(1) First Group
(2) Stagecoach
(3) Rotherham Community Transport
Minutes:
First Group
Michael Moore provided the following update:-
- There was a stable network in Rotherham until franchising and there would be no changes until that time except for some punctuality changes
- Service X6 which ran to and from the motorway services at Catcliffe. This was fully funded by Welcome Break, however, they had reduced their level of funding so as from 30th August the 5 return journeys would be reduced to 3. This was linked to their shift times
- There had been some recent challenges in terms of drivers. In order to support the operation First had brought in drivers from Bradford and Leeds and deployed them into Sheffield
- Punctuality for the current period was up 1.5%
Stagecoach
John Young, Stagecoach, provided the following update:-
- Period 3 had ended on 25th July with performance running at 99.88% of all mileage (period 2 99.88%) with lost mileage of 0.02% (approximately 250 miles)
- Punctuality was 87% (period 2 89%)
- New ticket machines were to be delivered imminently and would be rolled out across all depots including those that would be franchising over the next 12-15 months. They would improve the customer experience as the current machines were life expired and would be multi-purpose doubling up for drivers to perform first use checks on a vehicle in a morning
- Network Stability Agreement in place, which was good news for everyone, between now and franchising
- There were a number of concerns relating to Rotherham Interchange and the views shared about the feeling of safety and security and certainly drivers at Rawmarsh compared Rotherham unfavourably with what they saw and experienced at Doncaster. The closure of stands had caused a number of issues operationally which was challenging for drivers and customer. The lack of toilet facilities on a consistent basis was another problem
- The number of disruptions was increasing and the potential impact of those disruptions was often greater than they used to be probably due to a combination of factors but included increasing traffic volumes and revised safer ways of working for people on site
- Another frustration for bus operators was, having been notified of a disruption/diversion, what actually happened on the ground being different to what had been notified. As had been suggested earlier in the meeting, all agencies needed to work harder to try and get a better system in place to deal with this and notify others as it was one of the blockers to encourage people to use public transport
- Bus journey speeds were reducing and had been for a long time; if the same level of service was running slower then it meant that additional resources were needed which had the knock-on effect of increasing costs to the operator as well as making it less attractive to the customer
Sam Millington reported that there were some ongoing works at Rotherham Interchange i.e. proposed new security camera system looking at the toilet entrance, installation of a tv screen so members of the public could see they were being recorded and better monitoring of the facilities.
Michael Moore echoed John’s comments with regards to highway management.
Agreed:- That a meeting be arranged between the Chair, the Transportation Team (Lucy Hudson), the Highways Team (Richard Jackson), SYMCA (Sam Millington), Stagecoach (John Young) and First Group (Michael Moore) and a representative from the SYMCA Disruption Team and discuss highways management and the effects on bus services.
Rotherham Community Transport
Adrian Parkinson gave the following update:-
- A combination of vacancies and sickness had resulted in a problem with drivers earlier in the year, however, the majority of those drivers had now returned to work. Ongoing driver recruitment continued which was not helped by the changes made with regard to D1 driving licences
- In the 12 months up to end of June, 162,000 passenger journeys had been carried out across all RCT services – a 2.3% increase on the previous year
- Work currently being undertaken with scheduling software providers and in the next month passengers would be able to book journeys online through an online portal
- Passengers could now pay directly on the bus through use of a debit card
- The Gateway Club ran on a Thursday evening 18:00-21:00. There used to be 2 buses – one that covered Dinnington, Maltby, Thrybergh, East Dene and the second covered Wath, Rawmarsh and through into Greasbrough. It was the intention to re-introduce the Dinnington/Maltby round shortly, however, the Wath/Rawmarsh round was a little difficult due to the low number of passengers making it unfeasible to run. Discussions were to take place with Gateway to ascertain if there were any voluntary drivers willing to drive the bus until such time as passenger numbers increased and made it more feasible for RCT to run the service
- It was acknowledged that the short notice of cancellations had had an impact on some of the Gateway Club clients, however, this was the only evening work RCT had with no other requests for any day of the week; once the passengers were dropped off at 18:00 the driver had to wait until 21:00 for the return journey. Options had been considered in the past for an evening shopper service to Parkgate, however, the majority of RCT’s clientele, certainly in winter time, did not want to go out in the evening.
- The development of RCT’s services was ongoing
Councillor Ahmed stated that her organisation used RCT and was one of the cheapest services. However, many of the users would struggle to go online to book a journey. They had trained someone to drive a RCT minibus.
The Chair thanked everyone for their contributions.