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Agenda Item No. 8
Meeting:
Putting Passengers First Committee
Date:
13th April 2015
From:
Director of Operations
Subject:
Partnership Plus Centro/National Express Delivery Update
Lead Member:
Councillor Hartley - Putting Passengers First
Purpose of Report
1.
To provide members with an update of Centro’s Transforming Bus Travel
(TBT) Partnership Plus agreement with National Express West Midlands
(NXWM)
2.
To inform members of some of the key actions in the development a new
alliance with NXWM following the expiry of Partnership Plus and links to the
development of the ITA West Midlands Bus Policy.
3.
To summarise the main discussion points arising from the UK Bus Summit on
12th February 2015, and how these relate to partnership development in the
West Midlands.
Recommendations
4.
The Committee is recommended to:
a) Note the progress delivering the Partnership Plus agreement with National
Express West Midlands, including the positive increases in customer
satisfaction.
b) Note the work underway to further develop the partnership through
negotiation of a new agreement to operate from July 2015, and how this
relates to the emerging new ITA Bus Policy.
Background
5.
Voluntary and statutory partnerships are the mechanism that enables Centro
to influence the whole of the bus network (the vast majority of which is
provided by private sector bus operators on a commercial basis) in order to
support a wide range of objectives including sustainability, social inclusion and
economic growth. Partnerships ensure that we have agreed deliverables and
an ability to hold each other to account to further invest in the network.
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Objectives include greater bus and highway infrastructure investment,
improved joint passenger information and better customer service.
6.
Centro has specific ‘Partnership Plus’ agreements with National Express West
Midlands and Arriva Midlands. This reflects the strong relationship between
Centro and these operators and their resource, capacity and inclination to
deliver above and beyond what might be achievable with some of the regions
smaller operators.
7.
The two year Partnership Plus agreement with National Express West
Midlands was signed in July 2013. Designed to be far reaching and
challenging with 83 deliverables it allows Centro and National Express to be
held to account (including by each other) in delivering an improved bus
network during tough economic times. The aim of the agreement is to provide
improvements for customers in key areas as follows:
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Transformation and innovation through partnership
Customer Information
Safety and Crime
Highways
Ticketing and Swift
Customer Engagement
Employees
Marketing and Branding
Vehicles
Bus Stations and Infrastructure
Cost Control
8.
The Partnership has won national acclaim, being recognised as an industry
leading partnership in the UK, winning Partnership of the Year at the 2014
National Transport Awards and Putting Passengers First Award at the 2014
UK Bus Awards.
9.
As we head into the final three months of the partnership 41 objectives are
already complete with a further 29 on target for completion by July. This report
highlights some of the more high profile initiatives and how they are
progressing. Overall summary of progress is shown in the dashboard
indicator (figure 1).
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Figure 1: Progress against Partnership Plus Commitments
Sprint
10.
Work is continuing on the detailed design of stops and bus priority measures
with Birmingham, Sandwell and Dudley Councils for the first Sprint route. This
will operate between Birmingham City Centre, via Broad Street and Hagley
Road to Quinton. A procurement exercise is underway to select a vehicle
supplier and discussions are ongoing with the DfT, seeking permission for the
operation of 24m vehicles. This will require a change to secondary legislation
and so will delay the opening of Sprint until 2017.
Vehicles
11.
Within Partnership Plus, NXWM committed to the delivery of 300 new vehicles
and delivery of these is ongoing with a new bus now coming into service on
average every two days. The most recent additions to the fleet have been in a
new ‘Crimson’ livery and are Euro 6 standard, which almost eliminate harmful
exhaust emissions entirely. The first Crimson buses are operating on route 9,
which runs through some areas of particularly poor air quality including
Bearwood (in Sandwell) and Windmill Hill (in Dudley).
12.
The majority of the new buses, and many of the existing vehicles, are also
being route branded. This has been successful at providing routes with their
own identity which proves popular with passengers and makes then stand out
effectively. It also enables promotional messages about frequency and cost to
be incorporated. All new buses are also being named, a commitment
requested by Members of this committee following a best-practice visit to
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Brighton in 2013, when it was felt this practice provided a more personal touch
and gives passengers and drivers a greater sense of pride in the buses.
13.
One of the flagship deliverables within the agreement is the commitment to
deliver a number of ‘Gold Corridors’ now referred to as ‘Platinum’. The aim is
to provide a transformation in vehicles, service quality and journeys times in
key corridors.
14.
NXWM have worked with Centro Officers, Members and other stakeholders to
develop the vehicle specification and the first buses, on routes 900 and 957,
will be launched in May. Features will include wi-fi, next stop audio-visual
announcements and extra comfortable seats. The vehicles will be painted in a
striking Platinum livery and provide a step-change in service delivery. Later in
the summer, Platinum buses will also be launched on routes 934, 935, 936,
997 and X51.
Highways
15.
Platinum is also about delivering improved, reliable journey times for
customers to help grow patronage and so these routes have been chosen
because there are already good levels of bus priority, or additional priority has
been promised by Local Authorities along the routes. Significantly, Solihull
Council are now consulting on a new bus lane along Lode Lane, to be part
funded by the council, Centro and the Local Growth Fund, which will reduce
journey times into and Solihull Town Centre from the north and the Jaguar
Land Rover site. The 957 has been selected as Platinum route directly as a
result of this initiative.
16.
The development of a ‘highway hot spot’ list of pinchpoints that affect reliable
bus operations (commitment 33) has already enabled the case to be made for
a number of small schemes to be delivered in the Black Country to improve
bus journey time reliability through a Quick Wins 2 fund, agreed with the Black
Country Districts, and subsequently contributed toward the successful bid for
schemes to improve bus reliability made to the Greater Birmingham and
Solihull LEP. Work continues to develop this process further; identifying
interventions, prioritising measures and establishing business cases to deliver
further improvements
17.
The progress on developing highways schemes is so important, not just
because it leads to improved journey time reliability for passengers but it also
enables NXWM to make the case for increased vehicle investment as it
reduces operating cost. As a result of this, agreement has been reached
between Centro and NXWM to employ a member of staff to work closely with
district councils to work up scheme proposals in more detail and identify
packages of work that can be used to secure future funding settlements. This
post will be appointed to in the summer and is thought to be another ‘first’ in
bus partnership working in the UK.
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Employees
18.
Great strides have been made in training and staff development. The new
Master-driver initiative provides an opportunity for career progression amongst
driving staff and the ‘Golden Rules of Customer Service’ are proving effective
in improving customer perception of drivers. This was highlighted by
Passenger Focus at the national launch of the 2014 Customer Satisfaction
survey results, with satisfaction with the attitude of the driver rising by over
10% since Partnership Plus was launched.
Infrastructure
19.
Centro has met its commitment to deliver 350 new shelters on the network. A
framework contract has also been put into place for the provision of new
premier quality town/city centre and interchange shelters, the first examples of
which have been installed in Wolverhampton (Stafford Street) in March. Work
has also been undertaken to modify some of the shelters in Birmingham City
Centre which were installed in 2012 following passenger feedback and
following stakeholder consultation modifications are planned at further sites.
20.
Work is progressing with Coventry City Council to deliver integrated public
transport and wayfinding infrastructure across the city, which will lead to the
installation of totems similar to those in Birmingham City Centre. Discussions
are also underway with Wolverhampton City Council to deliver the system in
the city centre there too, to support the wider public realm improvements.
21.
Whilst the proposed new bus station at Merry Hill has not been delivered due
to the change in ownership at Merry Hill, discussions are underway with InTu,
the new owners, to deliver this in the future. Instead, work is progressing to
redevelop Cradley Heath Interchange with significantly improved bus
interchange facilities and this is due to open later this spring.
The
refurbishment of Dudley Bus station has not yet been delivered. This is
because a number of schemes are being considered that include the possible
full redevelopment of the bus station. It would not be cost effective to
undertake a refurbishment while other options are being considered.
Monitoring
22.
As well as monitoring the delivery of the individual commitments, a key aim of
the partnership is to increase levels of satisfaction with bus services. This is
monitored through the six-monthly independent Passenger Focus Bus
Satisfaction Survey. The 2014 national survey results were results announced
in February 2015 and showed satisfaction increased in almost every single
service attribute, with overall satisfaction year-on-year increasing again from
86% to 87%.
23.
As well as the positive increase in satisfaction these results were notable
because Centro is no longer the PTE area with lowest satisfaction, with scores
now ahead of Manchester (85%) and West Yorkshire (86%). The West
Midlands is the only area that has seen continued increase since 2012.
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24.
This survey also revealed that over 50% of users have alternative means of
transport available but made a positive choice to use the bus – i.e. for over
half of users it is not the mode of last resort.
Future Partnership Development
25.
At its meeting of 18th March 2015, the ITA considered future Bus Policy for the
West Midlands, which included a number of objectives for how buses should
support wider the economic and social objectives. Members requested a
further report in June to set out an implementation and funding plan identifying
the level of resource and policy levers required to deliver these objectives.
26.
The Partnership Plus agreement between National Express West Midlands
and Centro ends in July 2015. Work has begun to identify how the partnership
can be developed to ensure that the objectives agreed by the ITA can be met
through a strengthened alliance between Centro and National Express.
27.
The voluntary partnership between Centro and NXWM, along with Centro’s
partnership agreements with other operators and stakeholders, have delivered
many improvements to recent years and relationships remains strong. It is
recognised that there are alternatives available if voluntary partnership cannot
deliver local objectives. A number of members and officers attended the UK
Bus Summit in February where the merits of various mechanisms being
pursued across the country were debated. A summary of this conference is
provided as a separate briefing note to this committee.
Financial Comments
28.
There are no financial implications arising out of the recommendations of this
update report. Financial implications to Centro regarding a future partnership
agreement with National Express West Midlands will be included as part of
recommendations to emerge from the potential ideas mentioned above.
Legal Comments
29.
The legal implications and benefits of promoting partnership agreements are
contained in this report.
Stephen Rhodes
Director of Customer Experience Director
Centro Media Contact:
Steve Swingler, Media Manager
tel:
(0121) 214 7073
email: steveswingler@centro.org.uk
Contact Officer:
Steve Hayes, Network Support and Partnerships Manager
tel:
(0121) 214 7305
email: stevenhayes@centro.org.uk
Background Papers:
TBT Partnership Plus (Centro & NXWM)
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