BUS USERS UK Annual Report 2009

Chairman’s Report
This has not been an easy year for Bus Users UK. Against the continuing uncertainties of funding and the greater involvement by Passenger Focus in areas that were largely handled through Bus Users UK, we have managed to keep our surgeries programme on track and have thoroughly overhauled our complaints procedure. In addition we have carried out audits on a number of leading bus companies to assess the quality of their offering to passengers.

Bus Users UK readily accepted the appointment of Passenger Focus as ‘bus passengers’ champion’ for England, recognising the expertise that Passenger Focus had already gained from its work with rail passengers, which puts it in a strong position to produce the evidence-based work on bus passenger satisfaction that its new role requires. From the start Bus Users UK has indicated its willingness to work with Passenger Focus, providing information at ground level that will complement its own findings. We meet regularly with senior staff at Passenger Focus and I sit on the Passenger Focus Bus Stakeholder Board, with representatives of bus operators, the Department for Transport, local authorities, the Traffic Commissioners, and London TravelWatch. This body discusses and advises on the work that is planned and has been undertaken.

The Department for Transport has asked us to continue the bus complaints role through the Bus Appeals Body (BAB). This body was set up by Caroline Cahm in conjunction with the Confederation of Passenger Transport and considers complaints about bus services where the complainant is unhappy with the way their complaint has been handled. During 2009 we have undertaken a complete overhaul of our complaint-handling procedures and the establishment of a tracking system that allows us to keep a much more effective eye on the progress of complaints. In addition to the complaints that are passed to us for possible reference to BAB, many general bus service complaints come into our offices and Bus Users UK staff provide a valuable service in helping bus passengers to deal with these properly, helped by our accumulated knowledge of the bus industry.

The surgeries programme is another important plank in the work of Bus Users UK, providing an opportunity for bus passengers to discuss their suggestions and grievances with representatives of bus operators and local authorities. Bus operators tell us that they regard this as a valuable source of market information, and appreciate the chance to listen to the comments of passengers and explain the bus company’s point of view. Even complaints and grumbles provide invaluable market research, though there is positive feedback through surgeries too.

The quality audit facility that we provide has been taken up by more companies and it is interesting to note that many of these are already among the best-regarded operators in the country. It is encouraging that even the best operators are not content to rest on their laurels and pretend that there is nothing to learn from mystery passengers sampling their services at all times and in all weathers.

We have been fortunate that bus operators have appreciated the work that Bus Users UK has done and have continued to be willing to fund us. With a membership of around 700, the income from our individual members could never fund the useful work that we do, and in the absence of funding from the Department for Transport, which has repeatedly indicated to us that it is happy that the bus industry should continue to be our main source of funds, we will continue to look for support from bus operators. We are fortunate that the Welsh Assembly Government provides funding for our Welsh activities and the Scottish Government provides some funding for audit and advisory work representing bus passengers in Scotland.

During the year we had some changes of staff and their responsibilities. Sylvia Lunn, our membership administrator at Shepperton, retired, and we were grateful for her hard work on our behalf. Following the reorganisation of our complaint-handling procedures, Chris Dale retired as complaints officer; Chris performed a valuable service on behalf of bus passengers, using his extensive knowledge of bus services around the country, and we thank him for his hard work. Julian Osborne has taken on the complaints role, in addition to his involvement in a wide range of other matters, including his invaluable human resources advice. With a small staff, everybody is expected to turn their hand to a wide range of tasks, and they have done this willingly and enthusiastically. I must pay tribute to the ‘English’ staff — Phil Tonks and Sue Dawson; the team in Wales — Margaret Everson, Barclay Davies and Bethan Davies; Stephen Morris, who handles external affairs and produces our much-praised Bus User magazine; our faithful long-serving treasurer, Stephen Le Bras; and of course our life president, Caroline Cahm, who is taking a well-deserved back seat but is always available for advice and support.

Gavin Booth
Chairman

BUS USERS UK
Chairman Gavin Booth

top

BUS USERS UK representation on other bodies
European Passengers Federation
UK Bus Awards
Bus Passengers’ Platform
Strategic Transport Projects Review Reference Group (Scotland)
Bus Action Plan Task Group (Scotland)
British Parking Association
Journey Solutions
Campaign for Better Transport

BUS USERS UK Cymru is regularly represented at strategic meetings of:
Sewta — Board, Directorate and Bus Strategy Working Group.
SWWITCH — Key stakeholder meetings and workshops
Taith — Key stakeholder meetings and workshops
TraCC — Key stakeholder meetings and Workshops
STOP — Safer Travel on Public Transport.
Welsh Transport Forum
Cardiff Community Safety Partnership
RCT Better Public Transport Steering Group
Swansea Transport Forum
Neath Port Talbot Transport Forum
North Pembrokeshire Public Transport Users Forum
Denbighshire Rural Public Transport Forum
ATCO Wales
TrawsCambria steering group

top

UK Bus Awards
BUS USERS UK continues its involvement in the prestigious annual UK Bus Awards. Members carry out detailed Mystery Traveller work that represents a substantial part of the marks that bus companies can earn towards winning awards in various categories, including the prestigious UK Bus Operator of the Year.

top

External Affairs
The role of external affairs has been a significant one this year, not so much in handling media matters or even producing our quarterly magazine but in terms of feeding into Government and other consultations and in terms of liaison with Passenger Focus. We have had regular meetings with them at various levels forging a way forward that is mutually beneficial and which will get the best deal for bus passengers. We have also been instrumental in helping Passenger Focus come to grips with the bus world, and during the course of the year it has become more and more apparent to their people that buses are very different from trains in many respects.

We have of course been involved in consultation on how Passenger Focus’s role should be defined in the lead-up to them taking on this role officially from 1 April 2010. Other consultations to which we have responded have been the EU proposals on passenger rights, which appeared so generous we might well have ended up with no buses over which to have rights, changes in aspects of concessionary free travel, the regulations surrounding Quality Contracts, the use of taxis and community transport on scheduled bus services and the future of Smartcards. We were also involved in the consultation as to whether bus industry ‘monopolies’ should be investigated by the Competition Commission. On more local levels, we also fed into the Oxford bus strategy, Surrey County Council’s review of bus services, whether Metrobus’s takeover of services in Horsham was in the public interest and Greater Manchester’s proposals for improved cross-city links and major public transport corridors. The involvement of our local contacts network has broadened the perspective we are able to bring to such consultations.

As a result of other activity this year we were less pro-active in press contact than we would have liked, but we were asked to comment on a range of issues on BBC local and national radio (usually live interviews at unearthly hours of the morning!) and our External Affairs Officer even finished up defending London’s bendibuses on London Tonight. In line with requests at the AGM our magazine Bus User also picked up on a few London issues during the year.

We’ve been involved in a lot of discussion with
Government and Passenger Focus this year; here
Minister Sadiq Khan talks to a driver at Brighton with
Passenger Focus chief executive Anthony Smith in
the background.

top

Operations in England
Report from Phil Tonks
It’s been another busy year as we continue to represent bus users at grass-roots level.

As well as our surgeries programme (see below), we continue to work at various levels with our local member contacts, who volunteer their time freely to meet with their local operators and authorities. They are also contributing to a project to gather information on journey reliability which gives us an interesting snapshot of how local bus services around the country are operating.

I have been speaking at transport conferences and events to put across the user’s perspective and meeting with industry people who also help us to understand the challenges behind providing local bus services, as well as giving the industry an insight into the passenger’s side of things. I’ve also been meeting with politicians and attended a transport meeting at a party conference.

Special events such as the Older People’s Forum in Stoke on Trent, organised by Sue Dawson, also provide a crucial insight into the challenges and experiences faced by specific sections of society. By meeting with Business Groups, we can help them to understand what might make a successful service, and they can tell us what might make their members use public transport more.

I’ve also been involved on an ongoing basis with my local Hospital Trust to help them with information provision on existing services, and to help plan for new initiatives, in partnership with operators and the local authority. I am a volunteer every Sunday afternoon in my local hospital for this purpose.

If anyone is interested in becoming a local volunteer contact, please contact Phil on phil@bususers.org or 01384 273267. Of course, we also continue to work with, and meet, the various established groups around the country, as well as giving help and advice for any potential new groups.

top

BUS USERS UK Cymru
While Bus Users UK’s work in England is dependent on funding from the bus industry, in Wales Welsh Assembly Government continues to fund the activity of BUS USERS UK Cymru. Funding is based on the following key outputs:

• To gather and reflect the views of bus passengers in Wales
• To provide a contact point for all bus user complaints in Wales
• To develop and maintain a database of bus passenger complaints in Wales
• To organise and manage the delivery of bus passenger surgeries in Wales
• To provide an advice service to local authorities and bus operators in Wales to improve responses to passenger views and to improve service delivery
• To provide advice as required to the National Assembly for Wales and Ministers of the Welsh Assembly Government, both directly and through the Welsh Transport Forum, on strategic and technical developments related to bus transport

The more specific targets were largely met and exceeded in 2008/09, though 381 complaints handled fell just a little short of the target (the 384 quoted below is for the calendar year 2009). However in all the targets over which Bus Users UK Cymru has control were exceeded by some margin: 18 surgeries were organised (21 in the calendar year 2009) against a target of 12, once again giving excellent coverage of Wales (see ‘Surgeries’, below) while 22 strategic meetings were attended against a target of 10.

Bus Users UK Cymru continues to have representation on a wide range of bodies which are detailed in Bus Users UK Cymru’s own very detailed annual report. It also continues to run a network of eight local representatives operating on an hourly-paid casual basis.

They are:
Paul Harley, South East Wales
Joyce Porter, Mid Wales
Joyce North, North East Wales
Jim Maggs, Swansea/Neath-Port Talbot
Judi Hartland, Pembrokeshire
John Richards, North Wales Central
Greg Varney, Powys
Andrew Hemmings, Wrexham and North Wales coast

Bus Users UK Cyrmu will shortly have its own website, on which you can see the full report, or write to the Cardiff office for a copy on CD-ROM.

Bus Users UK Cymru has representation on a
wide range of bodies. Senior officer for Wales
Margaret Everson is seen here with the chair of
Sewta, Cllr Jeff James.

top

Financial Report for 2009
In my review of the 2008 Accounts, I said that we were in transition between the old regime dating from 1986 and the new after Local Transport Act. One year has passed and I would add to that the general downturn in the economy has affected bus passenger and bus company alike. Whenever the central government collects in less tax, it has to borrow more and services are cut. Local government fares worse and supported bus services are trimmed whilst commercial routes have to earn their keep. To add insult to injury, the bus companies face a Competition Commission probe and vital resources are having to be diverted to deal with this.

So how does this affect Bus Users UK? Our income and expenditure is carefully monitored and every penny spent goes towards representing the passengers’ interests. I could quote a whole lot of figures but suffice to say that income and expenditure overall has remained much the same. However we could do more if our supporters in the bus industry could give us more. Luckily for all of us, Caroline Cahm’s overall prudent stewardship of the bank balances from Day One together with a most handsome bequest from a benefactor has kept us in the black.

I should like to thank all our supporters among the membership and bus industry, including the Scottish Government and Welsh Assembly (British Government, please note!) and I hope that this support will continue.

Finally, looking forward to 2010, I am mindful of the fact that we are working alongside the rail passengers’ champion in the form of Passenger Focus. I do not anticipate any major changes in the way that we collect income and pay out expenses; however, we have made a subtle change in that we have always been an unincorporated entity and it made sense to become a company limited by guarantee. Please note that cheques should still be payable to ‘Bus Users UK’.

STEPHEN LE BRAS
TREASURER

top

Handling complaints
Bus Users UK handles a steady stream of enquiries and complaints from bus users each year. Not all enquiries lead to a formal complaint, but during 2009 we handled a total of 872 complaints, 488 in England and 384 in Wales, of which 80 were escalated to the Bus Appeals Body. Where possible we try to handle complaints before referring them to Bus Appeals Body by taking them up with the bus company.

With improved tracking systems we are following complaints more effectively than before, and some of the major operators have responded well to a more rigorous regime. We have seen notable improvements in complaint handling from some of the main transport groups as a result of our more effective pursuance of complaints.

The same system is giving us more useable data on which issues concern passengers and which operators are causing the most difficulties for passengers. Given that we handle less than 1,000 complaints on something like 2.5billion journeys we take the view that ‘naming and shaming’ is probably not appropriate, though the fact that the five major groups account for 79% of the complaints in England is probably no surprise, given their share of the market. The make-up of the Welsh bus market is rather different; only three of the five main groups are active in local bus services there and with more independent operators, three local-authority-owned operators (as there were in 2009) having a large market share in the most populous areas and the growth of Veolia, not one of the ‘big five’, in Wales they accounted for just over 60% of the complaints.

In England the complaints by issue were as follows (some complainants will have complained about more than one issue):

English complaints

In Wales we also handled a number of complaints regarding local authorities and other agencies, hence the total below showing less than the total number of complaints. The complaints against bus companies by issue were:

Welsh complaints

Complaints, England & Wales

top

Surgeries 2009
The surgery programme has continued to see Bus Users UK appearing in far-flung corners of the country, working with bus operators and local authorities/PTEs to allow users to have their say and to meet the people responsible for running their local services. The surgeries are as popular and important as ever with more than 200 people, for example, coming along to our Birmingham City Centre event.

During 2009 Bus Users UK undertook 46 surgeries throughout the country. Of these 21 were in Wales, 25 in England. We also attended Travelwatch South West’s surgery in Exeter and London Travelwatch’s first surgery in Croydon while the local branch in Oxford held a very well-attended forum to discuss Oxfordshire County Council’s controversial plans for Oxford’s bus services.

In the West Midlands, we are working much more closely with Centro, and the operators on an extended version of our surgeries, called ‘Your Bus Matters’. These events add on an early morning ‘Meet The Manager’ session for commuters to have their say. The surgery itself then operates throughout the day and a Transport Users Forum allows another chance to air views in the evening.

Surgeries in England, 2009
Bedford, 20 February
Norwich, 20 March
Milton Keynes, 26 March
Northallerton, 1 April
West Bromwich, 8 April
Stoke on Trent/Hanley, 8 April
Worthing, 21 April
Lincoln, 24 April
Alton, 26 May
Blackpool, 25 June
St Ives (Cambridgeshire), 31 July
Birmingham, 19 August
Warrington Interchange, 8 September
Kidderminster, 19 September
Coventry, 29 September
Birkenhead, 9 October
Hereford, 14 October
Burnley, 21 October
Newport, IoW, 28 October
Dudley, 11 November
Rugby, 17 November
Chester, 25 November
Abbey Hey, Manchester, 27 November
Brighton, 11 December
Staines, 14 December

Surgeries in Wales, 2009
Rhyl, 13 January
Llandudno, 14 January
Conwy, 15 January
Colwyn Bay, 20 January
Abergele, 22 January
Chepstow, 2 February
Abergavenny, 3 February
Caldicot, 4 February
Monmouth, 5 February
Newtown, 24 March
Aberystwyth, 27 May
Ebbw Vale, 2 July
Denbigh, 3 July
Prestatyn, 3 July
Queensferry, 7 July
Wrexham, 9 July
Bridgend, 17 July
Cardiff, 6 August
Barry, 31 August
Newbridge, 2 October
Risca, 23 October
Dolgellau, 3 December

In broad terms issues which concerned passengers at surgeries in England were as follows:

Very nearly 10% of all surgery attendees wanted improved services in the evenings and/or at weekends and 4.6% wanted higher frequencies. 1.75% thought their fares were too high. Just over 2% wanted to see drivers having more powers to throw people off the bus for antisocial behaviour. 2.6% asked for low-floor buses on their routes, and 1.2% had difficulty getting wheelchairs or pushchairs on to the bus, while another 1% referred to the difficulty of boarding buses around pushchairs already on the bus.

Not surprisingly 8.4% of all surgery comments concerned late running or buses not turning up at all; early running was less of a common problem, though not insignificant. Bunching was more commonly raised however. On the other hand 6.5% of all surgery visitors were complimentary about reliability and almost 3% mentioned how friendly drivers were. However 3.4% said the opposite and 2% were unhappy with driving standards while 2.5% of people thought their buses were dirty or had too much litter on them.

top

Commercial activities
Our Quality Audit programme, developed from our Good Practice Guide, continued at a lower level during 2009. It’s a useful source of extra revenue for us and helps to inform us of bus industry practice in different parts of the country. It is also quite time consuming and in a very busy year we did not pursue this scheme actively.

Nonetheless we completed a follow-up to last year’s work for Southern Vectis on the Isle of Wight, adding to it an audit of their publicity material, and we also audited one of Britain’s leading bus operators in the customer service stakes, Trentbarton.

top

BUS USERS UK — who are we?
BUS USERS UK, formerly known as the National Federation of Bus Users, is an independent group which was formed to give bus passengers a voice. We have the ear of all the major bus companies and a lot of the smaller ones too, of their trade organisation and of the Government and local authorities. BUS USERS UK is not aligned to any political party.

We aim:

• To strengthen the voice of bus users in the discussion of public transport issues
  
• To increase the influence of bus passengers on local and national decisions
  affecting bus services
  
• To develop good communication between bus companies and their passengers
  
• We organise local bus users surgeries, where passengers can get to talk to their bus
  managers and local government officers, tell them what they think — and hear their
  viewpoint, too
  
• We help with local problems, both for individuals and for groups
  
• We are represented on the Bus Appeals Body
  
• We encourage and promote good practice in the bus industry

BUS USERS UK, PO Box 2950, Stoke on Trent ST4 9EW
Tel: 01782 442855 Fax: 01782 442856 E-mail: enquiries@bususers.org

BUS USERS UK Cymru:
PO Box 1045, Cardiff CF11 1JE
Tel: 029 2022 1370 E-mail: wales@bususers.org

Membership and magazine enquiries to
BUS USERS UK, PO Box 119, Shepperton TW17 8UX
Tel: 01932 232574 E-mail: membership@bususers.org

President: Dr Caroline Cahm MBE PhD
Chairman: Gavin Booth
Operations Officer: Phil Tonks
Treasurer: Stephen Le Bras
Senior Officer for Wales: Margaret Everson
Officer for Wales: Barclay Davies
External Affairs Officer: Stephen Morris
Complaints and systems: Julian Osborne
Surgeries: Susan Dawson
Treasurer: Stephen le Bras
Membership Secretary: Nicola Parkins
Office Administrator, Wales: Bethan Davies

top