23 April
Dear Louise Haigh,
In November last year, I noticed that you placed an update on your website regarding the franchising of public transport, and the new Enhanced Partnership in South Yorkshire between the local authority and bus operators in the region. Having spent some time working in public transport for a local authority in UK, I am interested in your thoughts about how the public transport system should be developed to work better for passengers — specifically in terms of partnerships.
When I worked in public transport, I found that there were a variety of problems with the coordination of services, which could be solved through better organisation with bus and train companies. For instance, when customers complained about their services, as a staff member of the local authority, I could only take that complaint to the private bus company, and often I would either not receive an answer from them, or the complaint would be listened to without any notable action being taken. The lack of, for want of a better word, authority that we had meant that it was extremely challenging to take customers’ complaints further. Some notable examples of incidents include people contacting us saying their bus services were repeatedly not turning up, and people asking where their local bus stop had gone, after the bus company had decided to remove it. Train companies were even more challenging to contact.
I learned a lot through being involved in this aspect of public transport, and the specific issue I became interested in is how we can develop and change the relationship between transport companies and the local authorities of the regions in which they operate. This relationship seems to vary greatly across the country, but my impression is that in general, the private transport companies are often able to withdraw services or provide a lacklustre service, while the local authority has little sway in implementing consequences due to the way contracts are given out, and the shrinking funding available to local councils. Obviously, some of this can be fixed by allocating adequate funding for the provision of transport. But I wonder what other measures might be taken in order for this relationship to become one which benefits the taxpayer more? Local authorities should not have to be the buffer between the British public and transport companies who are cutting off their much-needed bus routes.
I am very interested in the franchising of public transport, and would like to know whether you think this could be a UK-wide answer to the issues we currently face? London of course has a fully franchised model, but elsewhere in the country there is more of a piecemeal approach. I often found in my work that customers were actually confused about who was responsible for providing their transport provision, and who to complain to or ask about proposing additional bus, metro and train routes. Hence, I am curious as to whether the franchising model might also be a positive move in terms of offering customers a more clear and transparent idea of who they should hold accountable for how mobile their area is. Similarly to yourself, I also welcomed the movement of South Yorkshire to develop an Enhanced Partnership with operators, as this model can (I believe) help to standardise timetables and ticketing, as well as raising the quality of the services. I would be very interested to hear how you think this relationship between local authorities and transport companies can be revisited and overhauled to make it work more productively for customers.
Yours sincerely,
Eleanor
Eleanor
Eleanor