UK Bus & Coach 2022

UK BUS & COACH 2022

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UK Bus & Coach 2022

Welcome

Welcome to UK Bus & Coach 2022. This special publication accompanies the Confederation of Passenger Transport’s second annual UK Bus & Coach Conference 2022, which will take place virtually on January 25 and 26, 2022. Speakers at this event include transport minister Baroness Vere and shadow buses and local transport minister Sam Tarry. 2020 and 2021 presented the UK’s bus and coach sector with enormous and unprecedented challenges, and 2022 will be no different. Covid recovery, the national bus strategy for England and decarbonisation are just three of the major issues on the industry’s agenda. It’s vital that our sector comes together to share experiences and to discuss how it can respond to these challenges, while maximising the huge contribution that it makes to the lifes of citizens in all parts of the UK. This publication is intended to contribute to that process. We hope you find it an interesting read!

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FOREWORD

REVIEW O F 2021

By Graham Vidler, CEO of the Confederation of Passenger Transport UK

We look back at some of the key events of the past 12 months

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T RA NS P O RT FO CUS

F IRST BUS

STAGECOACH

Transport Focus is ready to help to improve local bus services

Janette Bell, managing director of First Bus, on a year of positive changes

Carla Stockton-Jones, UK MD for Stagecoach, on making buses better

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EPM

TICKE TER

EPM Group is aiming to empower bus operators to deliver efficiency

Brad Todd, Ticketer Group’s chief product officer, on the 3G sunset

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U R BA NT H I N G S

PRO GRAMME

SPE A K ER P ROF I L ES

UrbanThings explains why shared data is the key to success

The two-day UK Bus & Coach Conference 2022 programme

Biographies of the speakers at the UK Bus & Coach Conference 2022

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UK Bus & Coach 2022

Foreword

IT’S VITAL THAT THE INDUSTRY HAS INFORMATION IT NEEDS elcome to UK Bus & Coach 2022, a special publication that accompanies our 2022 UK Bus and Coach Conference. And thank you to all our conference speakers, supporters and headline sponsor Backhouse Jones for helping CPT run this year’s event.

2021 was a momentous year with the publication of the UK Government’s National Bus Strategy, which set out a roadmap to deliver more reliable, frequent, and cheaper services for passengers and the COP26 climate summit that placed the journey to net zero in the spotlight.

We also saw the coach industry begin to bounce back from an incredibly difficult 2020 as leisure travel began to return.

Much like 2021, we hope that 2022 will be the year where the

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authorities in the years ahead as the route to working together to improve services for passengers and securing associated funding.

CPT has brought together a panel, including Huw Merriman MP, chair of the Transport Select Committee, and Henrietta Brealey, CEO of the Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, to discuss whether the first iteration of these plans have focused on the right areas and what issues operators and local authorities should be focusing on next to improve services.

In 2021 domestic tourism enjoyed something of a revival, admittedly after a very tough 2020, as more people chose to holiday in the UK as international travel remained restricted and uncertain. Our conference will be asking tourism representatives from England, Scotland and Wales how can the bus and coach

pandemic eases or even ends and we see demand return, especially as we look towards the nonnegotiable of reducing car travel as part of the drive towards net zero.

With this in mind, it is vital that the industry is equipped with the information it needs to navigate what will, one way or another, be a crucially important year.

Our speakers will do just that.

Delegates will hear from frontline politicians, including transport minister Baroness Vere on what the UK Government thinks bus and coach can do to deliver better services for passengers alongside the country’s ambitious climate change targets. We will also hear from Red Wall MP Andy Carter on how he thinks buses fit into the levelling up agenda.

Bus Service Improvement Plans will feature heavily in the minds of operators and local

industry help keep more people in the UK for their holidays as the pandemic eases? CPT coaching manager Phil Smith will also offer his expert insight.

With recruitment proving a challenge for operators, delegates will hear from both bus and coach operators on how they are tackling this challenge and lessons they can take back to their own businesses to improve recruitment and retention. CIPD, the professional body for HR professionals, will also be offering their expert insight into post pandemic employment trends and how operators need to adapt.

It promises to be an exciting and interesting couple of days, I hope you enjoy the conference. n Graham Vidler CEO, Confederation of Passenger Transport UK

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UK Bus & Coach 2022 terms of bold policy proposals is our commitment to reducing car kilometres by 20% by 2030, which I believe is not just a first for the UK but maybe a world first in terms of a target that we have set to achieve over such a short period of time.”

MARCH

PRIME MINISTER LAUNCHES NATIONAL BUS STRATEGY

Prime minister Boris Johnson launched Bus Back Better, his government’s National Bus Strategy for England, in March

2021 - A CHALLENGING YEAR FOR BUS & COACH Pandemic recovery, a new National Bus Strategy for England and an increased focus on the role of transport in achieving Net Zero. We look back at some of the key events of the past 12 months

JA N UA RY

transport by Scotland’s transport secretary, Michael Matheson.

The target was announced last December.

Addressing a Transport Focus board meeting on a live stream, Matheson explained how Scotland was developing a robust plan for reaching its national target of net zero emissions by 2045. He told Transport Focus board members and other viewers: “Not least in

FEB RUA RY

WORLD’S FIRST HYDROGEN DECKERS ENTER SERVICE

SCOTLAND’S TARGET TO CUT CAR USE IS A ‘WORLD FIRST’

The world’s first fleet of double decker hydrogen buses were officially launched into service in Aberdeen in February. Operated

by First Bus in a project led by Aberdeen City Council, the 15 hydrogen buses are hailed as representing “a major step forward in reducing climate change”.

Supplied by Wrightbus, the fleet emits nothing more than water from their exhausts as the fuel is made from just wind and water. Furthermore, plans are in place for Aberdeen to make its own hydrogen to power the buses, making it an even greener energy source for the local community.

While prototype hydrogen buses had been designed and used previously, these double deckers were the first of their kind to go into operation and welcome customers on board.

The Scottish Government’s commitment to cut car use by a fifth over the next decade was identified in February as being among a set of “bold policy proposals” to decarbonise

In March prime minister Boris Johnson unveiled “the most ambitious shake-up of the bus sector in a generation”. Bus Back Better, the National Bus Strategy for England, promises “lower, simpler flat fares in towns and cities, turn-up-and-go services on main routes, and new flexible services to reconnect communities”. Backed by £3bn of investment, the strategy will also see passengers benefit from “hundreds of miles of new bus lanes”.

The National Bus Strategy declared that “our system isn’t working”. Consequently, bus operators in England will no longer design and provide local bus services in isolation, in a major reform of the deregulated system that has existed outside of London since the 1980s. It set a timetable for bus operators and local transport authorities to agree plans to achieve the “substantial and untapped potential” of buses, using either Enhanced Partnerships or franchising.

In the foreword to the strategy, Johnson wrote: “I love buses, and I have never quite understood why so few governments before mine have felt the same way.”

He added: “As we build back from the pandemic, better buses will be one of our major acts of levelling-up.”

BURNHAM TAKES BACK CONTROL

A fleet of double decker hydrogen buses entered service in Aberdeen in February

In March, Greater Manchester major Andy Burnham made a historic decision to take control of buses in the biggest shake-up to Greater Manchester’s transport network in over 30 years, as part of plans for a “joined-up and truly passenger-focused transport

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Review of 2021 network”.

Greater Manchester will become the first place in England to take advantage of the franchising powers contained in the 2017 Bus Services Act. This will make it the first city region outside of London to obtain full control over local bus routes, frequencies, fares and tickets. Commenting on the decision, Burnham, who was re-elected for a second term on May 6, commented: “I’ve decided that we will be the first outside London to run our buses differently - under local control, so that decisions are made at a local level for the benefit of our passengers.”

APRIL

‘RECALCITRANT’ LTAS PRESSED ON BUS STRATEGY Local transport authorities in England were warned in April not to treat Bus Service Improvement Plans as a “tick-box exercise”.

The National Bus Strategy for England committed local transport authorities to work with bus operators to produce BSIPs by October. But concerns were soon raised that some LTAs have a long history of overlooking buses while others lack necessary resources.

Fielding questions from MPs on the Transport Select Committee, buses minister Baroness Vere was asked what she would do if LTAs submitted poor BSIPs. “It is very clear to us that they have to be ambitious,” she said.

“We are looking for interventions and infrastructure. We will be looking for improvements and reliability. We will go back to them and say it is not good enough, and if it is not good enough they will not be getting the funding that they ask for.”

Vere pointed out that extra funding was available for “those that I call my recalcitrant local authorities”. She said she wanted “places like Cheshire East, Windsor and Maidenhead, and Rutland, where there are very low levels of passenger ridership” to learn from places where strong partnerships have built bus use.

British Retail Consortium, UK Hospitality and the CBI. “It is vital that the government sends a loud and clear message that travelling by public transport is both safe and desirable,” said Paul Tuohy, chief executive of Campaign for Better Transport.

M AY

PUBLIC TRANSPORT IS ‘SAFE AND DESIRABLE’ With lockdown restrictions continuing to ease, prime minister Boris Johnson was urged in May to send a “loud and clear” message of support for public transport.

An unprecedented coalition of organisations representing shops, offices, restaurants, venues, public transport providers and trades unions wrote to Johnson, asking him to encourage people back on to buses and trains as restrictions are lifted. A failure to get people back on to public transport risks towns and cities where people are more reliant on buses, trams and trains being left behind, they warned.

Coordinated by sustainable transport charity Campaign for Better Transport, the letter was endorsed by leading business, leisure and hospitality organisations including the British Chambers of Commerce, the

THE WAY FORWARD CAMPAIGN BEGINS A national campaign to help get people back on public transport was launched outside the House of Lords and on social media by sustainable transport charity Campaign for Better Transport.

‘The Way Forward’ campaign called on the government to support public transport by actively encouraging people to use buses, trains, coaches and trams as restrictions ease, and introducing an incentive scheme to help boost passenger numbers as part of a national plan to place public transport at the heart of a green recovery.

LEISURE DRIVES PUBLIC TRANSPORT BOUNCE-BACK Statistics confirmed that leisure travel was driving a post-pandemic resurgence on public transport, with the last Sunday in May seeing buses outside London carry 80% of the passengers on the equivalent Sunday in 2019. This was their highest ridership relative to pre-Covid-19 norms since mid-March 2020.

London buses carried 69% to 74% of the pre-pandemic averages over the three days of the bank holiday weekend, with Underground trains ranging between 56% and 58%.

Overall figures for National Rail services were lower, at 51% to 53% of pre-pandemic averages, but operators serving leisure areas reported significantly higher passenger numbers.

Northern Railway spokesman Glyn Hellam said: “Anecdotally, the leisure market appears to be much busier than the commuter market at the moment. We’re seeing more of our leisure customers coming back at a faster rate.”

JUNE

‘BORIS IN WONDERLAND’ PLAN WILL ‘END IN TEARS’

Great Manchester mayor Andy Burnham pledged to bring buses under local control

Clean, safe and ready to go: the government was urged to back buses in May

The National Bus Strategy for England is flawed and “will all end in tears”, bus entrepreneur Julian Peddle warned in June.

Addressing the Young Bus Managers Network in one of its ‘Lunchtime Sessions’, Peddle offered his personal assessment of the strategy, Bus Back Better.

He referred to the strategy, which is championed by the prime minister, as “Boris in Wonderland”.

“It sounds very nice,” he said.

“It’s got lots of wonderful things in it. Who could quibble with any of the wonderful things in it? But one of the problems is, is it practical?

Can we do all these things in 18 months? ... I don’t know what funding for instance my business is going to get from the end of August.”

Peddle argued that the strategy’s biggest flaw is that it is short term.

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UK Bus & Coach 2022 He believes that it is focussed on achieving a quick political dividend rather than driving long and sustained growth for local bus services.

“A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term aim, and this strategy runs over three years,” he said. “Well, three years in transport is a very short term aim, very short indeed. I mean one of the problems in this country is that because parliaments last generally five years or less, governments have been unwilling to invest in a strategy.”

JU LY

£226M TO AID RECOVERY OF ENGLAND’S BUSES England’s bus operators will receive £226.5m of government funding to support their recovery as Covid-19 restrictions are lifted, transport minister Baroness Vere announced in July.

“Buses are the lifeblood of our communities, helping us get to work, school and to see friends and family,” said Vere. “The recovery funding will ensure vital services continue to run by supporting operators in those initial months, as restrictions are lifted and passengers begin to return in higher numbers.”

The latest tranche of funding will push total emergency funding for England’s bus operators since the pandemic began, outside London, beyond £2bn. It will run from September 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022, and will replace the current £27.3m a week Coronavirus Bus Service Support Grant (CBSSG), which works on the basis of claimable costs and is due to end on August 31.

The new funding will provide a fixed subsidy based on key metrics, “ensuring the sector can begin to return to commerciality”. It will allow operators greater flexibility to adapt services to meet the new post-pandemic bus travel demand.

Equating to around £7.5m a week, less than a third of the amount that was previously being paid out under CBSSG, it will be “the final tranche of Covid-19related support provided to the sector”.

an opportunity to begin that work by focusing on cross government policies that get people out of their cars and onto buses and coaches, which has an immediate impact in reducing carbon emissions. We also need to see measures that discourage car use including measures such as transparent road pricing schemes that can reward sustainable travel choices, fairly reflecting their environmental impact.”

A ‘GREENPRINT’ TO TAKE TRANSPORT TO NET ZERO The government published its Transport Decarbonisation Plan in July, hailing it as “a world-leading ‘greenprint’ ... setting out a credible pathway for the whole transport sector to reach net zero by 2050”.

The TDP also sets out how the government will improve public transport and increase support for active travel to make them “the natural first choice for all who can take them”. Transport secretary Grant Shapps said: “It’s not about stopping people doing things: it’s about doing the same things differently ... We will still drive, but increasingly in zero emission cars.

Responding to the TDP, the Confederation of Passenger Transport said: “Today’s plan is

AUGUST

ALBUM WARNS ON BUS DRIVER SHORTAGES Fears over a shortage of bus drivers were confirmed in August after ALBUM, the organisation that brings together Britain’s municipal, independent and smaller group

operators, wrote to buses minister Baroness Vere to highlight growing member concerns about the issue. While the nationwide shortage of lorry drivers was well known, a combination of the fallout from both Brexit and the pandemic meant that bus operators were also increasingly reporting problems in recruiting, training and retaining staff.

In its letter to Vere, ALBUM warned the minister that bus mileage from September may not be as high as it could be nor as high as is desired by operators, local transport authorities and government alike. The organisation said the shortage was a direct result of increased competition for qualified driving staff from hauliers, couriers and supermarkets. This had already led to some bus operators offering ‘bounty payments’, sometimes in excess of £1,000, to qualified PCV drivers.

ALBUM also reported that problems at the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency were exacerbating the recruitment issue.

UNDER 22S TO GET FREE SCOTTISH BUS TRAVEL The Scottish Government confirmed in August that it would proceed with plans to introduce free bus travel for people under the age of 22 from January 31, 2022.

As we entered the summer leisure was leading the public transport bounce-back

A national campaign to help get people back on public transport was launched outside the House of Lords on May 19

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Review of 2021 The Scottish Government said the scheme will be delivered in partnership with the Improvement Service, the National Entitlement Card Programme Office and Young Scot. It is expected that 930,000 young people will be eligible for the scheme. A third of Scotland’s population already benefits from free bus travel through the existing concessionary travel schemes for older and disabled people.

Scottish transport minister Graeme Dey said the introduction of the scheme would create and embed more sustainable travel behaviour among young people.

He claimed this would assist with Scottish goals of reducing the number of kilometres travelled by car by 20% by 2030 and reaching net zero emissions by 2045.

“Young people have been disproportionately impacted as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, so it’s never been more important that we support them to achieve their fullest potential,” he said.

“Reducing barriers created by transport costs is one really positive action we can take.”

S E PT E M B E R

‘GOVERNMENTS NEED TO GET REAL’ STAGECOACH In September, Stagecoach issued a blunt warning to governments to turn warm words on greener travel into practical actions that achieve “radical behaviour change”. Publishing its roadmap to becoming a carbon neutral business by 2050 - Driving Net Zero: Better Places to Live and Work - Britain’s biggest bus and coach operator said national and regional governments needed to address “contradictory policies and mixed messaging” over climate change action.

“The country will not deliver on its ambitions by grand strategies or technology change alone,” said Stagecoach chief executive Martin Griffiths.

“We need radical behaviour change and incentives to reward the right choices to make net zero a reality. We need to be more honest about the scale of the challenge and the changes we will need to make to how we live now.”

A trio of UK bus manufacturers held a ‘park the bus’ event at Westminster in October

Authority, which uniquely does not have an elected mayor, was not eligible for the funding round.

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

“Great cities need great transport and that is why we’re investing billions to improve connections in our city regions as we level up opportunities across the country,” said Sunak.

STAGECOACH AND NATIONAL EXPRESS ARE IN MERGER TALKS

‘GIVE US A ROAD MAP FOR ZERO EMISSION BUSES’

Stagecoach and National Express Group revealed in September that they were in merger talks.

The deal that was proposed seemed more like a takeover

by NEG, with Stagecoach shareholders receiving a 25% stake in the new combined group. The ‘Big Five’ groups that have dominated the UK’s public transport sector since the 1990s could soon become the ‘Big Four’.

This reflected the fact that NEG is a significantly larger group, with Stagecoach having disposed of its large bus operations in North America and exited the UK rail sector.

NEG, which has large operations in North America and Spain, currently had a market capitalisation of £1.55bn when the merger was announced, compared to Stagecoach’s £488m.

Stagecoach remains Britain’s largest bus and coach operator, with around 26% of the bus market outside London (NEG has 7%) and NEG has identified annual savings of £35m as well as opportunities to grow.

The two groups said that a major benefit of their merger would be the ability to maintain NEG’s express coaches at Stagecoach’s network of depots.

They also see an opportunity to use Stagecoach to develop NEG’s private hire coach, corporate shuttle and accessible transport businesses.

The bus industry welcomed news of additional funding for transport schemes in the Autumn Budget, but called for a clear roadmap for decarbonisation of the national bus fleet. The Treasury had dedicated a further £355m of new funding for zero emission buses.

It also allocated £70m under the ZEBRA (Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas) scheme to five locations - Warrington, Leicester, Milton Keynes, Kent, and Cambridgeshire & Peterborough.

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

They pointed out that prime minister Boris Johnson promised in February 2020 to deliver these 4,000 buses by 2025, but only 50-100 are on the road.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps O CTO BE R

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

The majority of the funding (£5.7bn) has been allocated from the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements (CRSTS) scheme. When announced in the summer, this was expected to comprise a funding pot worth £4.2bn over five years. A further £1.2bn will be allocated from funding for buses and cycling infrastructure that was previously announced by prime minister Boris Johnson as part of England’s National Bus Strategy.

The seven ‘city region’ mayoral combined authority areas will each receive a share of the funding pot. The North East Combined

NOVE MBER

BUS SECTOR PLAYS ROLE IN COP26 SUMMIT The UK bus sector used November’s COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow to highlight the pivotal role that it can play in reducing carbon emissions - if governments pursue policies that support modal shift away from the car.

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UK Bus & Coach 2022 Stagecoach, the UK’s largest bus and coach operator, partnered with bus manufacturer Alexander Dennis and BYD to become a provider to COP26. They supplied a fleet of 10 brand new electric double-decker buses to transport several hundred VIPs to a reception event. Boris Johnson, UN secretary general António Guterres and Italian prime minister Mario Draghi were among those who travelled on the buses, which came straight from ADL’s Falkirk production line.

After COP26 the buses travelled from Scotland to London to enter service with Stagecoach on behalf of Transport for London.

Paul Davies, Alexander Dennis president and managing director, said: “COP26 is focused on finding solutions to the climate emergency and we are proud to be able to demonstrate a zero emission solution that is available right now.”

First Bus operated the official COP26 delegate shuttle service with a fleet of 22 BYD ADL single deck electric buses. These vehicles remained in service in Glasgow.

Improvement Plans, which cover 71% of passenger journeys by bus outside of London, require total funding of £7.2bn - leaving a funding gap of more than £5bn.

CPT chief executive Graham Vidler commented: “Current funding is likely to be able to transform bus services in only a small number of places, including our major cities, but the vision of the National Bus Strategy was rightly much greater.”

NATIONAL BUS STRATEGY HAS £5BN FUNDING GAP The funds made available by the government to transform bus services fall drastically short of what is required to deliver the aspirations of the National Bus Strategy for England, the Confederation of Passenger Transport warned in November.

The spending review announced by the government in October contained funding commitments of around £2.1bn for buses. This included £1.2bn for Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs), £355m for zero emission buses and potentially around £500-600m for improved bus services as part of city region sustainable transport settlements.

However, CPT’s analysis of all BSIPs which had funding totals included (40 out of 79) in publicly available documents found that this funding was less than a third of what will be required to fulfil these plans. The 40 Bus Service

DECE MBER

NATIONAL COACH MARKETING CAMPAIGN The Confederation of Passenger Transport announced in December that a national marketing campaign to promote coach travel would launch with an advertisement on TV in January 2022.

The campaign, called ‘Get Back On Board’ aims to promote travelling by coach around the UK and highlight the benefits of coach travel more widely without

AWARDS HIGHLIGHT COVID RESPONSE Recognising the difficulties both the bus and coach industries have experienced since the onset of the Covid pandemic, the UK Bus Awards and UK Coach Awards announced their winners for 2021 with special joint online awards ceremony in November.

Winner of the Build Back Better Award for bus was Transdev Blazefield. Judges praised the operator for its extensive positive messaging about travelling by bus - notably its ‘Clean, safe and ready to go’ campaign.

Coach operator Belle Vue was also recognised for an entry that the judges described as “almost a blueprint for how to survive a pandemic”, with a real team effort from management and staff.

Stagecoach East Midlands won the Outstanding Partnerships prize for its demand-responsive Stagecoach Connect for NHS workers, launched in response to the pandemic.

Derby-Nottingham bus driver Karen Miles was crowned the Top National Bus Driver.

Prime minister Boris Johnson and other VIPs travelled on electric buses at COP26

Derby-Nottingham driver Karen Miles was named Top National Bus Driver in November

focusing on a particular operator or region, such as access to tourist attractions and destinations and trips to towns and city centres.

‘Get Back On Board’ has been funded by coach operators including CPT members, CPT and CoachMarque with an advertising agency contracted to coordinate the campaign.

CPT’s coaching manager Phil Smith has been working closely with operators. “I am delighted to announce that the coach industry is about to deliver the first ever nationwide TV advertising campaign that promotes the benefits of travelling by coach,” he commented.

“The UK saw a boom in domestic tourism this summer and with more people travelling by coach this campaign can continue to drive this momentum.”

COACH DECARBONISATION TASKFORCE LAUNCHED The Confederation of Passenger Transport announced in December that it had created an industry wide coach decarbonisation taskforce to start to create the roadmap which will help operators decarbonise their fleets.

The taskforce, chaired by Ian Luckett of the Lucketts Travel Group and National Express, and reporting to CPT’s Coach Commission, brings together operators, manufacturers and other experts. It will start by reviewing and evidencing the challenges the industry faces to decarbonising the fleet, building on the conclusions from the CPT coach decarbonisation conference that took place on December 1.

This work will lead to a CPT report on potential solutions for the sector in the summer of 2022.

This report will form a crucial part of CPT’s engagement with governments across Britain.

Chair of the taskforce Ian Luckett commented: “Decarbonising our world is essential and it’s vital our industry understands the part it needs to play on the journey to ‘Net Zero’. It must be clear not only about the challenges it faces, and what needs to happen to help it overcome them, but that it has evidence to back this up” n

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Transport Focus NATIONAL AND BESPOKE ADVICE

Improving local bus services is a continuous process and Transport Focus is in it for the long-term

SETTING THE AGENDA FOR BUS REFORM Transport Focus is ready to help local authorities and operators to improve local bus services

ransport Focus is playing a central role representing bus passengers in Bus Back Better, the government’s first National Bus Strategy.

We were pleased to note its high ambitions were rooted in the passenger priorities research we carried out in 2019.

As an evidence-based consumer organisation we have focused on improving local bus services up and down the country. As part of this we have: n Carried out robust research on the priorities of users and non-users for improving bus services at a national level; n Many years of data on bus passengers’ satisfaction with local bus services; n Researched young people’s experiences and attitudes to local bus services; and n Reported on best practice in complaint handling and consulting the public on bus network reviews.

We have applied this portfolio of research to the development of guidance documents and

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supporting webinars. These are designed to help authorities and operators ensure their Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs) and Enhanced Partnerships reflect the passenger interest: n Passenger representation on BSIPs; n Setting targets for BSIPs; n Bus Passenger Charters; n What passengers want from BSIPs; and n Consulting on Enhanced Partnerships.

The attendance at these webinars, consistently over a hundred people and rising (148 at our most recent one), shows the value we have added to the decisions being made by local authorities and operators.

And we have worked particularly closely with the alliances, steering groups and forums on which we sit in the West Midlands (which we chair), Liverpool City Region, the North East, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Cambridgeshire & Peterborough and Cornwall.

Altogether we engaged directly with all but six local authorities in England outside London as they developed their BSIPs.

DELIVERING IMPROVEMENTS TO LOCAL BUS SERVICES

Improving local bus services is a continuous process and Transport Focus is in it for the long-term.

BSIPs include targets up to 2029-30 and Enhanced Partnership Plans are likely to be made for at least five years. Bus franchising will take years not months to be fully introduced and make an impact.

We’ll continue to work with authorities and operators, offering bespoke passenger research and advice as they seek to deliver on their commitments.

PASSENGER RESEARCH

Following the interruption of our Bus Passenger Survey due to the pandemic we’ve been trialling different ways of getting passengers’ views. We hope to launch our new survey in spring 2022.

These findings will help support the bus industry in delivering improvements set out in BSIPs. We will continue to report on passenger priorities for improvement. And, while it remains necessary, measure passenger attitudes to travelling by bus during the pandemic.

Building on our published guidance we will continue to advise on the Bus Passenger Charters which everyone is expected to produce. These should be short, punchy documents setting out what passengers can expect every time they use the bus and what they should do if their expectations are not met. Charters can make the bus industry accountable for the services they deliver and can be a key marketing tool to drive up patronage. We will advise on how to assess and report on performance against charter commitments and work with local partners on revisions to charters.

The benefits derived from a good passenger charter may be lost if complaints are not handled well. Our previous research into the handling of passenger complaints suggests there was much room for improvement.

We’ll follow up to see how far our recommendations have been followed and offer assistance in meeting passengers’ expectations.

We will work with operators and authorities to refine ways to monitor performance against BSIP targets for passenger growth, punctuality and reliability. We will ask the questions about how effective investment has been in driving up standards and whether partnerships are prioritising the right areas. And we will advise on how progress should be reported.

Our most recent guidance reminded local transport authorities of their statutory duty to include a plan for consulting users in their Enhanced Partnership plan on how well it’s working. It also sets out a checklist. We’ll work with the bus industry to ensure that those plans are delivered.

CONCLUSION

Improving local bus services may seem particularly challenging at a time when the Covid pandemic means low passenger numbers and details of government funding remain uncertain.

However, Transport Focus will continue to support all efforts to ensure that every pound spent on improving bus services hits the target and means better services for passengers. n

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UK Bus & Coach 2022

2021: A YEAR OF CHALLENGES AND POSITIVE CHANGES Janette Bell, managing director of First Bus, explains how she has been heartened by the perseverance displayed by her colleagues during Covid and how this offers a solid foundation for transforming bus services

021 has brought many twists and turns.

The unpredictability of the pandemic brought instability to many industries, and public transport was no exception. However, despite the highs and lows across the sector, ever-evolving Covid-19 travel guidelines and restrictions, as well as more government guidance and ambitions for the industry, 2021 has also been a year of forging ahead.

We have begun rebuilding confidence in public transport and done much to encourage modal shift back to buses, have made great strides on our decarbonisation journey, and successfully addressed business challenges together with our customers.

There’s much to be proud of.

2

ensuring that public transport continues to become more environmentally friendly; another key focus of the bus strategy.

In Scotland, the £28.2m First Glasgow has been awarded by SULEB is already being used to improve and futureproof our infrastructure and support the upgrading of our fleet to improve air quality throughout the city - important progress on our decarbonisation journey.

schemes in Leicester, Stoke-onTrent, and West Yorkshire.

Much of this work will come to fruition in early 2022, and we’re looking forward to continuing our work with LTAs to encourage people back to buses with further simplified fare rollouts alongside existing improvements for customers, such as live tracking and capacity checking in our app. We’re also looking forward to continuing our decarbonisation journey and

GETTING OFF TO A GOOD START

Early this year, our confidence in our own vision and plans was reinforced by the publication of the government’s Bus Back Better National Bus Strategy for England and the award of the second round of Scottish Ultra-Low Emission Bus Scheme (SULEB) funding in Scotland. In Scotland, bus partnerships have been formed across the regions to help bid for the Scottish Government’s £500m Programme for Government designed to tackle congestion with bus priority measures as part of its bus service improvement fund.

The primary goal of the bus strategy is to encourage more people to take the bus; an aim that certainly aligns with our own ambitions. We have done a remarkable amount of work this year to realise the strategy’s aims, from collaborating closely with our Local Transport Authority (LTA) partners to develop Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs), to rolling out simplified ‘Tap On, Tap Off ’ ticketing

First Bus and Arrival will begin road trials in 2022

WORKING TOWARD A ZERO-EMISSION FLEET

First Bus is at the forefront of the green transport revolution.

Throughout 2021, we have made several major investments in zero-emission public transport in both Northern England and in Scotland. In January this year, our second-generation hydrogen double decker buses were officially launched by First Aberdeen, marking a huge milestone for hydrogen technology across the world, not just the UK. These new Wrightbus hydrogen buses save a kilogram of CO2 every kilometre that they are driven, improving air quality in the local area, and offering thousands of passengers a sustainable method of travel.

To follow this, in February, we announced our partnership with Arrival, which will see us trialling some of the market’s most innovative zero-emission buses in the new year.

In March, we introduced electric double decker buses from BYD-Alexander Dennis to serve

We were official operators of the COP26 delegate shuttle, pictured with pupils from Jordanhill School. Photo credit: Paul Chappells

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First Bus Park & Ride routes for Leeds and West Yorkshire as part of an ongoing investment programme

by First West Yorkshire to upgrade its fleet in the city to zeroemission and ultra-low emission buses. The state-of-the-art buses are British built and rely on innovative technology, including zero-emission heat pump technology to control interior heating and cooling. Each one offers a comfortable and greener way to reach the city centre, encouraging the all-important modal shift toward public transport.

As First Bus continued to invest in electric vehicles across the country, we recognised the need to match it with investment in electric transport infrastructure.

In June, we began work on an ambitious new project to transform our Caledonia bus depot in Glasgow to become the UK’s largest Electric Vehicle charging hub, with space and electric capability to charge up to 300 vehicles in the future.

The project is being completed in stages, and by March 2023, an additional 150 new electric buses will be operating in Glasgow and will be charged on-site at the depot. Additionally, our innovative partnership with ScottishPower Energy Networks (SPEN) and Glasgow City Council will see us build a renewable energy substation on site, which will have the potential to eventually power not only our electric fleet, but a portion of the city.

In August, following the introduction of additional electric buses in Leeds, we also announced further investment in the nearby First York fleet. Twenty-one new buses started servicing the city as part of a £9.3m investment by the local authority and First York.

The fleet of electric double decker buses have saved a whopping 826 tonnes of carbon emissions from polluting the atmosphere in the first year of service. The number of journeys made by the fleet also allows for more than 15,300 cars a week to be removed from the streets of York which limits congestion, further improving air quality and the reliability of everyone’s journey.

We will rollout further electric buses across England and Scotland in 2022

Partnership for Transport (SPT) and Transport Scotland. The shuttle service saw First Bus provide a fast, frequent link for delegates attending events in Glasgow city centre and the Blue and Green event zones at the Scottish Event Campus (SEC).

The First Glasgow team successfully delivered the official COP26 delegate shuttle with over 137,000 journeys recorded on their brand new fully electric fleet of 22 buses.

Autumn was also notable because in October we acquired the remaining shareholding in Somerset Passenger Solutions (SPS), the private coach company that transports workers to and from Hinkley Point power station C. We have jointly owned this shuttle service with SPS since 2016 and are proud to have played a critical role in reducing the number of cars on the road in the area and improving local air quality by providing transport for Hinkley Point employees.

Our acquisition exemplifies our ambition to grow our B2B service offering and position bus as the chosen mode of transport for work and leisure.

LOOKING AHEAD

First Glasgow's Caledonia depot will be the UK's largest Electric Vehicle charging hub

With a commitment to only invest in low and zero-emission vehicles from December 2022, these moves toward greener transport are major steps towards First Bus’s goal of having a 100% zero-emission fleet by 2035.

are doing to help the UK achieve its ambitious net zero goals. The exhibition included a virtual headset tour of the city and site, a drive-in cinema that showed a documentary on the history of public transport and gave media the opportunity to speak with key First Bus leaders.

There was tangible energy in Glasgow. There is real desire to make positive changes for our environment and I was proud to see some of the myriad ways we are transforming our business brought together under one roof.

The exhibition felt like a glimpse into the future of bus - a future that we are all excited to be working toward.

We were also thrilled to be appointed official transport operators of the COP26 delegate shuttle service by Strathclyde

ADDRESSING CLIMATE AND BUSINESS CHALLENGES

In November, the highly anticipated 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) was held in Glasgow.

Delegates from around the world gathered in Scotland to discuss progressing the Paris Agreement goals and additional ways to combat the climate crisis.

First Bus hosted a COP26 exhibition in partnership with Hitachi and Octopus Energy.

The Together for our planet, event showcased the exciting work we

As we look toward 2022, we can already see many more challenges and changes on the horizon. The Covid-19 pandemic remains part of our lives, and there is still much to be done to improve public transport’s environmental impact, and its accessibility to all. In the next year, we will be rolling out more zero-emission buses across the UK, implementing BSIPs across England, and working closely with our partners across the nation to improve services and encourage modal shift.

While the times we live in have brought unexpected challenges, I am heartened by our ongoing resilience, the amazing dedication of our drivers and staff, and our ability to adapt. It is these qualities, and our perseverance in the face of challenges that will help us transform our business and the wider sector, both for the good of our customers, and that of the planet.

Onward! n

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UK Bus & Coach 2022

Stagecoach

BUSES WILL PLAY A VITAL ROLE IN A POST PANDEMIC WORLD Carla Stockton-Jones, UK managing director for Stagecoach, explains how the group is making buses better

s we reflect on the past year, it’s clear that there have been some real highs and lows for our industry and we have all faced challenges like we have never seen before. But in amongst this, the highlight for me has been the way in which our bus and coach teams have risen to the challenge time and time again to keep the country moving, and I personally could not be prouder of the role that our Stagecoach teams have played in this.

At the time of writing, with the deep uncertainty around the spread of the Omicron variant, there is clearly a way to go before we come out of the pandemic.

That’s why it’s critically important that government continue to work with operators and local authorities to protect services, so they can continue to support our economy and our communities.

But as we think about a brighter future ahead and the eventual post-pandemic world that we are all waiting for, it’s clear that buses and coaches will play an absolutely crucial role in our future.

That’s why we were pleased to welcome the government’s commitment with the launch of the new National Bus Strategy. We have been pleased to work in partnership with our local authorities to develop more Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPS) than any other operator in the country, with plans that could make a real difference to our local communities.

It’s crucial now that the right level of funding is provided to meet the ambitions of local communities to deliver a stepchange in the quality of their services, and investment that will pay back to the country several times over in terms of protecting jobs, keeping communities connected and improving air quality by cutting polluting car journeys.

But alongside the National Bus Strategy, there needs to be a real

A

date. We were pleased to welcome the Scottish Transport minister to launch Perth’s first ever fleet of fully electric buses in December, which is part of a wider £21m investment in Stagecoach electric buses, and we are focused on accelerating our investment in 2022.

We are also taking major strides ahead in our plans to encourage more customers, and to ensure that we can provide the best service to our existing customers, and the new ones who may be using our services for the first time.

As part of our customer transformation strategy, we are progressing plans for a new customer contact centre, due to open in Perth in the spring. This dedicated new centre will provide a one-stop phone and digital contact point for customers right across the UK with a multi-skilled team operating an improved seven-day a week service with longer opening hours. In addition, major investment is being made

focus on how we can support the country’s net zero ambitions and that means driving real behaviour change.

The biggest potential of public transport is to reduce carbon emissions and improve local air quality, which comes from encouraging motorists to switch from the car to buses, trams, trains and coaches. We were proud to transport the prime minister, Boris Johnson, and other world leaders on our electric buses at the COP26 Climate Change Conference in November, but we must now seize the opportunities coming out of the conference to get others to see the benefits of our public transport networks and drive forward real change in modal shift.

At Stagecoach, as part of our new sustainability strategy - Driving Net Zero: Better Places to Live and Work - we are aiming to decarbonise our business by around 70% by 2035 and are targeting a zero emissions UK bus fleet by that

We launched Perth’s first ever fleet of fully electric buses in December

in a new customer relationship management system to help provide tailored support, better understand customers’ end-toend journeys, and quickly address any emerging common issues.

This will provide a significantly improved and consistent service for our customers.

We will also be supporting the pandemic recovery and environmental targets through the introduction of simpler, more consistent fares, easier to understand ticket types and through the use of technology, delivering new and more flexible products to welcome people back to bus.

Improving the range of our tickets available for purchase both online and through our app and introducing a range of bespoke solutions for business customers means we are well placed to welcome customers onto our services and play a key role in rebuilding the economy and reconnecting our communities in a sustainable way.

But we can’t meet our ambition for buses on our own. We need consistent policy across government to help deliver the step-change we all want for buses.

Particularly at a time when the immediate future and the pace of recovery from the pandemic remains unclear, we need support from governments at national and local level and a system where investment in public transport infrastructure, incentives to help people make greener choices, and using tax and other policies to make sure the citizens and businesses that do the right thing are rewarded. We need to be honest that technology alone will not provide all the solutions needed for a greener future and post pandemic recovery. It involves real changes in how we live, work and travel. Behaviour change and partnership working will determine our success or failure. n

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Driving you to a cleaner future

Our aim is to have a zero emission UK bus fleet and to decarbonise our business by around 70% by 2035. Future transport choices will be critical in the Race to Zero, and to meet the UK’s ambitions, we need real behavioural change.

We’re backing net zero, but we need you to back the bus.

PT_UKB&C_Ad_17.indd 17

07/01/2022 17:09

UK Bus & Coach 2022

The bus sector is working harder than ever to get people back on the bus while adapting to the so-called ‘new normal’

MAKING THE CHAIN MORE EFFICIENT EPM Group is aiming to empower bus operators to deliver efficiency improvements with the very latest software

ince March 2020 we have all experienced big changes in the way we live, work, shop and play. And public transport is not immune to those wider societal changes, many of which were already established trends before the pandemic, but Covid has only greatly accelerated that process. Meanwhile, the launch of England’s National Bus Strategy, plus changes to funding mechanisms and industry structure across the wider UK mean bus operators will need to embrace change now more than ever.

The bus sector is working harder than ever to get people back on the bus while adapting to the so-called ‘new normal’. Behind the scenes, operators are striving

S

to address the challenges of supply and demand and tailoring their networks accordingly, but those structural changes and financial challenges mean operators must also adapt and embrace new ways of working and tailor processes to ensure their businesses are as efficient as possible.

Just under 12 months ago two big names in the world of passenger transport software came together with the purchase

by EPM Bus Solutions of leading supplier Omnibus. Bringing these two businesses together offers many natural synergies, but now they are hoping to spark a revolution for bus operators that will help them streamline their operations and business processes and help make them ready for the post-Covid era.

NATURAL PARTNERS

Aiden Proctor, Omnibus’s scheduling suite product owner, takes up the story.

“A bus operator is a very complex machine,” he says. “There are a lot of moving parts and there’s a lot of activity taking place to ensure the service is delivered to the passenger. We like to think of those processes that got the bus to the bus stop as a chain, a chain that runs right through the organisation and one that brings together a variety of processes.”

That chain commences when the operator begins planning the shape of their network, perhaps that process may commence with some market research activity or probing historical bus patronage data. It enables the commercial team to configure a network that

provides the very best service possible to the passenger.

Aiden continues: “Once that’s in place you can move onto the timetables, then the schedules, driver duties and rotas. By that stage, you’re getting to the point where you need to put drivers onto vehicles and so you’re at the forward allocation process.

Then you’re finally at the day of operation and you’re opening the doors of the depot and putting the service out on the road.”

And it is here that many of the solutions that have been developed by EPM take over with platforms that allow control room staff to log dayto-day incidents like accidents, unexpected traffic congestion or bad weather. That process continues beyond the end of the day when the service has been delivered. EPM’s solutions allow operators to determine ‘how well did we do?’ with reporting on patronage, profitability, fuel consumption, customer feedback and reliability. That continues with BSOG calculations and contractual reporting to Local Transport Authorities (LTAs).

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EPM Bus Solutions Aiden says it means there’s quite a complex chain of events going on and each and every link in that chain needs to be managed effectively.

“Obviously with the current climate off the back of Covid, there’s a lot of pressure on operating costs and revenue,” he says. “It’s more important than ever that operators have the most efficient service they possibly can.”

ENHANCING SERVICE QUALITY AND EFFICIENCY

He says there are two parts to that process. Firstly, ensuring the service delivered is one that is of very high quality and that it encourages passengers to use it and, ultimately, grow patronage.

Secondly, this must be undertaken in the most efficient way possible.

“Those two things are pretty intertwined,” says Aiden. “It gives a good idea of how effective the bus operation is. Quite often that process starts with a high-level dashboard of KPIs containing the obvious things like patronage and revenue through to profitability, engineering quality and customer feedback. This got us thinking - how can we help operators really understand how effective and, in particular, efficient their organisation is?”

EPM began to look at the range of KPIs that the typical bus operator wishes to understand from that chain of events. It helps the entire chain, is for the most part, covered by processes that require input from the two companies’ software suite.

From the Omnibus products that cover scheduling, rostering, crew duties and depot allocation to the EPM processes that gather the operational data and help operators to understand the revenue, profitability and customer service aspects of networks.

“So we have most of the data to hand, which we can supplement with some third party data,” adds Aiden. “We began thinking about each individual link and how we can make it as efficient as it can possibly be.”

That process has been split into three broad areas: before the day - covering duties, scheduling and forward allocation; on the day -

covering running the service and control room processes; and after the day - where the performance of the service is reviewed.

From these broad areas, the processes are subdivided further by examining what can be measured, exploring the data that is required to improve efficiency further and the KPIs needed to make that process a reality. Meanwhile, the team began exploring how the solutions offered by both EPM and Omnibus can be embedded even further to ensure even more efficiency.

Nick Brookes, EPM’s software director, highlights one area where these moves to improve efficiency could bear fruit.

“We’ve been looking closely at control room processes,” he reveals. “Traditionally the Omnibus schedules would be imported into the EPM system to give the control room the

information about what is planned to operate that day. The EPM system is then used to record the incidents that will inevitably occur throughout the day, so, for example, breakdowns, traffic congestion or accidents that will inevitably have an impact on the service that is actually delivered.”

Nick says there are opportunities to bring together the two systems in a way that gives control room staff the very best opportunity to make improvements in real-time.

For example, there may be a driver who is delayed by traffic congestion in the first half of their duty, so the control room staff may need to extend their break period before they go back onto the road for their planned second half in order to ensure they meet legal or local requirements.

He continues: “That leads to a problem you have to solve immediately. Traditionally control room staff would have had to switch between different systems in order to determine what spare

Aiden Proctor

Nick Brookes

ASSISTING CONTROL ROOM STAFF

INSIGHTS: DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING EPM has a new solution called Insights that is already helping bus operators to improve efficiency. Insights aims to deliver unparalleled visibility of what’s happening throughout the bus operator by delivering real-time management information through interactive dashboards. It means the user can turn that data into information that enables them to drill down and identify trends over a period of time.

“Insights sits across the data we have in the EPM and Omnibus systems,” explains Nick Brookes, EPM’s software director. “It’s an automated process that brings all that data together into the dashboards which the user configures, so they get the outputs that are relevant to them. We work with the customer to understand what their requirements are and build it from there. It’s a very flexible tool.”

Nick also believes that this system will also assist both operators and Local Transport Authorities alike as the industry in England at least moves towards closer partnership working as a result of the Bus Service Improvement Plan process.

“We are speaking to some of our LTA clients about that at the moment,” he reveals. “We’re looking to get data-sharing agreements in place that will allow them to have access to the data cloud and work in partnership with their local operators using Insights.”

drivers are available to cover the work. You may also need to see what was planned for the driver to do for the rest of the day so you can devise a plan to solve the problem. What we want to do is to pull all of that data, bring it together in one place and give control room staff the tools to efficiently solve the problem.

“Ultimately, it’s a puzzle and at the moment they are having to use lots of different systems in different places to gather up the information they need to solve the problems that are in front of them.

That’s not a particularly efficient way of working.”

Nick adds that once the problem is solved, there are a variety of people located downstream that need to be informed about the changes the control room staff have made in order to ensure as robust a service as possible is delivered on the ground. This could be the engineering department, customer services and certainly both the drivers and passengers are going to need to be informed.

“It’s about sharing and passing information throughout the organisation rather than people having to resort to phone calls and emails,” he says. “These are quite time-critical decisions that need to be made and people in that sort of environment don’t have the time to spend ringing up lots of people to tell them what’s happening; they just need to put the information into one place and from there, everyone is informed about what’s happening.”

CUSTOMERINFORMED PROCESS

And EPM is working closely with customers during this process.

Nick reveals he has recently spent time in bus operator control rooms in a bid to understand the processes that could be improved.

As he notes, it is far better to see these processes in action rather than as a theoretical exercise.

“I’ve been to three or four sites so far and I’m keen to get out to a couple more, just so I can discover where the pressure points are where we can make some serious productivity and efficiency gains by bringing systems together,” he says. n

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07/01/2022 16:15

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07/01/2022 17:11

UK Bus & Coach 2022

Ticketer

3G SUNSET: GETTING AHEAD OF THE GAME Brad Todd, Ticketer Group’s chief product officer, on a forthcoming challenge for bus operators

f we think about our own everyday use of 4G or even 5G on our mobile phones, the switch from 3G has been almost seamless. Whilst these networks are available across the consumer world, they are not yet as well deployed across the wider Internet of Things (IOT) landscape. Within the bus industry specifically, there are of course many devices that still communicate directly from the bus via the 3G mobile network.

With the 3G network making way for faster and more versatile 4G and 5G mobile technology, we’ve been informed that network carriers will be shifting their dependency on the 3G network to these next generation systems.

With this focus, comes a need to free up the frequencies from 3G and reduce the cost of maintaining the 3G network. As a result, the network carriers have announced that they will not be able guarantee 3G network availability after 2022.

What does this mean in practice?

The 3G network will still be available throughout 2022, but if any faults occur with the infrastructure (for example masts), the carriers have advised their current plans mean they will be unable guarantee supporting maintenance after the end of 2022.

The silver lining is that 4G and 5G networks will offer better coverage than the current 3G network, and improved capacity to serve a higher number of devices within one area, at any one time.

They also offer higher speed and reduced latency. With that in mind, this case for change presents an opportunity for our industry to accelerate ‘Connected Bus’ thinking and to provide opportunities to future-proof operations.

I

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR OUR INDUSTRY?

The good news is that the network carriers have a great willingness to work with us to ensure a smooth

Some devices still communicate directly from the bus via the 3G mobile network

time information about where each bus in your fleet is at any one time, that data would not be transmitted should the bus remain in an area with no 3G network coverage. In situations with significant removal of network coverage, where your fleet may run without a signal for a longer period, it can have more of an operational impact.

transition. They also recognise that there is still a large requirement and dependency for 3G and want this shift to cause as little impact on the public transport sector across the country as possible. Beyond consumer devices such as mobile phones, they recognise there is still a very large number of devices that are still dependent on 3G, not just within public transport.

In terms of preparation, now is the time for operators to think about how they will maintain the connectivity for ticket machines, and other on-bus equipment dependent on 3G, across their fleets. If operators haven’t addressed this before 2023, the expectation at Ticketer is that we will still be able to manage data information flow around ticket management and sales for operators. We won’t, however, be able to predict any introduced latency due to the potential impact of coverage changes in some areas.

The most direct impact would be live access to real time information and location data. Rest assured that everything is stored on our Ticketer ETMs, and will be fully functional whilst off-line, and as soon as the bus regains connection, the Ticketer ETM will send through all the data to the back-office. However, if your operations are dependent on real

GETTING AHEAD OF THE GAME

Whilst the network shift is something that is being imposed on our industry by the network carriers, we have been working hard to help come up with solutions to pre-empt any potential issues on the horizon. At Ticketer, we are defining a range of solutions that can overcome the 3G concern, help future-proof and deliver operational efficiencies. Ultimately, we are here to help operators operate better - it is our key priority.

We believe that this presents a case for change and an exciting new horizon in terms of what a Connected Bus could offer.

It opens up new possibilities of operational management across all the various amount of equipment in play on any one single bus. Potential consolidation of equipment and communication could save both time and money.

The new network focus will

accelerate the discussions around operating a Connected Bus, where hardware and software solutions are integrated to provide a more seamless operation - and passenger experience. It provides an opportunity to automate manual processes and to create value that is better than the sum of its parts, by combining equipment and systems so they can benefit from each other. What if operators could integrate their ticketing systems with on-board CCTV and telematics? Imagine the improved solutions this Connected Bus prospect could provide.

And it doesn’t stop there, it’s much more than just consolidating data communications. Think of the improved data packages you could have without relying on multiple SIM providers.

The future vision is that buses will be manufactured with the physical infrastructure wiring already in place, minimising the complexity of installations, and built with an architecture that very much is modelled around interconnectivity of components on a bus through a plug and play type of network. This work is something that is already happening in Europe with the ITxPT standard leading the charge, and that we believe it will be introduced to the UK market over the coming year.

WHAT TO DO RIGHT NOW

This subject should be on the top of everyone’s agenda. If you’re an operator, the best thing we can advise is to consider all the pieces of equipment on your bus that rely on communications, if they depend on 3G and how reliant your business is on this connectivity. How many SIMs are currently used onboard your fleet?

Then please speak to us here at Ticketer about the options available - we’re in this together and we are ready to help. We would be happy to explain more about the 3G network situation, and the options you have available. ■

Please see Ticketer.com for more information on how we can help future-proof your business

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07/01/2022 16:18

Better journeys for bus passengers

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our Bus can give authorities Transport Focus is Passenger helping putSurvey, passengers at the heart of detailed the National Bus Strategy and Bus Service Improvement Plans. comparable, benchmarked passenger feedback.

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• passenger representation on bus service improvement plans setting targets for journey times, reliability,times, improvements • setting targets for journey reliability and customer satisfaction improvements and customer satisfaction • adeveloping Passenger Charter developing Passenger a Charter • promoting the passenger interest in local bus promoting the passenger interest in local bus partnerships partnerships.

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new best toolkit All of theOur guidance we’vepractice published, along on withpassenger on Bus Plans the briefirepresentation ngs we held on them, can Service be found Improvement at www.transportfocus.org.uk/national-bus-strategy. is available online at www.transportfocus.org.uk

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07/01/2022 17:23

UK Bus & Coach 2022

Urban Things

Passengers need to be presented with frictionless real-time journey planning and mobile ticketing

WHY SHARED DATA IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS UrbanThings explains on transport data needs to be centralised in a common format

he transport industry is facing a challenging future. The pandemic has forced people back into cars, so cities, local authorities and transport providers need to work together to encourage passengers back on board. How can the industry encourage passengers back to public transport? Is data sharing and technology the key to success?

Today’s passengers use technology to simplify every aspect of their lives. Yet in many ways, the transport industry remains fragmented and technologically underdeveloped.

Passengers want a simple network that can be used across multiple operators, with a clear pricing structure, real-time information and minimal friction. Bus Back Better, the government’s National Bus Strategy, presents a vision to meet this demand with improved and simplified bus services across the country.

T

Until transport data is centralised in a common format, no city will ever have the singular overview of transport supply and demand that is essential to the creation of an efficient, sustainable public transport network.

BUS BACK BETTER

This new governmental initiative requires that transport operators and local authorities collaborate and share data across platforms; however, this is obstructed by the lack of common data standards.

As bus technology choices have diverged over the years, there is still no universally accepted format for Account-Based Travel data, barcode ticketing and many other key enablers.

AN ENABLER FOR MAAS

Shared bus data is just the first step in enabling real and practical Mobility-as-a-Service. At a grassroots level, people just want

ABOUT URBANTHINGS UrbanThings is a UK-based technology company that provides cities, local authorities and passenger transport operators with an integrated mobility hub for MaaS, mobile ticketing, reservations, live vehicle tracking and rich passenger analytics. Their technology powers over 130 million passenger journeys a year, and they are also known as the team behind Bus Checker, the acclaimed ticketing, journey planning and real-time information app.

UrbanThings will be at Transport Ticketing Global (stand F54) in February where they would be more than happy to gather your input around the Mobility Charter, as well as discuss how they can help with implementing your Bus Back Better scheme. Alternatively, you can get in touch with the team on 020 7043 1680 or info@urbanthings.co

to get from A to B. Yet, without a simplified system, they will stick with a mode of transport that is most familiar, reliable and within their control - often the private car.

Passengers need to be presented with frictionless real-time journey planning and mobile ticketing in order to have faith in the system, which will in turn improve patronage. One ticket and one journey plan that spans multiple operators and modes. Shared and standardised data between the stakeholders is the key to successfully providing this.

UrbanThings and their MaaS platform can facilitate this collaboration by centralising all the various data configurations into one single mobility platform.

This data can then be combined and served back to the passenger through standardised interfaces including account-based apps.

This also provides transport operators and local authorities with powerful, behavioural data that shows how passengers are moving around their networks in real-time. Properly disseminated, this data can then be used to optimise their routes and services.

A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

Having seen the change in attitudes brought about by the Bus Back Better initiative, UrbanThings wanted to find a way to overcome and facilitate the sharing of data.

We have created the Mobility Charter to help the stakeholders understand what data they should share, how to share it and how they could benefit in return.

UrbanThings recognises that committing to and implementing the government initiative will take some time, so the charter is broken down into three manageable levels of compliance.

These can be deployed in stages, working towards full data transparency and collaboration via a central mobility platform.

The mobility charter is an open and living document.

UrbanThings invites all industry partners to engage with us to both share their ideas and discuss how the application of shared transport data is relevant to them. n www.urbanthings.co

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UK Bus & Coach 2022

Programme

THE CONFERENCE PROGRAMME Two days, eight sessions: UK Bus & Coach Conference 2022

DAY 1 25 JANUARY SESSION 1 THE FUTURE OF BUS AND COACH 9:30

With the bus and coach industries facing a crucially important year where demand needs to return, in this session delegates will hear first-hand the Government’s vision for buses and coaches.

SPEAKERS

n Robert Jack, conference welcome (9:30–9:35) n Graham Vidler (9:35–9:45) n Baroness Vere (9:45–10:00) n Questions to minister (10:00–10:30) SESSION 2 IMPROVING BUS SERVICES – ARE WE GETTING IT RIGHT? 10:45

Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs) have been created across England with the aim of creating successful partnerships between operators and local authorities.

Our expert panel looks the emerging trends and will share their views on whether BSIPs are focusing on the right issues and what they want to see from bus services across Great Britain in the future.

SPEAKERS

n Robert Jack, introduction to the session (10:45–10:50) n An overview of BSIPs, Alison Edwards, CPT Head of Policy (10:50–11:15)

n Martijn Gilbert, Go North East n Tobyn Hughes, MD Transport North East

SPEAKERS

n Robert Jack, introduction to the session (15:00–15:05) n Andy Carter MP (15:05–15:25) n Q&A (15:25–16:00)

SESSION 3 CHANGING BEHAVIOURS 12:15

YOUNG BUS MANAGERS NETWORK EVENT 16:00

The Committee on Climate Change has said that to be on track for net zero by 2050 we need to see one in ten car journeys made today made by bus by the end of this decade. This will require a fundamental change in behaviour but how do we get there and what are the trigger points for car users to reconsider their travel choices.

DAY 2 26 JANUARY SESSION 5 IN CONVERSATION WITH SHADOW MINISTER FOR BUSES & LOCAL TRANSPORT 9:30

We speak to Sam Tarry MP, Shadow Minister for Buses and Local Transport, on what we can expect from a Labour government for bus and coach.

SPEAKERS

n Robert Jack, introduction to the session (12:15–12:20) n Jane Davidson (12:20–12:35) n Andrew Schein, The Behavioural Insights Team (12:35–12:50) n Will Sandbrook, Nest Insight (12:50–13:05) n Q&A (13:05–13:30)

In a competitive labour market and some warning of a turnover tsunami or a war for talent how can the bus and coach sector recruit and retain its workforce?

SPEAKERS

n Robert Jack, introduction to the session (Midday–12:05) n Karen Cooper, Head of Stakeholder and People Engagement, Blackpool Transport (12:05–12:25) n Candice Mason, Director of Business, Masons Coaches (12:25–12:45) n Claire McCartney, Senior Policy Adviser, Resourcing and Inclusion, CIPD

SPEAKERS

n Robert Jack, introduction to the second day (9:30–9:35) n Sam Tarry and Robert Jack conversation (9:35–10:00) n Q&A (10:00–10:15)

CPT AND BACKHOUSE JONES OPERATIONS DISCUSS BUS REGULATION 13:45–14:45

SESSION 6 GROWING DOMESTIC TOURISM 10:30

SESSION 4 DELIVERING FOR LEFT BEHIND COMMUNITIES 15:00

Tourism was hard hit during the first year of the pandemic but in 2021 was fuelled by a strong domestic market as international travel remains restricted. How can the bus and coach industry help keep some of these people at home for their holidays as the pandemic eases?

While levelling up are buzzwords in the UK government and brought the Conservatives unprecedented electoral success what do they mean in practice and do they have a meaning beyond England?

SPEAKERS

n Robert Jack, introduction to the session (10:30–10:35) n Rob Dickson, Visit Scotland (10:35- 10:45) n Heledd Owen, Deputy Director, Marketing for Visit Wales (10:45–10:55) n Emma Peters, English Heritage (10:55–11:05) n Speaker from Bakers Dolphin n Phil Smith, CPT Coaching Manager (Q&A only)

PANEL DISCUSSION

facilitated by Robert Jack (11:15–Midday) n Huw Merriman MP, Chair of Transport Select Committee n Will Solomon, The Youth Work Unit Yorkshire and the Humber n Helena Bennett, Senior Policy Adviser, Green Alliance n Henrietta Brealey, CEO, Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce

SESSION 7 RECRUITING AND RETAINING EXCELLENCE WITHIN THE BUS AND COACH SECTOR 12:00

Robert Jack: Conference chair

SESSION 8 GO DIGITAL… AS EASY AS IT LOOKS? 13:30–14:00

Join Jonathon Backhouse as he highlights the era of digitalisation from an operators perspective.

Whilst paperless desks and digital platforms might sound the dream to some, it can be very frightening for others! Jonathon will discuss tips and provide a whistle stop tour of what works and what doesn’t!

SESSION 9 GETTING HEARD ON MODAL SHIFT 14:30

With increasing focus on electrification of vehicles, what does the industry need to do to get decision makers and the media to pay more attention to modal shift?.

SPEAKER

n Roger Harrabin, BBC’s Energy and Environment Analyst CONFERENCE CLOSE 15:45 SPEAKER

n Jane Cole, CPT President

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Speaker profiles

On January 26 the conference will address the issue of growing domestic tourism

THE SPEAKERS Biographies of those who we will hear from at UK Bus & Coach Conference 2022

which created the UK’s largest pension scheme, NEST.

Schools Council. Prior to that she was the CEO of Big White Wall, an online mental health service, and Finance Director at Recruit Media, a digital recruitment agency. Her early career was spent in investment banking.

GRAHAM VIDLER

HUW MERRIMAN MP

Chief Executive, CPT

Chair, Transport Select Committee

Graham joined CPT as Chief Executive in May 2019. Prior to joining CPT Graham worked in a wide variety of roles in financial services, most recently as Director of External Affairs for the workplace pensions trade body, the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association. He has also worked as a researcher in both the House of Commons and the Scottish Parliament, led the policy team at Which? and, as Director of Communications, was a member of the start-up team

BARONESS VERE

Transport Minister Baroness Vere of Norbiton was appointed as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport on 23 April 2019. She was previously a Government Whip from 21 December 2016 to 26 July 2019.

Before entering politics, she spent 4 years as the Executive Director of the Girls’ Schools Association, including 6 months as the General Secretary of the Independent

ALISON EDWARDS

Head of Policy, CPT Alison is the Confederation of Passenger Transport’s (CPT) Head of Policy and is responsible for CPT’s engagement with Government. She was previously a Civil Servant and has also worked in the charity sector

Huw is chair of the Transport Select Committee and has been MP for Bexhill and Battle since 2015. Before entering Parliament Huw worked in the legal professional.

The Transport Select Committee under his chairmanship has held inquiries and evidence sessions on a wide range of issues including the National Bus Strategy, the impact of Covid-19 on public transport and decarbonisation.

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UK Bus & Coach 2022 WILL SOLOMON

The Youth Work Unit Yorkshire and the Humber The Youth Work Unit Yorkshire and the Humber is a regional infrastructure organisation, working directly with young people, via a range of regional youth voice platforms, which are overseen by a regional Youth Voice Steering Group.

The Steering Group identifies issues that impact negatively on young people and co-creates solutions with its peers and organisations or individuals who are in a position to make positive change. Voice Platforms are open to young people aged 11-24.

Prior to becoming CEO in 2021, Henrietta was Director of Policy & Strategic Relationships leading the GBCC’s research, policy, stakeholder engagement and campaigns activity as well as management of the GBCC’s top tier of membership: the Patronage group. Henrietta was appointed to the role in 2015. In 2018 she was appointed to the GBCC board as an executive director. In 2019 she was named as one of Birmingham Live’s Brum 30 Under 30.

move the region towards a green, healthy, dynamic and thriving transport system. The role involves responsibility for Nexus where he has overseen the project to secure a £362m fleet for the Metro and introducing new ticketing systems. He plays leading roles in Transport for the North and the Urban Transport Group.

WILL SANDBROOK

Managing Director, Nest Insight JANE DAVIDSON

Former Welsh Government Minister and author of #futuregen: Lessons from a Small Country MARTIJN GILBERT

Managing Director, Go North East

HELENA BENNETT

Senior Policy Adviser, Green Alliance Helena is a senior policy adviser at Green Alliance, an environmental think tank and NGO. She works in the climate policy team and leads on decarbonising transport. Prior to working at Green Alliance, Helena was the sustainability lead in the innovation team at PwC and worked with the Climate Vulnerable Forum researching the impact of climate change on human rights.

the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland assessing the evidence of new energy-saving products’ impact on energy consumption, and works with water companies to reduce customers’ water usage.

Jane is the author of #futuregen: Lessons from a Small Country and passionate about living lightly.

She has a smallholding in west Wales where she and her family grow food organically and aim to live a low carbon life. She is Pro Vice-Chancellor Emeritus at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and Patron of the UK Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management. From 2000 to 2011, she was Cabinet Minister for Education, then Environment and Sustainability in Wales where she proposed legislation to make sustainability the central organising principle of government: the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act came into law in 2015.

Martijn is the Managing Director of Go North East, the region’s largest bus company, plus the subsidiary company East Yorkshire. Prior to joining GoAhead in 2018, Martijn spent nearly four years as the Chief Executive of Council-owned Reading Buses, an operation famed for a number of industry innovations and best practice.

Prior to this, he spent seven years at Arriva in both bus and rail divisions, following six years in the independent sector running his own small bus and coach business.

He is also a Fellow and Board Member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport.

Will is the Managing Director of Nest Insight, the research arm of the Nest pension scheme. He’s worked for 18 years in strategy, public policy, research and communications roles in the personal finance and pensions fields, including working for the UK government on financial inclusion policy and the design and implementation of their landmark automatic enrolment programme. Outside of Nest he has acted as an independent adviser on various research projects and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Retirement. He previously served as a member of the International Centre for Pensions Management’s research committee.

ANDY CARTER MP

HENRIETTA BREALEY

CEO, Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Henrietta is CEO of the Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce. The GBCC is a mid-sized business membership and support organisation that exists to Connect, Support & Grow local businesses.

ANDREW SCHEIN

The Behavioural Insights Team

TOBYN HUGHES

Managing Director, Transport North East

Andrew oversees projects in BIT’s work in energy, transport, and circular economy policy. Andrew managed BIT’s partnership with BEIS assessing energy suppliers’ evidence regarding the impact of alternatives to physical IHDs, manages BIT’s partnership with

Tobyn is Managing Director of Transport North East which develops and delivers shared transport policy for the area’s councils, including a new £6.8bn North East Transport Plan to

A former journalist at commercial radio stations around the UK, Andy launched several radio stations in the 1990s having won commercial radio licences. In 2001 Andy joined the Guardian Media Group, initially as the programming director of their radio business in Leeds.

Andy played an instrumental role in the launch of Smooth Radio around the UK, based at MediaCity in Salford, and in 2010 he became the group MD. In 2014 he left radio to launch his own consultancy business in retail branding.

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Speaker profiles In Parliament, Andy is the chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Excluded Children. More locally, one of his key priorities is bringing more transport investment to Warrington. He was successful in his campaign for a Town Deal bid alongside the council, with Warrington being one of the first to be awarded funding. Warrington was also successful in its bid for ZEBRA funding, with £20m secured for an all-electric bus fleet.

SAM TARRY MP

Shadow Minister for Buses and Local Transport Sam is the shadow transport minister and has been the Member of Parliament for Ilford South since he was elected in 2019. After this election, Sam was appointed to the Transport Select Committee in March 2020, where he served until 22 February 2021. Sam was appointed as the shadow transport minister in January 2021.

ROB DICKSON

Visit Scotland Rob joined VisitScotland in August 2021 and is the director of industry and destination development. He has over 30 years’ experience in senior public sector roles. Responsible for delivering a wide range of services and projects involving economic development, tourism and environmental issues.

Rob was at Scottish Borders Council from 2011-21 and was seconded for two years to Scottish Government leading the work to establish South of Scotland Enterprise in April 2020.

in the private & public sectors and has also represented coach & bus operators through CPT at regional level with stakeholders in the North West of England and was also Chairman of Greater Manchester Bus Operators Association.

HELEDD OWEN

CLAIRE MCCARTNEY

Deputy Director, Marketing, Visit Wales

Senior Policy Adviser, Resourcing and Inclusion, CIPD

Heledd has worked in a variety of private and public sector communications roles including at marketing agencies, as deputy prime minister John Prescott’s press officer and chief press officer at the UKG’s Department for International Development.

Most recently Heledd was head of communications for climate change at the Welsh Government advising Ministers on marketing, stakeholder, crisis, media and digital communications.

Claire is the Resourcing and Inclusion Policy Adviser at the CIPD. For the last two years she has been running her own research and consultancy organisation.

Claire specialises in the areas of diversity & inclusion, flexible working, resourcing and talent management. She has also conducted research into meaning and trust at work, age diversity, workplace carers and enterprise and has worked on a number of international projects. She is the author of several reports and articles and regularly presents at seminars and conferences.

KAREN COOPER

Head of Stakeholder and People Engagement, Blackpool Transport Karen is head of stakeholders at Blackpool Transport, the award winning, major bus and tram operator for Blackpool and the Fylde Coast. The company operates bus and tram services, Heritage Tram Tours and Rail Replacement services. Joining Blackpool Transport in 2015, Karen and her team have led the business through a sustained period of change which has placed the customer at the heart of what it does.

EMMA PETERS

Senior Marketing Manager, Stonehenge and National Travel Trade, English Heritage

ROGER HARRABIN

BBC’s Energy and Environment Analyst

Emma is Stonehenge and National Travel Trade Senior Marketing Manager for English Heritage. She joined the Travel Trade team in 2013 from the Philharmonia Orchestra at London’s Southbank Centre and was previously part of the National Trust’s marketing team.

CANDICE MASON

Director of Business, Masons Minibus & Coach Hire Candice is from Masons coaches based in Tring Hertfordshire. A family-operated business running for over 35 years, providing a range of transport solutions from school transport, private hire and a programme of days excursions and holidays. Candice has been in the coach industry for only a few short years, and her successful career outside of coaching has enabled her to bring a different perspective to how Masons Coaches approach challenges.

Masons Coaches employ 35 staff, four of which are apprentices, and has successfully put through four people on their purpose designed training programme.

PHIL SMITH

Coaching Manager, CPT Phil has over 40 years of experience in the coach & bus industry working at all levels of management with operators both

Roger Harrabin has cemented his place as one of the media's most influential voices on environment, transport, energy and all things green after reporting on these issues for over two decades.

His current role is the BBC's Environment Analyst, working across all media from the Today Programme to the Ten O'Clock News, Newsnight and BBC World.

He has traversed the globe for stories on globalisation, health and the role of women, and he has interviewed many influential figures including Tony Blair, Al Gore and the former European Commission’s President Barroso. n

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