflecting the pandemic, the volume of lost items was around 10% lower than

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EXPIRY DATE

Remains of the (Roman) day...

We often receive press releases where the hyperbole has been troweled on, but we enjoyed this release from National Express West Midlands about its decision to freeze most bus fares for the fifth year running and then make cuts to others.

“The last time our bus tickets were this cheap - £4 for a day saver - it was 2014,” noted commercial director Chris Gibbens. “Back then, TikTok was what clocks did; we only wore masks at Halloween; and it was also the year Conchita won Eurovision.”

Hats off to NXWM for making us chuckle with that one!

in 2020.

“We have highlighted some of the unusual items that are left on our buses and coaches as a way to remind people that lost items are kept, so it is always worth checking via our lost property portal on our website,” said OBC’s head of customer experience, Andy Morison.

The bus operator has previously revealed lost items in recent years which have included a light sabre, a fireman’s hat, a Soviet Union hat, a letter detailing sexual fantasies and a Donald Trump toilet roll.

TREASURE TROVE AT HS2 WORKSITE For the past year a team of archaeologists have been poring over an HS2 worksite in South Northamptonshire. They have slowly revealed the remains of a wealthy Roman trading town.

Although the presence of the site has been known for hundreds of years, the scale of discoveries made by the team have surpassed expectations. Alongside over 300 Roman coins, finds have also included glass vessels, highly decorative pottery, jewellery and even evidence of make-up.

“The site really does have the potential to transform our understanding,” said site manager James West.

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