BUS USERS UK Annual Report 2010

Chairman’s Report
The role of Bus Users UK in the new era with Passenger Focus as
bus passenger champion became clearer during 2010. We bring a range of skills and experience to the table that have been developed in the quarter-century since Caroline Cahm recognised that bus users lacked any sort of voice and founded what is now Bus Users UK. In the past few years we have refined our approach to surgeries and complaints – our two cornerstones – with a commitment to continue and expand our surgeries programme under a dedicated Surgeries Officer, Sue Dawson, and the streamlining of our complaints process, now on a more sophisticated system that allows our new Complaints Officer (England), Mike Gilson, to review and update progress on all of the complaints that come through Bus Users UK.

Mike is one of the new members of staff that we recruited during 2010, when we also welcomed Bill Wright as our Financial Administrator and Nicola Parkins, initially helping with membership administration, but subsequently we have given her a more strategic role as External Affairs Coordinator. More recently we have appointed Melanie Britton as our membership secretary. Our new members of staff are working out of our Shepperton office, which has become very much the main focus of our activities, under Stephen Morris as General Manager. I believe we now have a first-class team in place to continue the central work of Bus Users UK, with a most effective team in place at Bus Users UK Cymru – Margaret Everson, Barclay Davies and Bethan Davies, as well as the local area representatives. Caroline Cahm keeps a motherly eye on what is, after all, her baby, and Vice Chairman Jeff Anderson has taken on the role as contact with our English groups and local representatives. Julian Osborne continues to provide us with human resources and complaints advice.

All in all, I believe we have a first-class team looking after the interests of bus users throughout the UK. It has taken us some time to get to this situation, but as I step down as Chairman I am confident that we have good people in place who can deal effectively with bus passengers, bus companies, transport authorities, government and all of the external bodies we deal with. I am proud to have helped to guide Bus Users UK through the past six years and wish my successor well. I shall still be around, editing Bus User magazine and building up our work in my native Scotland.

We are grateful to the continuing support of Bus Users UK members, who are very much our eyes and ears, and from our external funding bodies, particularly in the difficult times ahead when the future of so many supported bus services appears to be at risk. We shall continue working with other bodies, including Passenger Focus, to ensure that bus users get a fair deal and that people at every level are reminded just how important bus travel is, not only to the people of the UK, but also to the economy of the UK. Without bus services, many people will be unable to get to work, to the shops, to school; for most, the motor car – particularly with fuel prices rising to frightening levels – is just not an option, whatever some politicians may believe.

Gavin Booth
Chairman

BUS USERS UK
Chairman Gavin Booth

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Bus Users UK — who are we?
Bus Users UK, formerly known as the National Federation of Bus Users, is an independent group that was formed to give bus passengers a voice. We have the ear of all the major bus companies and a lot of the smaller ones too, of their trade organisation and of the Government and local authorities. Bus Users UK is not aligned to any political party.
We aim:
• To strengthen the voice of bus users in the discussion of public
transport issues
• To increase the influence of bus passengers on local and national
decisions affecting bus services
• To develop good communication between bus companies
and their passengers
• We organise local bus users surgeries, where passengers can get
to talk to their bus managers and local government officers, tell them what they think — and hear their viewpoint, too
• We help with local problems, both for individuals and for groups
• We are partners in the Bus Appeals Body
• We encourage and promote good practice in the bus industry

Bus Users UK PO Box 119, Shepperton TW17 8UX
Tel: 01932 232574 E-mail: enquiries@bususers.org

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

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General manager’s report
We seem to have been in a perpetual state of transition for some years now: and 2010 was no exception! The whole landscape of representing bus passengers has changed since consideration was first given to statutory bus passenger representation in the run up to the 2008 Local Transport Act, and has brought our work increasingly under the spotlight.

During 2010 Passenger Focus took on its full role as bus passenger champion, with effect from 1 April, but was already working as a ‘shadow’ organisation. We have continued to work closely with them and explore areas where we can work together. During 2010 we ran some ‘pilot’ surgeries to give Passenger Focus an additional source of evidence for their bus passenger satisfaction surveys, targeting places they were using for their surveys. This will hopefully lead to greater joint working with them on surgeries during 2011.

Sadiq Khan, the transport minister, affirmed that the Bus Appeals Body and Bus Users UK should continue to act its complaints handling work, and he called upon the bus industry to support us to enable us to carry out our work satisfactorily. Passenger Focus has been carrying out a major study of how complaints are handled and we have cooperated fully with this.

Our activities had increased during 2009, whilst our resourcing hadn’t, and the bus companies who support us took heed of Sadiq Khan’s request to ensure we were adequately supported in 2010. Naturally the bus companies don’t expect us to regard them as a bottomless pit of finance, and we have been a lot more rigorous in ensuring that we had firm business proposals in place for the bus companies to consider in 2010. During the year we also strengthened our financial controls by employing Bill Wright as our financial administrator. Our Company Limited by Guarantee, NFBU Ltd, is now fully functioning and Bill is also our company secretary.

Under our new funding regime bus companies take out associate membership at a fee based on their fleet size, which gives a more equitable spread of the cost, and the increased revenue has helped us to begin to build up our heavily depleted reserves brought about by our higher profile as well as to continue to develop our activities and become a more effective organisation. That task continues and will continue throughout 2011.

One major impact Passenger Focus had on us was that Phil Tonks, our Officer for England, was recruited by them. We were sorry to lose Phil who worked tirelessly for us and helped us to build up the profile of the organisation. We did not replace him directly, but instead we have organised our activities in a more structured way. So this year has seen major structural change with new appointments running complaints handling, financial management and external affairs, and Sue Dawson at Stoke redeployed to oversee our surgeries operation from the Stoke office. All our other English and UK-wide activities are now run from the Shepperton office.

Stephen Morris has reduced his external affairs role, passing much of the work on to Nicola Parkins. We have increased our contact with the Department for Transport, both at Ministerial and official levels, and have written to all English MPs (outside London) to remind them of our activities. We are also represented now on the Department for Transport’s Bus Partnership Forum. By the end of the year we were also helping Campaign for Better Transport organise the Save our Buses campaign for launch in 2011.

Phil Tonks’ role in liaising with local groups has in the main passed to Jeff Anderson, who was elected as Vice Chairman at the 2010 AGM in Nottingham, and we were actively involved in helping new groups set up in Milton Keynes and Bath during the year. We have tried to involve local groups more in consultation work, which in 2010 included a review of how the regulatory framework could be used more effectively and the Competition Commission’s exhaustive review of the bus industry. We also started work on providing evidence to the Transport Select Committee’s enquiry into the effect of local authority funding cuts into local bus services, which has been ongoing into 2011.

2009 was a year when we put in a lot of work behind the scenes to ensure our systems were fit for purpose. 2010 has seen us put a lot more structure into place and has seen us raise our profile especially with Government, and it’s been a year where bus companies have begun to take more notice of us too, with some real input into their customer service ethos. 2011 and 2012 will see us continuing to develop; this last two years has seen us put in some vital foundational work and we are in a stronger position to face an exciting and challenging future.

Stephen Morris

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Financial Report for 2010
The year 2010 has proved to be an interesting one financially for Bus Users UK. The general financial constraints affecting the whole country coupled with the inevitable changes and uncertainties generated by a change of government have led to considerable pressures being put on the public transport sector. Reduced levels of funding to Local Authorities and a coming reduction of 20% in Bus Service Operators’ Grant, previously known as Fuel Duty Rebate, coupled with the ever-increasing cost of fuel, have all impacted heavily on the finances of bus companies and local authorities alike.

In the summer of 2010 representatives of the major bus companies met with Bus Users UK to discuss the scope of work being done in the future and to agree a suitable method of funding based on vehicle fleets. This has now been agreed and hopefully this secures a very significant proportion of our income going forward.

Shortly after that meeting a number of changes took place at Bus Users UK, including the appointment of Mike Gilson to receive and investigate your complaints and myself as Financial Administrator to replace Stephen Le Bras in handling the day-to-day running of the finances. I would like to thank Stephen for all the help he has given me in the handover and I am pleased to say that he will still retain a strong interest in Bus Users UK and has agreed to review the accounts that I produce. In conclusion I should like to thank all of our supporters among the membership and bus industry and those in the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Government whose continued backing is crucial to the continued success of Bus Users UK.

Bill Wright
Financial Administrator

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BUS USERS UK representation on other bodies
Bus Passengers’ Platform (Scotland)
Bus Partnership Forum (DfT)
Campaign for Better Transport
Concessionary Fares Stakeholder Panel (DfT)
European Passengers Federation Journey Solutions
Passenger Focus
* Board (bus advisor)
* Bus Board
* Bus Stakeholder Board
Road Operators’ Safety Council
Save our Buses Campaign
Advisory Group
UK Bus Awards
Bus Users UK is also a partner (with the Confederation of Passenger Transport) on the Bus Appeals Body.

BUS USERS UK CYMRU is regularly represented at strategic meetings held by the following bodies:
ATCO – Association of Transport Coordinating Officers – Wales
Cardiff Community Safety Partnership
Denbighshire Rural Public Transport Forum
MANGO (Monmouthshire alliance for neurological groups/ organisations)
Neath Port Talbot Transport Forum
Neath Port Talbot Community Voluntary Services Forum
North Pembrokeshire Public Transport Users Forum
Rhondda Cynon Taf – Better Public Transport Steering Group
Sewta (South East Wales Transport Area) Board, Directorate and Bus
STOP (Safer Travel on Public Transport) (DfT-established group)
Strategy Working Group.
Swansea Transport Forum
SWWITCH (South West Wales Integrated Transport Consortium) – Key stakeholder meetings and workshops
Taith (North Wales transport consortium) – Key stakeholder meetings and workshops
TraCC (Trafnidiaeth Canolbarth Cymru) – Key stakeholder meetings and workshops
TrawsCambria steering group

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

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

Bus Users UK Cymru continues to have representation on a wide range of bodies which are listed in Bus Users UK Cymru’s own very detailed annual report. It also continues to run a network of nine local representatives operating on an hourly-paid basis. They are Paul Harley (South East Wales), Joyce Porter (Mid Wales), Joyce North (North East Wales), Jim Maggs (Swansea/Neath- Port Talbot), Judi Hartland (Pembrokeshire), John Richards (North Wales Central), Greg Varney (Powys), Tudor Thomas (Cardiff) and Hywel Jones (Carmarthenshire). Bus Users UK Cymru has its own website (www.bususerswales.org) on which you can see the full report, or contact the Cardiff office for a copy on CD-ROM.

During the year to end of March 2010, Bus Users UK Cymru handled 367 complaints where a bus passenger felt they had not had a satisfactory response from the bus operator. Barclay Davies, Officer for Wales said: ‘over the many thousands of bus journeys people take every day only a few go wrong and Bus Users UK Cymru only gets involved in the few cases where people have a particular unresolved grievance. Taking the last 12 months, we are pleased to see the level of complaints has not increased (fell by 4%). However,’ he continued, ‘reliability issues such as a bus running late or not running, now account for over a third (35%) of the issues we take up on behalf of bus users. The second recurring complaint accounts for a fifth of those we receive (21%) and relates to the level of service provided. This might be because a bus service is not frequent enough, has been withdrawn or no service is provided.’

MONITORING
Bus Users UK Cymru also conducts incognito surveys assessing the quality of sample bus journeys made in all of 22 local authority areas of Wales. Bus users are concerned that there is a bus stop, that the bus arrives, the destination is correct and that some basic simple things are good, for example, the seats and the windows should be clean, the driver should be polite and the ride should be acceptable. Bus Users UK Cymru has been carrying out these surveys over a couple of years and from our random monitoring we can see that there are definite improvements. The annual monitoring exercise has helped the bus industry improve their offering to the public. Like any survey bad practice can be found, but the best is getting better and there are a lot of very good bus services out there for people to use.

LOOKING AFTER BUS USERS’ INTERESTS
Bus Users UK Cymru also attended over 30 meetings with various local authority transport consortia, public transport forums and other bodies to represent the bus user. Its role is to ensure that new strategies and changes in policy do not unreasonably penalise the interests of the bus user and staff have taken part in consultations and strategy meetings for the redevelopment of bus stations in Rhyl, Cardiff and Swansea.

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Surgeries 2010
During 2010 Bus Users UK undertook 41 surgeries throughout the country. Of these 18 were in Wales, 21 in England and two in Scotland.

Following the departure of Phil Tonks to work for Passenger Focus Susan Dawson has taken over the running of our surgeries programme in England, running it from our Stoke office. The transition left us with fewer surgeries than usual in the summer, but Susan produced more surgeries than usual in the autumn and winter. Winter surgeries on board a bus are not always a lot of fun, and she took the opportunity to develop a good working relationship with Metro, the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive, to create a programme of surgeries in their bus stations. This gave us interesting experience of doing surgeries in a slightly different format and also enabled us to continue some useful work of bus passenger representation during the colder weather.

The West Midlands ‘Your Bus Matters’, undertaken with Centro, the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive, was very much Phil Tonks’s project and he continues to organise this in his new role at Passenger Focus. However our volunteer network in the West Midlands has still enabled us to maintain our involvement in these valuable events, and we are grateful for the involvement of Phil Parkin and Philip Green. In order to emphasise the multi-modal nature of surgeries in the West Midlands they have, at Centro’s instigation, been rebranded ‘Your Public Transport Matters’, which is perhaps a rather less memorable title.

We continue to work with Passenger Focus on our surgeries programme, particularly to help them gather additional material for their bus passenger satisfaction surveys; Medway and the Hampshire Roving Surgery (which took in Winchester, Basingstoke and Andover all in one day). The Milton Keynes surgery was also attended by passenger Focus; this was organised in response to unrest amongst passengers there and was especially memorable, not only for the fact that passengers’ ire seemed for the most part to have died down, but for the fact that Arriva managed to get their bus inside Milton Keynes’ famous undercover shopping centre.

Bus Users UK Cymru arranged 14 bus user surgeries in different towns and cities across Wales. In the last 12 months these have taken place in Aberystwyth, Prestatyn, Denbigh, Wrexham, Queensferry, Ebbw Vale, Bridgend, Haverfordwest, Cardiff, Barry, Dolgellau, Newbridge, Risca and Tonypandy. Barclay Davies, Officer for Wales said: ‘surgeries offer a chance for bus users to come and talk directly to bus managers, the local authority or us, to highlight a particular issue and during these events over the last year we have seen around 730 people’.

The graphic above shows the main issues raised at surgeries in England during 2010. The actual figures are on the next page, and a comparison with 2009 figures shows that there were more comments about level of service and vehicle condition in 2010.

Surgeries in England, 2010
Medway, 15 January
Wolverhampton, 9 February
Hampshire (Roving Surgery), 10 February
Walsall, 16 February
Norwich, 21 May
Sheffield, 29 June
Nottingham, 8 July
Derby, 16 July
Sandwell (Oldbury), 11 August
Longton, 13 August
Milton Keynes, 17 September
Dudley, 22 September
Crewe, 1 October
MetroCentre, Gateshead, 5 October
Macclesfield, 13 October
Torquay, 16 October
Coventry, 20 October
Solihull, 3 November
Keighley, 19 November
Bristol, 26 November
Wakefield, 9 December

Surgeries in Wales, 2010
Tonypandy, 26 February
Bala, Llanderfel, Llandrillo and Corwen, 3 June
Newcastle Emlyn, 4 June
Carmarthen, 9 June
Llanelli, 10 June
Ammanford, 11 June
Pontypridd, 25 June
Colwyn Bay, 30 June
Caerphilly, 6 July
Cardiff, 7 July
Llandudno, 30 July
Porthcawl/Maesteg, 27 August
Wrexham, 13 September
Rhyl/Denbigh/Corwen, 26 September
Ruthin, 29 September
Llandrindod Wells, 7 October
Caernarfon, 12 November
Haverfordwest, 19 November

Surgeries in Scotland, 2010
Edinburgh, 25 May
Edinburgh, 7 September

From a sample of our England surgeries, issues raised were in 2010 were largely similar to the previous year. However level of service was clearly a greater issue than in 2009, as was ‘vehicle condition’, which included heating: heating accounted for about 28% of the comments on vehicle condition, and another 15% related to cleanliness and litter. We had noted an increase in comments about the behaviour of other passengers in the latter part of 2009, so we have now included as a new category in 2010. Ironically it accounted for a very small proportion of comments in 2010.

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Handling complaints
The bulk of the work we undertake involves dealing with bus passengers’ complaints. Our rule is that they must go to the operator first, and we only get to deal with the complaint if the bus company has not resolved it to the passenger’s satisfaction. In addition to those complaints where something has gone wrong with a particular journey, or where general reliability is an issue, we are trying to find ways of dealing with more general complaints, such as services being cut and fare rises, though as it’s difficult to reach a formal resolution in such cases these are not included in the complaints statistics.

We have continued to develop our complaint handling in 2010, and appointed a new complaints manager, Mike Gilson, in August. All complaint handling is now undertaken via the Shepperton office and Julian Osborne continues to give additional complaint handling support.

Bus Users UK handles a steady stream of enquiries and complaints from bus users each year. Not all enquiries lead to a formal complaint, but during 2010 we handled a total of 798 complaints, 507 in England and 291 in Wales, of which 41 were escalated to the Bus Appeals Body. Where possible we try to handle complaints before referring them to Bus Appeals Body by taking them up with the bus company, and this year the total referred has reduced as bus companies have been keen to resolve matters before they get to BAB. This is a result of closer working with the bus companies this year and an even stronger focus on achieving a faster and more through resolution of complaints. We have seen further improvements in complaint handling from some of the main transport groups as a result of the pressure we have put on them.

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

English complaints
In England the complaints by issue were as follows (146 of the 507 complainants complained about more than one issue, hence the total of 692 issues handled):

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

England & Wales

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