Minutes:
Mayoral Bus Review
Jo Kaczmarek, Sheffield City Region Executive Team, attended the meeting to inform Members of the Mayoral Bus Review which was underway across South Yorkshire, undertaken by Clive Betts, on behalf of the Mayor of the Sheffield City Region, Dan Jarvis.
The review was focussing on 4 main areas:-
1. Approach of the review
In light of his stated desire to improve bus services, Clive Betts had been asked to be the Independent Chair of the review to examine the bus system that was currently operating across South Yorkshire and review:-
What were the current challenges in the bus services as they currently stood and how to address those challenges regardless of what mode of operation in the future;
What improvements do you think should be made and how to make those changes collectively within South Yorkshire.
2. Process
A panel of commissioners had been appointed to assist the Independent Chair in an advisory capacity and consisted of individuals who either worked in transport or national experts from the private sector
The panel would consider it from the end user prospective.
The panel met on a monthly basis and examined the thematic challenges for the service as well as hearing evidence/information from other studies of towns across the country. It was important to learn from what others had done.
The Independent Chair and the panel would consider the issues until the end of the year when they would submit their findings and a set of recommendations to the Mayor and Combined Authority.
3. Agreed approach to how evidence would be collected
An external group of partners had been commissioned to assist in building the evidence base; Sheffield Hallam University were working with the Open Data Institute and Public Transport Institute. Passenger data would be examined along with journey times etc. overlaid with regional social and economic research.
There had been assurance from all bus operators that they would share all their data and allow it to be used for the evidence base.
Evidence from stakeholder engagement mechanisms would also be taken into account as well as the online survey (https://sheffieldcityregion.org.uk/south-yorkshire-bus-review/).
The survey asked questions about the responder’s current experience of the bus service either as an existing bus user or a non-bus user.
4. Wish list of what would be helpful to take away from today
Work was taking place to reach those that did not usually participate in consultation and the hard to reach groups.
How could the Council help to get the survey out as far and wide as possible?
Jo was willing to meet as many individual, organisations and groups as possible and could be contacted at SYBusReview@Sheffieldcityregion.org.uk
Discussion ensued with the following issues raised:-
- Urban bus travel was an issue
- Use of the Neighbourhood Working Groups for the cascading of information to communities
- Availability of surveys on buses for passengers to complete
- Contact large employers across South Yorkshire
- Reliability of buses and public perception of the current provision
- Although the issue of franchises would not be a central issue, it should be taken into consideration together with ownership
- Public owned system v franchise – how to get from one to the other
- Would involve the smaller bus companies e.g. Powells
- Cross boundary areas e.g. Woodsetts=Worksop
Jo was thanked for her presentation.