Transport Committee - Wednesday 22 January 2025, 2:00pm - West Yorkshire Combined Authority Webcasting

Transport Committee
Wednesday, 22nd January 2025 at 2:00pm 

Agenda

Slides

Transcript

Map

Resources

Forums

Speakers

Votes

 
Share this agenda point
  1. Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council)
Share this agenda point
  1. Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council)
  2. James Mowbray, Committee Services Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  3. Cllr Peter Carlill (Deputy Chair) Transport Committee
  4. Cllr Eric Firth (Kirklees Council)
  5. Cllr Alex Ross-Shaw (Bradford Council)
  6. Cllr Matthew Morley Wakefield Council
  7. Cllr Tony Wallis
  8. Adele Rae
  9. Ms. Natalie Sykes (Private Sector Representative)
  10. Kate Ravilious
  11. Cllr Jakob Williamson (Wakefield Council)
  12. Raymond Jones
  13. Tony McGrath
  14. Cllr Joe Atkinson
  15. Cllr Moses Crook Kirklees Council
  16. Cllr Andrew Pinnock
  17. Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council)
  18. Chris Steele
  19. Helen Ellerton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  20. Dave Haskins, Interim Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  21. Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Share this agenda point
Share this agenda point
Share this agenda point
Share this agenda point
  1. Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  2. Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council)
  3. Raymond Jones
  4. Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  5. Raymond Jones
  6. Raymond Jones
  7. Cllr Matthew Morley Wakefield Council
  8. Andrew McGuinness
  9. Paul Turner
  10. Cllr Jakob Williamson (Wakefield Council)
  11. Tony McGrath
  12. Cllr Tony Wallis
  13. Cllr Eric Firth (Kirklees Council)
  14. Ms. Kim Cain
  15. Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council)
  16. Cllr Jakob Williamson (Wakefield Council)
  17. Ms. Kim Cain
  18. Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council)
  19. Ms. Kim Cain
  20. Cllr Katie Kimber
  21. Cllr Andrew Pinnock
  22. Cllr Neil Buckley
  23. Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council)
  24. Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  25. Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  26. Paul Turner
  27. Kate Ravilious
  28. Ms. Kim Cain
  29. Ms. Kayleigh Ingham
  30. Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council)
  31. Ms. Kayleigh Ingham
  32. Andrew McGuinness
  33. Cllr Neil Buckley
  34. Cllr Moses Crook Kirklees Council
  35. Cllr Matthew McLoughlin
  36. Cllr Neil Buckley
  37. Cllr Joe Atkinson
  38. Cllr Matthew McLoughlin
  39. Cllr Andrew Pinnock
  40. Simon Warburton, Executive Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  41. Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  42. Simon Warburton, Executive Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  43. Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council)
  44. Cllr Caroline Firth
  45. Raymond Jones
  46. Cllr Tony Wallis
  47. Cllr Jakob Williamson (Wakefield Council)
  48. Cllr Joe Atkinson
  49. Tony McGrath
  50. Cllr Peter Carlill (Deputy Chair) Transport Committee
  51. Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council)
  52. Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  53. Ms. Kim Cain
  54. Ms. Kayleigh Ingham
  55. Paul Turner
  56. Andrew McGuinness
  57. Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  58. Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council)
Share this agenda point
  1. Dave Haskins, Interim Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  2. Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council)
  3. Andrew McGuinness
  4. Ms. Kayleigh Ingham
  5. Ms. Kim Cain
  6. Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council)
  7. Cllr Tony Wallis
  8. Cllr Matthew Morley Wakefield Council
  9. Cllr Katie Kimber
  10. Ms. Kim Cain
  11. Mr Darren Allsop
  12. Cllr Matthew Morley Wakefield Council
  13. Dave Haskins, Interim Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  14. Mr George Thomas
  15. Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council)
  16. Mr Darren Allsop
  17. Cllr Moses Crook Kirklees Council
  18. Cllr Matthew McLoughlin
  19. Cllr Eric Firth (Kirklees Council)
  20. Cllr Jakob Williamson (Wakefield Council)
  21. Mr Darren Allsop
  22. Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council)
  23. Helen Ellerton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
Share this agenda point
  1. Cllr Andrew Pinnock
  2. Cllr Matthew McLoughlin
  3. Cllr Katie Kimber
  4. Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council)
  5. Cllr Andrew Pinnock
  6. Helen Ellerton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  7. Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council)
  8. Simon Warburton, Executive Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority)
  9. Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council)
  10. Cllr Andrew Pinnock
  11. Cllr Katie Kimber
  12. Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council)
  13. Cllr Matthew McLoughlin
  14. Webcast Finished

1 Apologies for Absence

Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council) - 0:00:00
Excellent, just checking, we are in the global interweb, it's very exciting.
So, it is, Yorkshire is the centre of the universe.
So, just to go around the table so we can just introduce ourselves.
My name is Susan Hinchcliffe, I am leader of Bradford and chair of West Yorkshire Transport.
Simon, who are you?
Simon Pope, Director of Transport Capital Programs.
Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council) - 0:00:28
James Marbury from Committee Services
James Mowbray, Committee Services Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:00:32
Councillor Peter Carlile, I'm a Deputy Chair of the Transport Committee focusing on bus
and active travel.
Cllr Peter Carlill (Deputy Chair) Transport Committee - 0:00:38
Cllr Eric Firth (Kirklees Council) - 0:00:43
Councillor Eric Firth, Kreckings Councillor but also the Deputy Chair of the Transport
Committee focusing on rail.
Cllr Alex Ross-Shaw (Bradford Council) - 0:00:53
Councillor Exchel Shaw, I'm a portfolio holder on Bradford Council for Regeneration planning
and transport and apologies Charlie to leave earlier.
Cllr Matthew Morley Wakefield Council - 0:01:02
Councillor Matthew Morley, Portfolio Older for Planning, Transportation and
Highways, Wakefield Metropolitan District Council.
Cllr Tony Wallis - 0:01:10
Councillor Tony Wallace, Wakefield Council.
Adele Rae - 0:01:15
Councillor Adele Ray, Councillor for Bramley and Stanley and in Leeds.
Ms. Natalie Sykes (Private Sector Representative) - 0:01:21
Natalie Sykes, West Yorkshire Business Board, Private Representative
Kate Ravilious - 0:01:28
Councillor Kate Rivelius, Exec Member for Transport at City of York Council
Cllr Jakob Williamson (Wakefield Council) - 0:01:34
Jacob Williamson, Transport and Engagement, Laid for Whitefield Council
Raymond Jones - 0:01:38
Councillor Raymond Jones, Lloyd City Council, representing Horsforth
Paul Turner from Transdev
Kim Kane from Areva
Kaylee Ingham from First
Andrew McGinnis CPT, Tritbully Footballs and Coach
Councillor Tony McGrath, Kirklees Council
Tony McGrath - 0:01:58
Councillor Joe Atkinson, Coldhill Council
Cllr Joe Atkinson - 0:02:03
Councillor Neil Buckley, Lee City Council
Cllr Moses Crook Kirklees Council - 0:02:09
Councillor Moses Crook, I'm Deputy Leader at Kirklees and also Portfother Holder for Transport and Housing
Councillor Matthew McLaughlin from Conn Valley in Kirklees and the Transport Engagement League for Kirklees.
Cllr Andrew Pinnock - 0:02:20
Councillor Andrew Pinnock, Councillor Recla Keaton, right in the middle of West Yorkshire, Kirklees Council.
Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council) - 0:02:29
Councillor Sarah Courtney, I'm lead member on Colvedale Council for Regeneration and Transport.
Councillor Katie Kimber, Transport Engagement League, Goldsdale Council
Chris Steele - 0:02:44
Councillor Chris Steele, Wolfdale Ward in Bradford
Councillor Caroline Firth, Transport Engagement League, Bradford
Helen Ellerton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:02:53
Hello everybody, I'm Helen Elton, Head of Transport Policy at West Yorkshire Combined Authority
Dave Haskins, Interim Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:02:59
Hi, I'm Dave Haskins, Strategic Head of Major Projects at West Yorkshire Combined Authority
Tim Taylor, Director of Transport Services at the Command Authority
and Simon Wubton, Executive Director for Transport
Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:03:10
Thank you very much. As you can see there's elected members from all across West Yorkshire here to discuss transport
and we're all councillors who get a lot of mail in our inboxes about buses in particular but also trains
and that's why we're all here to make sure that
We find out what's going on and able to feed that back to residents as well as provide residents views
To operators who are gathered here today for lecture in the agenda. So apologies for absence
We have apologies for absence from councillors Andrew Loy
Joe Wheatley and Jonathan Pryor and
Can just mention obviously it's quite a packed room. We do have nameplates for the rail representatives
when that item comes up and they're just on the counter at the end so when you
switch over just to be mindful of that okay okay so we'll have to have a name
swap yeah minute fine we can do that like a relay race as quickly as possible
that was a great it's a tight agenda with a lot to get through
declarations of disclosure interest have we got any

2 Declaration of Disclosable Pecuniary Interests

nobody indicating but you know is that snow throughout the meeting herning
occurs exempt information I don't think there is any exempt information today's
no and then minutes of the meeting of the Transport Committee held on 14th of

3 Exempt Information - Possible Exclusion of the Press and Public

4 Minutes of the meeting of the Transport Committee held on 14 October 2024

October those have been circulated I've anybody got any comments or questions on
those
nope well in that case can I ask we accept there's a correct record at
meeting all those please in favor please show thank you very much that is carried
And then the first substantive item that we've got in the report is passenger experience report bus.
And I'm pleased to welcome here today the operators of the buses in West Yorkshire and indeed a smaller operators through CPT as well.
And they've already introduced themselves here today.

5 Passenger Experience Report - Bus

Shall we go through the report first and then open for questions and then press operators?
I'll probably do it from that way. So report first and then we'll ask for
questions from the floor and then give operators an opportunity to answer those
if we can. So off you go. Thank you chair. Yeah so thank you for the opportunity to present the support.
Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:05:34
Members will note that the report takes us through a number of items in terms of
transit on passenger behaviour, patronage and so forth and then provides further
information around activity on bus stations, passenger charter and bus lines work more generally.
Under passenger trends you will note that patronage has largely
stabilised and plateaued in a number of instances across the region. The paper puts forward a number
of reasons for this including some changes in behaviour across under 19s and under 26s but also
So there's an anticipated impact from the closure of Bradford Interchange and the movement of patronage within Bradford as a result of those changes too.
The paper then leads on and gives information in respect of patronage across the region relative to other parts of the country.
And indicates 119 .5 million trips across the region.
You will note that that as a proportion of passenger journey per head is lower than some of the combined authority areas,
but is of itself higher than South Yorkshire, one of our nearest neighbours.
It also indicates the consistent position in terms of elderly passenger travel and certainly pre -code recovery.
Now that only stands at 68 percent.
and this is a trend that is seen across not just West Yorkshire but other parts of the North and England more generally.
In terms of network performance and reliability, I shall just take you through some of the highlights from the report in that.
You will note that across 2024 we are seeing between 95 .5 and 97%,
which is lower than the traffic commissioner standard of 99 .5%.
Punctuality of itself, again, not dissimilar in terms of a range between 86 and 92%,
again, lower than the 95 % accepted position from the traffic commissioner.
Again, there are a number of reasons for this.
I shall not go into them in detail, but happy to take questions that might be specific to your areas,
but also look to the operators to offer some thoughts on the causal factors for those as well.
In terms of bus station work, members will be aware that we were about to start work in
Duthrie and construction on that will start in March of this year and that will include a range
of improvements for passengers, so improved information, improved CCTV and security features
and wider amenities available for members of the public to make use of.
Members will also be aware of the closure of Bradford Interchange during 2024
and this was reopened successfully on the 5th of January of this year
and the station is now fully operational with only a small number of services still retained on the street
whilst the remaining works in terms of the resurfacing of the interchange is being complete.
As part of that reopening, there was a significant effort from Combined Authority staff and from
local authority partners as well in ensuring passengers found access to that information
and to the services in a timely manner and that they were not disrupted or inconvenienced
as a result of those changes.
It's also worth noting, not necessarily reported directly within the report, but that was also
within the run up to the start of the City of Culture events which commenced that following
weekend in the city centre. We also clearly unplanned but had to deal with snow as a result
of that and you may recall a significant snow disruption in the run up to the reopening
of the interchange but thankfully that was not disruptive in the sense of the interchange
itself being reopened. Moving on to network developments, members will be aware of some
of the challenges faced by Aviva in terms of their drive availability and vehicle shortages
further compounded by their issues with their depot.
And again, I shall not elaborate on this too much further
and perhaps invite Areeva to comment on any further.
We've been working closely with Areeva
to ensure that the impact of that
is minimized as best possible.
And a number of changes to contracts
and service delivery were made at the start of this month
with some further changes coming in February
with some new operators operating services
under contract on behalf of the combined authority
to reduce the demand on resources for Areva and to improve their existing
service stability and punctuality as well as reliability. In terms of the
actual move on to bus passenger charter but quickly within the report members
will be aware that this was agreed as part of the enhanced partnership under
the bus alliance. I'm pleased to say that the charter has now been finished the
report said it will publish in January it is actually due to be published
today so we're confident that that will actually start to give passengers
further confidence in the system and making sure that they know their rights
and also obligations that they are able to access not least in amongst that last
bus commitments from operators in terms of cancelling the last services and the
recompense of taxi fares under those circumstances. I shall briefly touch on
roadside displays and timetable updates.
So there's been a significant amount of work,
both in terms of preparation
for the reopening of the private interchange,
but also in terms of work ahead of the changes for Arriba,
which has commenced throughout the year.
And we're also making sure that those timetables
are out on stops and across the region,
across our bus stops and shelters,
as quickly as possible through that process.
Under ticketing, members will be aware
that we've made some changes through our MCAR system
and there's been a number of campaigns
that have been run to try and encourage
further uptake of MCAR to tickets
and products more generally.
As well as that campaign to encourage people
to return to Bradford Interchange as well.
Chair, I think that's probably the majority of the report.
In the interest of time, happy to pass back to you,
invite comments and then observations from the operators thank you thank you
very much so lots in there good to see the park and ride is getting back up to
almost where it used to be but it's taking a long time as it a covid
Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council) - 0:12:07
pandemic has a long tail of impact and so got Wakefield members wanting to
speak I quite understand that and so we'll have a councilor so I can't see
officer name sorry councillor still cuts it Jones thank you sorry round
at 7 o 'clock as we all know everybody goes home nothing happens so I have the
residence last week who busted and failed to turn up it turned over to the
Raymond Jones - 0:12:40
is timetable so I want to know what that passenger does to enable her to get a taxi. Bear in
mind this is an older person who doesn't have a mobile phone, there's no contact numbers
on the bus stop so I believe that this in actual fact is a safeguard initiative for
older residents and I'm repeatedly saying this now, when are we going to make it so
that people understand they can get a taxi, how they get a taxi and two, is it really
acceptable at seven o 'clock that nobody can contact anybody about whether their
bus is going to turn up or not. This is a safeguarding issue and I believe it's a
breach of the charter to be absolutely honest. And I've asked this for the last two
meetings, it's the third meeting I've asked this, and at some point if somebody's going to
say we're going to do nothing about it that's fine, that's fine, but then
then I'll be absolutely honest I would put that in the public domain because
that's the question I'm being asked. So I'd like an answer either today or in
the next week or two about what we're going to do about it. If we're going to do nothing
say nothing that's fine but be prepared for what will come back. It's not acceptable.
Absolutely Councillor Jones, this is in the public domain so do feel sure you've already put it in
the public domain. Obviously very strong views there from Councillor Jones have we got a response
for him? Yeah absolutely so with the charter that will clearly be promoted and made available to
members of public we are intending to put that detail also on bus stops and in our bus stations.
Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:14:03
If people don't have a mobile phone, we can go and talk to people in our travel centres
and talk to them and they can talk them through the process the following day on receipt of
that ticket. The obligation to recompense the customer is on behalf of the operator,
not on behalf of the command authority. So this is a commitment from operators to participate
in that process.
So I suppose it's a question of how they do it, isn't it really? It can't be too bureaucratic.
Obviously they're there as Councillor Jones says when the bus has gone. It's not not arrived. In fact, how do they how do they take that?
Process is for them to just speak to the operator that canceled the service and it is for the operator to reimburse the person in
Questions we can help facilitate that process. I'm very happy to be involved in that process
But it is a relationship between the passenger and the operator
Okay, Councillor Jones you have to come back in that. I've been cast. Right, so I'm past seven and I I'm an older person
was vulnerable, right?
So my bus, it's turned off the next day,
so I assume it's not coming.
I don't have a mobile phone.
So if I did have a mobile phone, who will I contact?
And the answer is there's no bit of contact.
That is the point I'm making.
Everybody going home at half past seven or seven o 'clock
when they go home.
There is no contact between the operators and the public.
That's the point I'm making.
It's all about saying you get a taxi,
but not everybody can afford a taxi
So we're pointing that bit out.
Raymond Jones - 0:15:32
Also, the overhead, which we all know
is not particularly fit for purpose,
if I'm being absolutely honest, is my point really is,
what does somebody do at half past 10 at night,
and how do they contact the operator
if they've got a mobile phone?
Because it isn't there.
That's the point I'm making.
Surely, common sense is, whenever the bus is running,
there should be a contact point.
That's the point I'm trying to get to.
It's not complicated, because whatever there's a,
Because that way we can have a contact if there's no contact people don't know and particularly what we are doing is we're leaving vulnerable people in very difficult positions and I find that not acceptable.
Thank you, Councillor Jones. So it is the how that I think if you're a resident who's in that situation, how do they do that and how do they know what to do and bus operators,
just drivers needs now it works as well to be able to advise people, don't they? Anybody in the bus station.
So it is the how I think that we're struggling with here at council Molly did obviously another Wakefield councilor who's got to come in
Thank you chair. Obviously we will be looking
Out of the the reductions and the cuts now you are calm that are either have taken place in early January
Raymond Jones - 0:16:40
Will that be stabilizing the network in the way to the dishes?
That's what obviously we'll be monitoring looking at as we move forward over the next couple weeks and months but through them changes
I've had parents contacting me regarding school bus services that are
Cllr Matthew Morley Wakefield Council - 0:16:55
commercial the outward grain service
That from you know some passes a 10 15
Maximum 20 minute journey to outward grains is now taking over an hour a very convoluted
People to buses together and they're going on a tour of Northwest Wakefield the district
Kids, I'm scared. They're just before 7 o 'clock on a morning to make sure they can catch that bus
dark winter nights, it's not very acceptable for parents,
and they are very, very concerned about that.
Similarly with also, out there with Crofton High School,
parents living around the Featherstone Street House area,
that bus is absolutely filled to capacity
when it's coming on a morning, it's a double -decker,
kids can't get on, sometimes a single -decker,
so that is really causing, you know,
my email is quite inundated at the moment,
I know conversations with our officers have been had
With a reason, but that's something that I want to raise it today do the changes you have made us cause many concerns
Thank you chair
Thank you very much. There's any other council wait. I won't fill council's want to castle Williamson
Thank you chair. I'm just picking back up on the
service changes I
mean I'd like to know if
There's a plan or review for these services to be reinstated at some point in the future and
And while it's to try, while these changes have been brought in to try and
met the overall sort of services, you know, the system sort of more reliable, we
have been here a few times before already and our bus network just keeps
getting cut and cut. And while we've seen from other operators sort of
Andrew McGuinness - 0:18:46
improvements in terms of sort of driver attention and improved services areva
Paul Turner - 0:18:49
seems to be the only one which is still struggling I would like to understand
what areva thinks are the problems to retaining staff and recruit
Cllr Jakob Williamson (Wakefield Council) - 0:18:57
thank you
I had concept first to do council was to do indicate I can't remember if you did
so council Wallace you're in fact come in then as a Wakefield councilor now
bring council thank you just carry on what these shows in in as you say in
Tony McGrath - 0:19:12
Cllr Tony Wallis - 0:19:19
We've got the school issue about the students and it's so bad that it is being talked about
as well as on social media in areas which are away from the schools as well. But I'm
very concerned about the changes of evening services, where services which run once every
30 minutes are now being down to one an hour and I'm also concerned about where passengers
have to get two buses at that time because it increases, because cutting down the services
then increases the waiting time. Now although I have a car I try to travel by bus and a
month ago I spent a whole week which I do every so often only travelling a car if I
absolutely have to and on a Sunday I went to one bus station and the bus which was supposed
to go didn't show up, it didn't show on the system as being cancelled, it just didn't
show up, that's a Reba bus, so I had to wait another hour for the next bus, not knowing
whether that was going to turn up or not, I just wished it was and that's the kind of
passenger experience that we're having but passengers are now saying when a bus doesn't
show up on time, is it going to be show, is it late or has it been cancelled? The app
is wonderful by the way, I've been showing how to use the app and that's great at telling
me that a bus is cancelled or running late but that's not a substitute for buses running
on time. I've also known in 2024 I know four bus drivers, I mean up left, the next bus
drivers now, the left, what's coming over from me from them is, Arriva isn't a company
they'd like to stay with, but they don't give me the reasons why by the way, but that's
their comment. So it's just getting over this, that especially on an evening like Sunday's
now, the service has become to such an extent that passengers don't have the confidence
to actually use it even taking a taxi although it'll cost more money but they'd
rather do that and wait wait for whether the bus will show up or not.
Thank you very much Councillor Wallace. Councillor Firth do you want to just come in and I'm
going to go to Areva then just I'll pick up on some of those. Thank you chair.
My question will allow Areva to take a deep breath because I've got a few questions to answer.
Cllr Eric Firth (Kirklees Council) - 0:21:56
but my comment was on Tim's report and I make no apologies for being parochial
3 .12 I'm just delighted that we're about to start work on due of repostation
it's been a long time coming a long time in the planning and it will be truly
magnificent I'm sure when it's completed and thank you to all concerned for making this possible. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Councillor, for a good point to just end that little section on. So, Kim, for Areva, obviously, we've raised a few concerns there about services restored, our services getting restored, confidence of passengers.
And I'd like for each of the operators when we come round to you to answer the question of Councillor Jones about how each of you are making sure that passengers are aware of their rights under the passenger charter.
So, Kim, do you want to come in on the Wakefield colleagues' concern?
Yes, thank you. There's quite a few things to go through there so I'll
Ms. Kim Cain - 0:22:54
take each in turn but I'll try to give as much information as I can in this brief section but happy to have conversations afterwards if that would help.
So in terms of the changes that came in on the 5th of January, like yourself we're clearly monitoring how that's being implemented and what effect that's taking place.
In the first week of the changes, so we commenced on the 5th of January, we saw that our staff related loss mileage halved.
In the second week it was cut further, so we were down to around 30%.
We do expect that small amount to continue through till the 22nd of February, which is when some of our contracts come to an end.
But as of the 22nd of February, we should then have enough drivers to cover all of our services as scheduled.
We do however have some vehicle issues that have come to light and Areva have
acted quite swiftly in that in order to bring in newer vehicles from outside of
Yorkshire. So I've got some two -year -old vehicles coming up and for another part
of the business we purchased some second -hand vehicles which are
relatively new at the half the age of some of our existing fleets. So those
vehicles are starting to come into the area already you may see some of them in
a different livery to Areva we will get them painted but the primary focus at
the moment is to get them on the road and make sure that we are delivering the service
we said we would to our customers. In terms of our punctuality performance, when we compare
ourselves in Yorkshire to the rest of the UK, we actually, of the buses that do operate,
of course, we have the highest performing punctuality in the country, so our buses aren't
reliable but they are punctual based on the area that we're operating in and by that I
mean that, for example, our punctuality is higher than you see in Greater Manchester
and that their stats are available for people to see. In terms of Outward Grange and
school buses we worked really closely with the Combined Authority when we were
discussing the changes that were going to come and the real one of the real
focus areas was to make sure that every child that could get to school on bus
when we did the changes would still be able to get to school by bus following
the changes and we had to make some really difficult decisions with that. One
of those decisions did mean handing one of those services over to another
operator and then we were left with the two outward services. We were faced with
a position where we would have to cancel one of those two school buses and or
having looked at the passenger loads the passenger loads that we were carrying
pre -Christmas and would be able to be accommodated on a single deck bus. Now we
do know that school children don't like to sit down and don't like to sit next
to each other they often get on a bus and put a bag on the seat next to them
so we're doing a bit of an awareness and campaign with the school children to say
please allow people to sit next to you and please make sure that you are going right to the back of the bus.
That is a challenge and we have got people out monitoring the loadings to make sure that they aren't breaching the capacity.
I am aware that there was one day, one service where a single deck was operated.
That was when we had the poor weather and we struggled to get enough double decks out to cover that.
But every day since then it has been operated by a double deck.
I'm not aware of us leaving any passengers behind because of capacity.
So although they are busy buses, they're not meeting capacity.
In terms of Councillor Williams' questions around reinstatement,
we aren't looking to reinstate at the moment.
So our focus at the minute is on stabilising the network,
making sure we've got strong delivery,
and delivering the service that the customers want.
Obviously, anything that we have cut, any other operator is,
you know, it's an open market.
They can choose to register those services or alternatively if the combined authority thought there was sufficient demand
Then they could look to tender but as things stand today
We are not looking to reinstate the services that we that we have to cut in terms of driver retention
And we have a number of activities going on at the moment
One of those involves the fleet and the investment into the fleet
We're actively working with the combined authority around a new depot for Wakefield because those who are from Wakefield will know that that
depot has had to close and is basically boarded up at the moment while we find
somewhere else to operate from. We do have a retention plan which we will
shortly be announcing to our colleagues and therefore it wouldn't be appropriate
for me to announce that here to this group today before I've told our staff
but we are working on that in the background and that should be available
soon and a lot of that is around our new starters and how we retain them within
the business. We also spoke about the school issue again, the evening and Sunday journeys,
every service that we cut was done based on passenger numbers so as part of that process
of deciding what would need to be cut we did provide the combined authority with the passenger
numbers to show that we were cutting where very very few people were actually travelling
by bus, we have to remember that the focus of this activity was to restore reliability
and we did have to make difficult decisions where for example a small number of people
were travelling on one service, if we didn't cut that service we would have to drop services
in the middle of the day which would impact many many more people.
We can see that in our passenger numbers, our passenger numbers haven't dropped as a
result of these cuts.
We have spoken about needing to get two buses at a time.
Again, the decision was based upon keeping the service or cutting the service and delivering
the liability.
As I say, the focus was on the liability.
We have to deliver what we say we are going to deliver.
Cancellations are being processed through our systems.
We have identified a number of new colleagues who weren't quite doing that correctly in
system and so last week I had all of them trained on how to do that correctly
in the system and then my customer services team are now auditing those
cancellations to make sure that when a customer rings up and says a bus
hasn't operated we're checking to make sure that has been cancelled in the
system correctly and I've had very good feedback on that to say that that is
now happening much more regularly as it should.
I think that covered everything.
Passenger charter.
Oh, sorry. Yes, passenger charter.
So we do publicize that on our website.
We have various means of contacting us.
They're all displayed on our website.
So people can text, they can email,
they can contact us on social media, they can phone us.
But in terms of the taxi,
if the last bus fails to operate,
then they don't have to interact with us.
the customer can simply phone a taxi, order a taxi and then as long as they
keep hold of that receipt we would then reimburse them after the event. Thank you
I think it'd be worth actually if we can gather that data of how many people do
that that gives us an indication of how successful the communication is so I
don't know who if the operators can perhaps collect that for us on a
Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council) - 0:29:55
quarterly basis or something so then we can figure out whether it's working.
There's other councillors indicating as well so I'm going to move, is it
Councillor is it very quick?
Yeah, just to come back on, I appreciate you can't raise the details of the retention plan with us before you've told staff, but my question was specifically what you think the problems are with retention, not what you want to do about it.
Cllr Jakob Williamson (Wakefield Council) - 0:30:23
Thanks yeah, just very briefly. There's a, there's a few things that I
Ms. Kim Cain - 0:30:27
touched on. So the condition of our vehicle. So the liability of the vehicles, the, the depot in might feel that's closed.
You know, that has an impact on people and we are reviewing our conditions as well. Although, you know, that's part of a bigger picture.
Thank you very much. So, um, indicates and I've got kind of caught in kind of Kimber next.
Thank you very much chair. So the plateauing of bus patronage is a bit
Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council) - 0:30:57
disappointing particularly with the introduction of service enhancements
under the BSIP program. Obviously it's hoped in the longer term that bus
franchising will help reverse this trend. Although in Calderdale that's gonna be a
little while but I think it's really clear that we all want people to use
buses more for a whole variety of reasons and we clearly need to work in
partnership both the combined authority local authorities and bus companies the
bus operators so I think the issues that residents talk about frequency and
reliability I think we all know about know about that and we're told that
frequency is down to passenger numbers there's a bit of a appears to be a bit
of a negative feedback loop around this so you know buses aren't reliable or
they're not really frequent enough then it drives numbers down so we need to
see how we can reverse that trend. So I was just wondering if there are measures which
we, so as I'm saying here we're in partnership, so what measures could we as local authorities
take to help promote reliability which hopefully then would help drive up patronage which then
maybe could even increase frequency. So I'm just sort of wanting to know so rather than having
this negative loop and let negative feedback, what is it that you know we could do as local
Authorities obviously were all strapped cash strapped, but you know if there was a wish list of things
What is it that we could do to help drive in our part to help drive numbers up as well?
Thank You councillor Courtney, it's a very that is the golden question isn't it really how do we do this?
I can't look in but I can but you want to come in with your questions rather than council bookly and then we'll
Thank you chair, I've got a couple of questions if I may I'll make them really really quick
So one around the timetable displays and the delays and the timetables in bus stops when
they're going to be updated. We've got bus stops from September with new time that haven't got the
Ms. Kim Cain - 0:32:52
new timetables in which is quite a long time for people to wait. Other question around because I'm
new to the committee and we're working through issues with residents, what is the best way of
Cllr Katie Kimber - 0:33:03
dealing with those specific issues and getting the various people in the room like the combined
authority, the bus operators, ward councillors and things like that, how to resolve specific
route issues that we've got. Is there a mechanism for doing that and how do we get that done
really efficiently and quickly. Third thing really, really quickly, it relates to TLC
in the bus pricing so we've got TLC buses that do quite a lot of our rural
routes and on a particular route it's a different day ticket price to the other
routes and some passengers are being refused that rate and being given the
day rate for the other buses there's lots of confusion for our residents
around around that's just how we can get those communications out out to drivers
and get that you know connecting up better for them thank you
Thank you. Council, council book. Please ask your question.
Uh, thank you chair. Yes. Um, on page eight and nine, uh,
and this partly follows on from what council Courtney was just saying. Um,
Cllr Andrew Pinnock - 0:34:11
there's a very disappointing number of 66 % of, um,
pre pandemic baseline in the student column there on page eight.
And then on page nine, there's an interesting comment,
West Yorkshire patronage in the year ending March 24
Cllr Neil Buckley - 0:34:31
was 29 % lower than in 2009.
And it was just to reinforce the point, really,
that particularly with the student figure,
if we're not getting people onto buses at that time of life,
they're probably not going to get onto buses
at any time of life. So it's just to underline the situation about with
franchising looming unless passenger numbers go up we're going to be left
holding a very big baby. Thank you I think I've always understood that
franchising and no franchising this public subsidy inevitably is increasing
for buses so you might as well control the network. I think that's that's what
Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council) - 0:35:17
what obviously we've learned through that consultation phase.
And so some good questions there by colleagues.
I think, can we ask first of all,
on the how we organise the meetings,
opportunity to do bus engagement leads in local areas,
but have you got a mechanism why that can happen
with Councillor Kimber?
Yeah, so just to pick up on those questions, Chair.
So in terms of the old timetables,
so we have had some delays in getting them on the street.
Is there a specific example?
So September's much older than I was expecting,
Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:35:50
so please get in touch with me direct
and I can pick up specific locations.
With that in mind,
it is our plan to have all the timetables updated
by the end of February,
particularly with the focus on the legal services,
but not exclusively.
And part of that delay is as described in the report
was from work required to get Bradford Interchange reopened.
On specific issues more generally,
engagement through the local and transport engagement leads
is the right route,
but again I'm happy to be approached directly.
You are probably aware I'm relatively new in post,
but my sit -in agreement covers all bus service delivery.
I'm happy to pick up with any councillors
direct on specific issues.
Some of the ones that have been mentioned already
around school services, for example,
who have already been brought to my attention,
so happy to take those and field those direct.
Specifically on the point around TLC,
as well as that's new to me,
but I'm happy to have that conversation with you in person,
and very willing to speak to them direct,
because that doesn't sound like a situation that we would support on indoors.
Andrew, is that something you wanted to come in on?
I would have to have more details on that, so if you can feedback through perhaps to Tim
and then either directly through Tim or myself we can speak the tale so you can understand what's happening there.
Certainly doesn't sound right, but we just need to know the detail on that.
And then the big question is how do we increase patronage?
so
We could all have a whole meeting on that to be honest, however
Which one of officers want to start on that then I'll get to each of the operators in turn to give me your
Golden points about what you would do to do this. Thank you
Check that is coming very very quickly as a start
Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:37:29
Um whilst the numbers may appear disappointing in terms of the plastering there are pockets of good examples
particularly in terms of some of the basic investments that we've made which have shown genuine growth and
And to members points where we have high frequency, good quality services where you almost don't need a timetable because it's almost a turn up and go service.
We can see good growth on those routes. And I think again, that's a demonstration of the kinds of services that people want and expect, but also the ones that do generate additional demand.
For reliable buses. So should we go to then trans everyone to speak some Paul.
Yeah, I've just got to pick up a couple of those points.
Paul Turner - 0:38:09
I think the student issue, I think we might be slightly confusing ticket sales with trips here,
because there is a bespoke season ticket for 19 to 26 year old students that has become less popular because of the
the Mayor's Fair scheme making the ability just to buy a regular fair more affordable,
it relatively than it used to be. So that used to be our way of giving a discount to
19 to 26 year olds and students. So I think, I do certainly need the data we've seen and
the evidence that Combined Authority have done in its survey suggests we aren't doing
something drastically wrong in that beefy. It's just a different way of tracking the
tracking the numbers on there. And I think in terms of the bus patronage trends, we have
during 2024 in particular been faced with quite a few challenges. Bradford has
been quite significantly down in terms of bus patronage with the interchange
shot and with with massive regeneration in the heart of the city. We know from
engaging with the Bedford bid that actually footfall in the city is down in line with that.
And that will be felt in a West Yorkshire figure, even if everybody else stays the same and one is down, it will pull the whole figure down.
Halifax town centre is under massive disruption at the moment.
It's extremely difficult to reliably run buses in and out of Halifax at the moment.
And that undoubtedly leads to a reduction in use.
We did see that at times in Leeds
when Leeds was going through its big regeneration
of the city centre.
So there are sometimes structural things that do that
that actually as Tim's alluded to,
there's actually quite a lot of good stuff going on
where services have been improved.
So the things we've done on the Keithley Leeds corridor
or the Keithley local network, where at first they've done similar in some of their service enhancements.
But occasionally, yeah, you do end up, it's entirely the right thing for Bradford to do,
but you have to have a little bit of pain while that level of regeneration goes on.
It hits everything, not just transport on there.
Paul, what is your golden ticket for what we should all be doing to increase patronage?
Well, I think it's more of the same really it's making sure we deliver frequent reliable services in the right area.
Actually a lot of the things that have been done with the Halifax Huddersfield corridor, Leeds Bradford corridor, Keithley area services have delivered good growth.
and we've shared data with you,
and to help build that up.
And yeah, the customers simply respond
to frequency and reliability.
It's not unfortunately solely in any organization's gift
to manage that reliability, isn't it?
And there are, to say there are things that happen
that will give you short -term pain,
but hopefully we'll be in a position now,
certainly in Bradford,
be the interchange open city of culture that we should see some some growth and
some stability and we can start to build on that and we all need just to work
together to make sure that actually people go back into town because we we
are, the bus patronage is a subset of a vibrant economy isn't it and if people are going to
visit a town or a city centre then a proportion of them will travel by bus
and the more people that go, the more people there for public transport.
It's working together to try and get that.
There's some good things happening around events, around the city of Culture as well,
in terms of getting buses on there.
Lovely, thank you. Kim?
Yeah, I think Tim's hit the nail on the head.
What drives patronage is fast, frequent, reliable buses.
That is where you will see your growth.
We spend a lot of time focusing on evenings, early mornings, weekends.
actually if we focused on the core corridors that is where we could
generate the most growth with the least amount of resources and but just in
answer to the question that was asked earlier about what could the councils do
Kate Ravilious - 0:42:44
to help us with this and I'm not sure that everybody uses weighted averages
Ms. Kim Cain - 0:42:48
when they're looking at how infrastructure projects affect the the
speed of vehicles on a route and quite often I see that transport planners
might look at an average speed across the entire day well we know from our bus
networks that we have to put more resource in the peaks.
And actually, what may seem on an average basis
that a small delay can have quite big consequences
on the peak journeys.
A bus can carry 10 times or more what a car can carry,
yet when in the modeling, I often
see that a bus is just considered the same as a car.
So if it was weighted towards the number of people
that buses carry, I think it would be more efficient and more
effective.
Thank you, Kim.
I just wanted to touch on the patronage piece in terms of the downturn or the flat lining
Ms. Kayleigh Ingham - 0:43:38
that's referenced in the report.
So just from first the Yorkshire side, I'm pleased to report that actually we're not
seeing downturn in our numbers except in the Bradford district which we've discussed at
length with Bradford councillors with the combined authority and with Councillor Hinchliffe.
and we hope to see that turn around now that the interchanges back open and the
pedestrianization works are coming to their close.
So in all of the districts we have seen either a flat or a positive year -on -year
performance and what's really pleasing to see is that concessionary trips are
up substantially in some of those districts, up as high as seven or eight percent
year -on -year in some of the districts. So really positive actually in terms of
looking at the travel of our concessionary audience and as I say across the what we would
say are our adult child student demographics it's more of a sort of flat performance or
just slightly positive beyond the Bradford district. And that's even with for example
in Huddersfield us passing a substantial chunk of journeys across to the Greater Manchester
operation upon their start franchising and for those journeys which was in
March this year so that's even considering and having past those
journeys across so I don't think that the reporting of patronage
downturn or flatlining is applicable to either all operators or routes or
demographics and I think we just actually that the devil's always in the
detail and it's important to say that that this pockets of growth and that's
actually I find extremely reassuring and what we'd love to see this year is for
Bradford to come back because Bradford was doing extremely well before. So the
golden question then in terms of how we can work more closely together in
partnership on increasing patronage further I think it's in what I call the
two P's, bus priority and bus positivity. One of them is a little bit harder to
achieve than the other, one of them requires investment on a pretty
substantial basis but as an operator what I hear time and time again is
negativity towards bus and unfortunately that does come from voices of authority
and we need to be really careful about how we as voice of authority use our
voices when we're talking to people so I think it's about receiving the feedback
and looking forward to say you know what can we do about that and how can we work
on that rather than playing that back to the market and playing that back to the
media and my ask would be that we try and reframe the position of bus because
or something. The council at the police point, when franchising comes, otherwise we have
got potentially more of a challenge in the case that there is decline and so
bus positivity and bus priority would be I think the two golden tickets to
ensuring that patronage continues to go upwards rather than downwards. Thank you.
Lovely, thank you. And Councillor Cottonton, do you want to come back really briefly on that?
Yeah, so in terms of bus priority then, what would you suggest in that? So I understand about the
positivity, let's put buses up. It's like I like to use investment rather than
subsidy let's be sort of really positive about these things so but in terms of
Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council) - 0:46:45
priority is there anything specific what do you mean by that then I think this
we asked first would be open to much more deeper conversations around
Ms. Kayleigh Ingham - 0:46:55
how we
can work to provide data on on corridors that that we find to be challenging to
operate buses on on a continuous basis I think it stretches beyond sort of
temporary disruption in terms of road works but it's actually around where
of the pinch points on a continuous basis despite roadworks how combust
priority be looked after we've got we've got years worth of data on this stuff
and you know we would really welcome some some deep conversations on how
money can be spent where it's been made available and so our teams our teams
have that information and yeah that is what I would say would be first strong
step council Courtney thank you Andrew due to have a small operators what is
Andrew McGuinness - 0:47:39
golden ticket? This is an industry position I see and fairly consistent with my larger members here.
It's bus journey speeds and we have so much data on this. I'm not going to look at Simon at this
point but our chief executive presented to one of the many north transport conferences that was in
Manchester a couple of years ago and you could see the average bus journey speeds it declined so much
over the last 20 or 30 years.
And in many cases, you can make a direct correlation
between bus journey speeds and patronage.
And we talked, I think I've talked to the committee before
about the virtual circle, it's very simple.
The more efficient you can make buses is making them faster.
They then become visibly more attractive to the public,
they then become reliable.
And there's many, many different ways you can do that
through building extra roads, moving curves,
But ultimately, the two cheapest things, not necessarily the easiest, is paint and policy.
That is the cheapest by far.
But in terms of data, as Kayleigh said, local operators have significant amounts of data
to support the argument.
We as the trade body have lots of data.
Most of the operators throughout the country provide survey results to us each year, and
and it goes into something called the CPT Cost Index,
which is very well respected,
and industry economist called Chris Cheek works on that.
Many local authorities actually work on that
and factor that into their contract pricing.
And also, I think since the last time I was here,
CPT have released economic reports
on both bus and coach with lots of data,
so I'm happy to share that with the committee.
Ultimately, bus journey speeds
will be the number one thing for me.
speed up buses so much to be achieved from it. By that you don't mean very fast speeds do you?
You mean actually be able to get through to get to A to B in a reasonable fashion just to qualify
what you were saying there. So I'm just going to follow my list now so I've got Councillor Moses
Crook, Councillor Cloughlin, Councillor Piddicombe and Councillor Firth, Caroline Firth this time and then
Councillor Jo. Thanks very much chair I'm going to repeat what Councillor Firth said earlier about
How positive it is that works gonna be starting on Jews be bus station in March and but also that there's positive work under
underway already on the Heckman Dwight bus station and
I just like to know that Kirklees are managing this project
Cllr Neil Buckley - 0:50:12
But we're very keen that the West Yorkshire combined authority the
Cllr Moses Crook Kirklees Council - 0:50:17
transport authority take over take over that bus station as soon as it's completed
I think currently as it stands for whatever historical reasons
I think there were issues around revenue constraints at the point when capital funding was awarded
It would be run by Kirk Lees and not by the transport authority, which I think would be inconsistent.
Almost unique in the combined authority.
But I think there's risk here that it could lead to inconsistency on customer experience over time in the network.
So it wouldn't start off that way because obviously we've aligned design with the combined authority.
But I just want some assurance really on that transfer.
But also probably quite when we get that assurance officially through the opposite channel
so we can stop making plans to try and run it through our corporate land or function and so on. Thanks.
Thanks. I'll just take Councillor McLachlan.
Thank you, Chair. A couple of comments and then a question from me.
I still can't get over our buses aren't reliable, but they are punctual. That's gonna stay with me that one.
Cllr Matthew McLoughlin - 0:51:12
But can I thank the officers and everybody at the Combined Authority for the work
they've done to try and mitigate, particularly the school buses, because that's been a massive job of work and a very
successful job of work so thank you it doesn't go unnoticed or unappreciated
likewise with the passenger charter the inclusion of accessibility is a key
performance indicator that's a change in response to something raised at
committee so thank you for listening and thank you for including that because I
think it's a very worthy addition but my question is on the on the M card on the
ticketing it says in the report that there was a recent campaign to try and
increase use of M card in the app but then it says that downloads were of the
We're actually down on last year, but doesn't say by how much how much were they?
Downloads down by and what's our theory as to why that might have been after a publicity campaign?
Okay, then I've got councillor pick
But I do apologize many years ago when I first started working leads
Cllr Neil Buckley - 0:52:17
Riva put on a bus that went on the M62.
And gradually over time, it took longer and longer
Cllr Joe Atkinson - 0:52:25
to get into Leeds.
Cllr Matthew McLoughlin - 0:52:27
I'm answering this point about journey speeds, journey times.
Cllr Andrew Pinnock - 0:52:31
And till in the end, it just wasn't worth
running the bus on the motorway.
So they went back to running them on Whitehall Road instead.
There is another point, and that is motorway reactions.
We have a particularly nasty one in our ward at Chain Bar.
That's junction 26 on the M62.
And the bus route is on the only arm of that road
that does not have traffic lights.
And so therefore the delays on that service
are at sometimes a day really quite considerable.
I'm sorry this is a negative point unfortunately,
But that's one of these things in order
to do all the things we want to do that needs to be sorted out.
And most of the junctions on the M62
have got problems that are similar, not exactly the same.
But they cause a bottleneck of one sort or another.
And well, the only thing it seems to me
To deal with those is bus priority around those junctions. It all costs money inevitably
Whose money I'm not quite sure
the highway highways England
Don't seem very keen on spending money on things like that
So I don't quite know where you get it from
But that seems to me is the sort of thing that you have got to do
Thank you. So let's just answer those first of all. So Councillor Crooks question about the bus station.
Thank you. So my understanding is that historically the issue around Heckman Wye bus station has been that it's actually classified as highway and that's the reason why it ended up being within the local authority.
Simon Warburton, Executive Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:54:38
nonetheless absolutely Councillor we want to make it part of the network of
West Yorkshire bus stations. We are already working in partnership with
council colleagues in terms of the project management of the scheme and I
know there's a process underway between officers to plot out the transfer so it
it is definitely happening.
Happy for that to be committed.
And I don't know if you or Tim want it to answer
a question about the end card.
I don't have the precise number in terms of
reduction to hand.
I can go out and get those numbers
and share them after the event.
Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:55:22
I would expect that because we have reached
a plateau of sorts in terms of the number of people
who will like to want to use the app.
So app growth when initially launched was significant.
uptake of M card as a range of products was also significant particularly when
the barcode feature was was it was added so I suspect we're probably seeing a
pattern of likely users as opposed to demand but we can provide some more
details outside of the meeting thank you chair
thank you can't opinion you sort of answer your own question about bus
corridors so obviously our CS is something that I know been using across
the region to put on some of those I called bus hotspot bits some might
First bus bits is what I call them in Bradford, but I'm sure they're the other names of them elsewhere in the in the
local authority areas and
So that is still a route if there's things that identify they're going to speed up bus joining times
We should all consider them our local authorities and speak to combined authority about prioritizing those schemes. Really? Did you want to come in that time?
So absolutely chair and we've got an item later on the agenda on the preparation of the new local transport plan
It is very much our intention that we're advising as strongly as we possibly can that bus priority
Simon Warburton, Executive Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 0:56:41
and the support of the bus product needs to be an absolute priority for the local transport
plan.
To answer your question before and the reason why you've got a series of different answers
is we've actually got to lift the whole product in order to attract new demand back to bus travel.
So there is undoubtedly more that we can do in terms of journey times.
There are a significant number of routes in West Yorkshire where frequency is very low.
and that is making it difficult for people in busy lives to choose to switch from car to bus.
And of course the other challenge that we face is that, whilst Kim quite rightly highlights,
that if the only thing you were doing was pursuing the next person to get out of their car and get onto a bus,
then we would spend all of our money on as many services on main routes as we can.
but of course you've got a wider duty as a combined authority to think about how
you provide bus services that support all parts of the conurbation. So it is
not a straightforward task that you've been asked to do with limited resources
to promote a bus network that can meet the needs of everybody and be as
attractive as possible to everybody and fundamentally it
comes down to money and how we can best manage the money to that end.
I think what you have on this committee is a group of people who understand the main issues about pattern
Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council) - 0:58:23
nature and want to make that happen and will gradually do that with the money
we're allowed but we just prioritise it in our own districts.
We've got Caroline Furth, Councillor Jones, Councillor McGrath and then Councillor Carroll.
Yeah I just wanted to bring up Bradford Interchange and say thank you for all the hard work of offices and others
involved and proper council staff in getting it reopened. We're obviously very pleased it's reopened.
I want to thank bus users for being patient as well. I just wanted to flag that there are
Cllr Caroline Firth - 0:58:53
still some repairs to do. Thank you for fixing the lift, that was appreciated. But yeah this is
particularly the leaky roof and we'd like some more information on that and just reassure us
that it's been progressed at pace particularly when we're going to have so many visitors this year.
Who are using that as their entrance to the city and we're wanting to put more art there as well
Thank you and then councillor Jones
Thank you chair
At the start of this asked a meeting about after seven o 'clock how people contacted
Raymond Jones - 0:59:23
None of the three private operators in the room have answered that question
So I would like to some explanation as to what people do from the three operators or private operators. I'm very close
It's not public service by the way. So nobody's answered that question. So it'd be nice if somebody actually tried to answer the question that's been asked
Thank You cancer James that Casa McGrath
Thank you very much
It's just a question regarding technology really. So obviously one nobody said the golden ticket to
more
better use of the buses Pedring is
is upping the charge by 50%.
And don't get me wrong, I still think it's very reasonable
and I would get the bus for that
and think that's cheaper than what I paid before.
So I've got no issue with that.
But in a time where we're comparing our stats
to pre -COVID levels and we're trying to get people
Cllr Tony Wallis - 1:00:11
back on the buses, in that same time,
Uber has stepped the game up in travel.
And I can go on and I can see who my driver is,
Cllr Jakob Williamson (Wakefield Council) - 1:00:18
where he is, how much it's gonna cost me, well in advance.
Now I do have sympathy with Councilor Raymond Jones
regarding people who don't have smartphones,
but we are moving into a world very quickly where technology is...
your work needs it, everyone has it, you get taught it at school
and you'll probably have a phone, a smartphone before you leave school.
So my question is, do you think we're keeping up with the private...
So if we are going to franchise, which I believe we are,
and we were looking for reasons why people would use a bus over an Uber,
sorry for using a specific place, but I'm going to wither myself
Cllr Joe Atkinson - 1:00:51
because I know I can see where it is, I can see what it is,
I can see everything about it.
I've just gone on to your next bus and I'm still not sure what's going on.
I've got lots of dots. I've got, I don't know whether it's live data, I don't know where my bus actually is.
I don't know how long it's actually going to be, whether that factors in a temporary traffic stop halfway along.
Tony McGrath - 1:01:11
Uber does and it will tell me. So I'm wondering whether we think we're doing enough to keep up with the competition.
Thank you. Councillor McGrath and Councillor Carlu.
Thank you. I was just going to come in with a bit of a comment before maybe the operators come back on some.
I will just pick up that point about cost. We're not increasing, I think you mentioned the cost of 50 % increase.
That would be the fare outside of West Yorkshire. Hours will retain at
Cllr Peter Carlill (Deputy Chair) Transport Committee - 1:01:38
£2 until March and then go up by 50p to £2 .50, not 50 % outside.
But yeah, we're conscious.
I mean, one of the reasons of that is to have some money
to pay for continuing the services as they are as well.
So we have to make a balance there.
And one bit I did want to point out down at 3 .11
in the report, just updates on a new method
of reporting punctuality that we'll bring in.
Members will see it at the next meeting actually.
But then we'll have that next time the operators come,
which hopes to have a bit more of a better conversation.
It shows the five best performing
and the five most challenging services across the district.
So hopefully, the aim being to increase that conversation
we can have about more constructively,
what are the real reasons why these particular services
are struggling?
Is it to do with a variety of issues?
What can we do to solve it?
And I think that'll be something that will come
to a better conversation.
Around that point, around increasing patronage,
I think quite a lot of it we have seen
where we've been able to.
So Simon raised the LTP report that comes up later,
and people told us quite clearly that in the vision and that what they wanted was the reliability of services and the frequency of services to be increased.
When we did that work in Leeds for the transport strategy, the doubling of bus patronage that we put on Leeds is the people that are in cars that said they'd use the bus if it was faster and more reliable, so that comes to that journey time point as well.
So we kind of know what we're going to do, but on that investment in the Keighley corridor between B -SIP and Transdev,
having a service every 20 minutes at peak, that's gone up 30 % in patronage to match that,
and that's because somebody can turn up to the bus stop not caring what time the bus is
and know that they'll only have to wait 15 -20 minutes maximum.
And the same on the A647 leads to Bradford corridor where we put bus reliability measures in
and a bus corridor along there, that's gone up by 30 % increase
and first increased the services to every seven minutes along that corridor at the same time.
So if we work together and do all of it, we can get that increase, but it does rely
on every bit of the picture coming together, and I think that's the difficult bit when you're working through it,
not in a symptomatic way, and hopefully through franchises that'll be easier for us to do
because we'll be making all those decisions and it'll be slightly easier for ourselves, I think,
to see how that all fits together on a map and on the piece.
Hopefully that better reporting of punctuality of services will help because we'll be able
to identify some more of those key issues.
Thank you.
Gentleman, I want to ask a question about interchange.
Councillor Firth.
Yes, thank you Councillor Firth.
Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council) - 1:04:11
Yes, absolutely committed to completing the works.
Obviously we are finishing the works on the upper deck, making sure it's safe for use
and it fits for purpose.
Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:04:20
But that is linked to the leakage as well so making sure that we fix that as part of that and then that can be a
Problem of the past and and the wider be fruition works as well as you know so we are continuing to work
pace with priority and
The teams in the command authority we support from yourself and counselors to get that work completed
Thank you, and then I think a river did ask you answer your question council Jones
It was the other operators who probably didn't so in first join to ask a question about
Yeah no problem. So from our side, you're right Councillor Jones, the
Ms. Kim Cain - 1:04:56
contact centre isn't open at that point in the evening.
Ms. Kayleigh Ingham - 1:04:59
I don't know whether the operator contact centres are open at that point in the evening but what's clear within the West Yorkshire Passenger Charter is that irrespective of the time of the day, customers should keep their receipt.
So it specifically says if your last bus doesn't arrive in 20 minutes you can call a taxi, save the receipt and claim that back.
that claim back would never happen that night irrespective of whether the contact centre was open.
It's not a same day process, Councillor Jones.
But what we do ask is that people do follow that process because absolutely they deserve to be able to get that money back
in the case that the unfortunate circumstances that they've had to follow, follow the process to get a taxi and get them home.
Maybe there is the point in making that information more prevalent at bus stops, which I think Tim's already addressed. Thanks.
So that wasn't meant to be a gong, I don't know why I did this.
I thought you were timing me out, Councillor.
Paul, do you want to come in on that question, Councillor Jones?
Yeah, I mean, similar response to Kayleigh really.
Paul Turner - 1:05:58
There's no need to contact instantly at that time in order to get that phone.
I think the taxi guarantee has been in place for seven or eight years now.
It's not a particularly new thing.
and I think Jay you made the comment about do we need to track the numbers of
refunds we're giving to show the success of the scheme that the numbers are low
because it is there as a belt and braces because we tried our very best to avoid
counseling the last bus and it's it's not something as an industry we do as a
habit it's something that if it happens in our business it's a it's a report to
the board to understand why it's happened, taking this seriously, we would do a
MOT film because we know that the consequences of doing that. Certainly in
the last recent months I'm aware of one that we've issued and that was actually
the bus did run but had to divert away from Vicar Lane because the road was
closed but it was an emergency closure and we hadn't, nobody had told the people
waiting with the bus stopping wasn't coming so but so we treated it as if it
was cancelled and refunded that taxi on there but that's the only one in recent
times that we've we've needed to do so this is very much a belt and braces
process the actual the actual reason to stop the problem is not to cancel that
last service and leave people leave people stranded if in the unfortunate
event that it happens then that's the recompense we'll do to make sure people
get home. Thank you and Andrew? Just a more general point I would agree with Paul all operators
Andrew McGuinness - 1:07:44
I know that I represent the Holy Grail's absolutely you've run the last service
and yeah there may be instances where that's been the challenges was in that
case councillor obviously I don't know the detail of that what would also say
is West Yorkshire is ahead of most areas on this.
So I sit in too many enhanced partnerships,
probably about a dozen,
and West Yorkshire's absolutely led the way
for several years now on this.
So there is an achievement there
that everybody should be proud of.
Does it mean to say that we can always strive to be better?
Of course, absolutely.
But we'll start from a really good base here.
Thank you. And can I just ask Tim perhaps to answer the Uber question which Councilman
Grant puts around.
Of course, yeah. I think for me, any disruptive technology like that can make people look
at the way they provide their services and information differently.
Tim Taylor Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:08:42
For me, actually,
this is actually quite a simple requirement though. What passengers really want is access
transparently across many channels for consistent, easy to access, easy to
understand information. Whether that is on a piece of paper, whether that is on a
digital display at a bus stop, on an app or over the phone, as long as you get the
same information and tell me in an easy to understand manner, actually then I
think we've made that requirement. But there is always a role for technology to
push that expectation forward and particularly around the timeliness of
that information is key. So thank you chair, but happy to discuss further details.
if required. Lovely, thank you very much. So I'm going to, we need to sort of move on to the next
item. We've got rail operators waiting patiently, we've got a few items on the
Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council) - 1:09:29
agenda. So unless there's any burning questions from the committee, is there anybody
else who's not feeling the answer to the question? No? Okay. I will move on to the
rail, which is why we need to do the relay room actually. So if you, if rail
operators can come with their name tags, you take your name tags away with you
And the rail operators bring their names out with them. Thank you very much

6 Passenger Experience Report - Rail

So shall we start one presented this paper who's presenting on this a day's haskin
Okay in the same way as Tim prides a brief overview of the bus paper
I'll try to give a couple of minute brief overview of the rail paper
Dave Haskins, Interim Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:10:13
Then we can
some of those issues, I'm flagging the issues that the rail operators may want to pick up themselves.
Firstly on patronage, Northern reporting patronage up 3%, this is in the autumn year on year,
but as we will come on to later in the paper, they are facing some significant challenges at the moment on service delivery,
and we'll be able to talk about that in some more detail.
TPE, meanwhile, have high levels of patronage growth, up about 12%.
They've seen quite a number of reductions and cancellations and a stabilisation of performance.
Of course, you'll recall the last 12 months there have been a reduction in services in order to achieve that stabilisation.
And again, we can hear some about how that has paid off. A lot of that growth has been driven by leisure travel growth,
though it is noted that overall the proportion of commuting travel on TPE is down to about 19 per cent now.
it was about 27 % pre -COVID. In terms of LNER, the reporting around 15%, one 5 % higher patronage.
There's some large leisure market growth there and strong leads to London growth,
although the Bradford opportunities will be growing as more services come on stream during
during the year. Finally on the patronage side, the Office of Rail Regulator published some
statistics in November on rail station usage. This shows, if you average the above, you've got about
5 % increase in West Yorkshire in patronage. The figures are still down on 2019, that's
about 57 million against what was 72 million. But these are still higher than about 10 years
ago so there's a strong upward trend. The lead station itself showed an increase of
3 .9%. While this is good growth, this is likely high in some growth in other major cities
such as Manchester and Sheffield which are up 9 -10%. So that's an area we need to look
into to understand what's driving that low or what's not driving the growth
should we say compared to other cities. In terms of network changes some positive
news around Leeds to Doncaster as well as the sort of Leeds Bradford, Ilkley,
Skipton services which will be returning to four car services in May. There's also
some lengthening of trains on Skipton and Ilkley lines to Sixcar coming up
and we asked we have been working with Rail North Partnership around reversing
some of the proposed Sunday service cuts on New York, Pontifract, Baghill, Rotherham, Sheffield routes.
We've got some agreement in principle to return those to two trains per hour from May. There's
still some work to go through there. The report provides an update on East Coast Mainline service
changes for the end of this year, although the Combined Authority are still pressing for safeguards
in place around the resolution of some performance issues with services there as well. We're also
So still in discussions with the rail industry around Bradford to Oakley Skipson services
to get them back to two trains per hour and an evidence backed plan is under development
there.
And finally on that area we've got the Bradford -Forster Square platform which is on schedule from
8 -25.
I understand that will take a number of direct London services up to seven trains per day
which is really good news for Bradford particularly in the year of culture.
Moving on to performance, there are some industry -wide challenges that they have not sure from as
a rail industry, particularly around rest -day working agreements, sickness levels, and a
number of network rail delays.
Plus, they have been dealing with addressing the training backlogs, which was causing issues
historically.
So the operators are here, and we'll be able to cover issues around performance, particularly
including what the proposals are to deal with this.
Northern themselves have had levels, particular issues with higher cancellations.
As mentioned, rest day working has been central to resolving this.
They've also developed a remedial plan to address the long -term issues and aiming to
get up to that performance of 90 percent on time, they're currently at 75, and 2 percent
cancellations, which are currently at 7 percent overall, but I say only, but they are at 3 .4
percent in the eastern region.
and it's the west of their patch, which has taken the brunt of the problems there.
There are three phases to Northern, which is stabilizing, resetting, and performance.
And a more detailed remediation plan has been requested by ourselves to include milestones,
progress tracking, and regular reporting.
My understanding is Trans -Pennine Express have rest day working in place till March,
and they restored full services following the plan as I've discussed that was over the
previous 12 months.
But more widely, there's been an increase in faults attributable to network rail, and
that has been impacting on performance.
A letter was issued to the North Network Rail Eastern Region expressing concerns around
this to which they have responded, providing us with some assurances, although there's
a plan which still needs to be worked through around what exactly that means in getting
that back on track.
The final section I'll just briefly touch on is the passenger network enhancements.
It's fair to say the big focus this year in our area is around transparent route upgrade.
There was a blockade that took place in autumn on the Leeds to Dewsbury Huddersfield section
which went to plan and they have a series of user groups that they report in when there
are challenges and there haven't been any real negative feedback in relation to any
of the work that's taken place so far.
The next biggie really is the Huddersfield blockade from the 30th of August to the 29th of September, when Huddersfield station will be closed.
There's been some very strong engagement with the transparent route upgrade team, it's fair to say.
And it's planned in place to use brickhouse stations to provide the best possible service to passengers in the circumstances, including a bus service to Huddersfield.
And it's probably worth mentioning that the bus replacement services is a significant issue that we need to focus on and to make sure that that's done well.
I think it would be worth us thinking about getting, if we can, Transparent Route Upgrade
Team, maybe into the next Transport Committee to give us a bit of an overview of the work
that's going on and to raise and highlight what kind of disruption is likely to take
place and the measures that are being considered, not considered measures, but will be put in
place to make sure that goes as smoothly as possible.
The final, final point is there's an update provided on the Department for Transport's
for all program including status of schemes at Garth, Menstor, Todmorden and
Ponsfrack Monckhill. Variable levels of progress across those schemes because
Northern are facing some delivery challenges which we are currently
working through with them and we've also got a wider scheme an accessibility app
Guisely station which isn't mentioned in the report which is also being progressed.
Thank you. Thank you very much and I know sometimes I'm sure Councillor Firth will
confer TPU to come to this committee and just give an upgrade give an update on
the upgrade because obviously it's a significant amount investment happen in
our area is going to disruptive however it is going to lead to wider regeneration
benefits in the years to come so let's make sure that's on the agenda so just
to introduce Darren and George you want to introduce yourselves
good afternoon all I'm Darren Alsop I'm the stakeholder manager for the East
region at Northern. Hi and I'm George Thomas I'm TP's strategic development and
stakeholder director. So thank you very much for coming here today. Obviously in
the report we have some of the LNER and Grand Central in there as well but any
questions for Northern and TPA's have been kind enough to come here today.
Councillor Courtney. Thank you. I think as described in paragraph in 3 .1 rail
Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council) - 1:17:56
patronage is up 3 % for period 8 compared to the previous year so that's 24
compared to 23 and settling of industrial disputes may well have
assisted this so that's that's really good off peak leisure travel is a
particular growth point for Northern Rail on the Calder Valley line which is
which is fantastic for us so I'm sort of represent Hebden Bridge sort of area but
you know it's transport leader the whole of I do have an interest in the upper
Valley and the Calder Valley line specifically. So and weekend footfall at
Leeds station in September reached 97 % of pre -pandemic levels which is brilliant
it's really going in the right direction. Unfortunately Northern Rail you've had
some reliability issues I'd like to say major reliability issues that feels a
bit hard but they're quite big and in fact Rail North expressed concerns you
Andrew McGuinness - 1:18:53
Ms. Kayleigh Ingham - 1:18:54
know on your on the northern mitigation on your mitigation program so my
Ms. Kim Cain - 1:18:56
question is how are you as Northern Rail intending to overcome your
Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council) - 1:19:04
reliability problems to really build long -term growth? Another million dollar
question. Thank you I'll just go to Councillor, I can't remember my writing, Wallace.
So Councillor Wallace, Councillor Morley and then Councillor Kimber and then we'll go to your break.
Thank you chair. It's just to say first of all thank you for the improvements in the
Cllr Tony Wallis - 1:19:25
rail service for Wakefield and Castleford between Manchester and York which has increased.
I've had a lot of positive reports especially about people going to York. I think the expectation
We did say when the service was coming up that it should be well used and I think it is
I just would like the service to go to Scarborough. I realize
Even now that the service doesn't move
Even now from Leeds to Scarborough. I think you now have to change it York
That's just bring the main. It's been a good thing
We have had the different groups at Casper, especially there
Civic Society will have set up a frenzy of the Casper Railway station under Northern's guidance, which is
appreciated
and they're looking at things like
planters and at the station working with Northern on that
so that is
Positive that's come from the improved services
So that's in that's come from that at the only concern that has been raised over
Time is the car park at the station, which I think is run by northern
It's not a car park where there are cash machines. And I think that
There has been a misunderstanding as to what it's free on Sunday. I know I do gather it's not
Whereas most car parks in in the town are
But it's mainly about this no cash machines and also about the signage at the station
and then the other one which
Councilor Morley and myself have been contacted by the group is about the naming of trains and
We just we just can't find the procedure for it
I don't know if
I'm sure council Molly will have more to say about that because he's he's been involved more than that. Well, I thought
But it's there's been a request with me. No
We can't find any any clear way of how that's done and we just wondered if you could advise us on that
Thank you. Thank you. Councilor Morley. Would you like to you're indicating on my list anyway?
Yeah
Thank you for that
Just a couple of points for you, some thank yous and just an observation.
Firstly, it's good to see that the Leeds to Doncaster service, the four trains would return sooner rather than later on that.
That's something that's been a massive positive for the area of Wakefield.
And also the York to Sheffield service that will be returning in May as well, that serves Baghill.
So thank you very much for that.
When it comes to Northern as well though there's some for passenger numbers we have some statistics there for leads but there's nothing
Cllr Matthew Morley Wakefield Council - 1:22:30
there for outside of leads so you just need to know what the figures are for the Wakefield District and I'm sure elsewhere as well.
When it comes to the last one though, the access for all, obviously,
the pontifat station is on there. The last time they asked us at the last transport committee,
we were told that ordnance would be up and work would be started as we speak.
I don't believe either of us happened and there may be pressures there,
but everywhere's got pressures at the moment. That funding was put in place in early 2020.
say we're now in 2025, it'd be interesting to know.
Will I be getting a train pass or a bus pass before it gets up and running sort of thing?
It is going on and on and on and on for that one and I'm sure anyone can answer.
It would be nice if real companies though, we are looking to name a train.
We have a great, a rubbly legend, the Council of Super Society would welcome any dialogue
with yourselves about how we could do that you know grab to a discussion with
with Northern after this meeting if that's possible and so way forward
thank you I have a few things I'm going to be really really quick so around the
access for our top of the station was still awaiting the restart and
Cllr Katie Kimber - 1:23:59
Completion dates on that was we're waiting those and then a couple of questions around
Community rail partnership and so we know that Manchester have joined
And why are we not having leads in Bradford joining into that into that partnership?
You know with the amazing community work that they do the friends are there a statutory?
Consultee on the timetable and as well and then my final one is around
Myden Road train station, we've got a ginormous car park and not very many trains stopping.
We've got a petition at the moment which is getting quite a lot of interest because people would like to easily park there rather than go to Hepton Bridge.
Just have a bridge where the car parks are small and be able to get on any train that goes through that Calder Valley line and get off at Myden Road. Thank you.
Thank you very much. So, can I go to Northern first for responses? There's quite a lot of those for you, actually.
Ms. Kim Cain - 1:25:02
Quite a lot for us. Thank you.
So, I think the first question was regarding the Calder Valley.
Oh, do you like to come see? Thank you, Chair.
So, the Calder Valley service provision hasn't been good enough.
We recognize that and just a statistic which I don't like to share really but the Blackpool to York service cancellation number was 12 .3 % in period nine.
So when we talk about you know the overall roundabout 3 % for the east we realized we're letting customers down.
I think we've been very open and honest about that, that's not good enough.
From a Calder Valley point of view, the leisure provision and the customer numbers have been really, really good
and we are working hard as I think Dave has said within his overview, we're working hard to try to rectify this.
We have had some challenges with the industrial position as has been widely publicized.
Thankfully we're over that now. We have a driver estate working agreement until 2027,
which driver cancellations have really reduced since we've got this agreement in place, which is fantastic.
What we are seeing, and again, there's a real challenge mainly on a Sunday for conductor availability.
and we are seeing double the amount of cancellations for Sundays which
obviously when people wish to travel for leisure that's not good and again
something that we're trying to address. What really needs to happen the railways
need to have a seven -day terms and conditions across all of our colleagues
we did have a referendum to the conductors for Western Central to see if
could get a deal for working Sundays and unfortunate referendum was rejected and
again so we're working really really hard to try and look at how we can
progress with a seven -day railway. Again as Dave has alluded to we are working
with Real North Partnership on an improvement plan that improvement plan
is still being worked through with with some additional questions from Real
North Partnership and the committee that will see an improvement from Northern
and I think what's really important to you to understand is that we do not
think we are in a good place we want to be better I think it's really important
to acknowledge that we are letting some of our customers down. The leisure travel
is brilliant and we're really pleased with that we are seeing a return to some
the commute and again some of those figures are encouraging. I hope I answered
the question on the Calder Valley. It's not good enough, we'd like it to be
better, it will be better but we do have some real significant challenges with
that. Just on the Castleford, thank you for the positive and I think George
some of those positives come to TPE for some of that service provision and
uplift. I'll leave George to talk about the Scarborough provision there. Just from
the Castleford parking point of view, most car parks are going to items
like Ringo with the app. You can call and you can ring the number to get your
parking. We appreciate that not everybody has mobile technology and not everybody
can use that however in the main we don't see significant problems there is
a telephone number to ring that is the way forward for northern we're not going
to introduce reintroduce cash at our stations which we do charge for but we
will try and work with all communities to help and assist in getting an
understanding of which telephone numbers you need to call how you get assistance
if you you require. Train naming. We tend not to name trains because we would get
so many different requests for naming trains however something specific I'm
happy to have an offline conversation. I'm not sure of the person or what that
Mr Darren Allsop - 1:29:27
naming may be and it could be something that we could do but we try not to
encourage that because of so many different requests that you can imagine
that we would probably receive. Glad about the leads to Doncaster 4 car. The
early morning Doncaster that was a 3 car has been one of our busiest trains and we
are leaving people behind so we're happy to see that re -instruction of a 4 car
from the next timetable. Figures for Wakefield and the Office of Rail and
Road published figures so they're available online again I can circulate
those if that's required happy to do so and that will give each station you can
you can filter that you get each station's footfall figures easily on
that. Ponticract access for all and I think I'll address the the Toddminton
access for all scheme at the same time if that's okay we had a contract with
with a group, those contracts have been ended.
Toddbudon has been delayed.
It's partway through the construction.
We're just currently out tender for a new contractor.
Pontefract's access for all is also delayed further
because the same contractor that we've now ended
our deal with were the contractors for Pontefract.
again I've committed to Yvette Cooper who is the is the MP for Pontifract to
give it an update and again I'm happy to do so. There is there are no current
updates on the timeline for Pontifract because as I say we're entering into new
contracts for Todmerdon and for Pontifract -Munkill but I'm happy to provide a
update as to the estimated completion and timelines for schemes we have to
start asking asking question asking questions and answering quickly so
council council Morley just briefly come back very briefly very very shocked by
Cllr Matthew Morley Wakefield Council - 1:31:40
the answer access for all the council Wakefield Council put in over a million
pound it wasn't match funding it was more money than actually that the
Wakefield Council to give us no date whatsoever it actually is not
Unacceptable no respect to a vet coupe. I'm glad you're updating there, but it's waiting for counselors, but the funding in place
So I would expect a greater dialogue between yourselves and wait for the count and going forward in future. That's unacceptable
Make sure that castle Morley then gets a briefing with wacker and northern on that's absolutely right
There's some council can permission of community rail partnership
Any answer on that
Nothing immediately I have been picking up the rail operators around community partnerships. I met a couple of them last week to talk
Dave Haskins, Interim Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:32:24
through that. I was at the Northern Conference in York a week ago. We're going to start entering into a bit more dialogue around what we can do there.
So, what's your space?
And George would like to come on from a TP point of view.
Thank you chair. And just want to say a few words about that rail patronage.
Mr George Thomas - 1:32:42
That was mentioned in a couple of places in Dave's update.
So year on year TP have seen a 16 % increase in our numbers.
So that since the time table was introduced just at the beginning of December.
So that puts us at the top of the league for growth across the UK rail, which is really positive.
I think just wanted to provide a bit of reassurance go to that starts to give rise to some concerns that we might run out of
Run out of seats and I think you'll have heard us say previously that we introduced
1300 extra seats each each day at the timetable change back it back in December
So I think the good news to try and that try and share is that despite the fact that we've seen that increase in
Patronage we have actually all is seen a reduction in the number of trains that are fully loaded
So we're running at around 5 % at the moment of services that are running without
Without with a few people a few people standing so that's the positive progress so far just to pick up on the points around
Wakefield so that that's that's been a real success story for us
I've been I've been quite astonished really by the amount of growth that we've seen so over the course of last year
We saw a tenfold increase in the number of customers traveling on those on those services real success story
So obviously now that's hourly, we hope to see that continue.
The point around Scarborough, I hope
I've understood that correctly.
So if we go back to the timetable
that we put in place back in last December,
that sees the Manchester Scarborough service reintroduced.
So hopefully that will be addressing that concern there.
Obviously that had previously just been a shuttle service
between York and York and Scarborough for the duration of of 20 of 2024 so
hopefully that addresses that concern there. If I may chair, well I've
just got the mic I just wanted to acknowledge that they've made the point
around the TRU and the disruption that's coming up at Huddersfield. I just
want to say thank you to the colleagues at the Combined Authority and at
Kirk Lees for all the help that they've that they've given us to try and get in
place those arrangements. I think it is going to be a real a real challenge
Obviously we've got a month throughout September this year where we'll be running without any trains through Huddersfield at all
And then we'll be needing to manage some of the local traffic through an interchange at Brick House for the rest of 2025
But also the whole of 2026. It's a really considerable
Operation and I'd certainly second Dave's suggestion that I'm sure colleagues from TIU would be keen to come and give some more detail
And it's helpful to host people at Huddersfield to have a walk around and see what the plans to rebuild the station look like
They're more than happy to facilitate that
I've also brought you lots of reading reading material which I've put on the table over there if it's helpful to
Pick up some of those brochures that will explain what's going on TRU more broadly, but particularly at Huddersfield
Which is really key focus for us this year. Thank you very much. So we'll obviously look at that the next meeting
I think we really a good opportunity
Also, mention about MyThumbroid. Is that you then, Damon, about more stopping at MyThumbroid?
And presumably that's a timetable issue, I would imagine.
And again, I think what's really important is we need to get the
Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council) - 1:35:59
service that we promised now correct, and then continue to look at additional services.
I think the improvement plan is really important to get to this 90 % times three and two percent cancellations.
Mr Darren Allsop - 1:36:11
So we will work with authorities and local councils etc on service specification.
But we just have to get what we're promising now I think correct and we have to like kind of provide a service to the customers that we advertise.
So we will work and we'll continue to work regarding changes to services and we have added additional stops at various locations on Calder Valley which has seen improvements.
I know people want to have more and we will continue to try to do so, but it's really important that we deliver a
Better more reliable service than we have been for our customers
Thank You chair, I'll be as brief as I can my first point is a slightly parochial question about the new timetable for the TP put
in place
In my part of the world and particularly the loss of direct services to Leeds from slavic and Marsden stations along the Cone Valley line
It's caused a lot of inconvenience in my part of the world and people,
Cllr Moses Crook Kirklees Council - 1:37:09
it's the first time
there hasn't been a direct service to Leeds from there in over 40 years.
Cllr Matthew McLoughlin - 1:37:15
So people have built their lives and bought their homes in anticipation of being able
to carry on doing that.
So it's not satisfactory and I would like to see it reinstated as the earliest opportunity
please.
On the TRU blockade at Huddersfield, it's going to be a massive disruption and I welcome
what they've said about engaging with the user groups.
Can I just please ask that we make sure we are engaging with meaningfully with the user groups particularly
We've got smart and Shrunk who I think sometimes feel a little bit ignored
And on the report itself of P coding in the figures in appendix 1
I'm sure we used to include P coding in those figures, but they're not in this report
So, please could they be included in future because it's a sneaky way. I'm getting a few more cancellations under the radar in it
Okay, you okay with that? Is that an acquiescence from day? Yeah, we can look at that. Yes
Lovely. Eric Carusle -Firth, rather.
Thank you, Cher. We've had a host of questions and mostly limited answers from Dannan and George.
But one minor point, I think David could have helped with this.
Cllr Eric Firth (Kirklees Council) - 1:38:19
I was at a meeting this morning in Huddersfield and a number of people raised the point that
the passenger replacement bus, particularly on a Sunday,
was stacking up in Georgia Square
and actually clogging it all up for the Hackney drivers
and the normal users of the area.
So can we just have a little word?
Obviously the bus and the needed,
can we stack them up somewhere else please,
rather than in St. Georgia Square?
Thank you, David.
Thank you very much. We'll take that as an action, I think, probably, that needs resolving.
Any other questions of the operators whilst we've got them here?
Councillor Williamson.
Thank you. This is probably more for Northern.
It's not relating directly to any report, but it's to do specifically with unland stations.
There's one in my ward and there's quite a few around the Wakefield district but when it comes to the bad weather particularly with the snow we had
which then froze over, we had quite slippery stations with ice and stuff for quite a long time and some of these stations are also hard
Cllr Jakob Williamson (Wakefield Council) - 1:39:42
to access with steep slopes or steep steps and things
and a few times I've gone on and off the train at Fitzwilliam and we're nearly sliding on the
platform myself and I just think it's really dangerous when we're you know outside a um
obviously live railways with which also has um high speed sort of London trains going through
as well and I just wondered if there's anything we could do in the future when the snow hits
at trying to clear the snow before it freezes over and things on these stations to make it safer
That's an excellent question that I think all of us in West Yorkshire have grappled with over the last few weeks.
And actually, we could have had a whole session on that as well.
Obviously, platforms, we've had people complaining that it was so icy that it was dangerous, etc, etc.
We could do with a long conversation about it, what your cold weather plans are.
So is that something you can provide us with what your cold weather plans are at stations and briefly just respond on that?
Agree to that. We probably could be here for a lengthy conversation and I'm happy to do so, you know, I meet
Mr Darren Allsop - 1:40:51
With with Dave etc on a monthly basis. We could have that to an agenda
It was unprecedented of
469 stations every one of them
required
Attention and our contract just couldn't cope with the actual need
and we recognized that some of those stations, I mean I saw my local station
Appley Bridge and Geisley, they were also in a place where we wouldn't like
them to be and I apologize to customers who were affected at any station because
it was a really really tricky time and I think the ice was compounded because you
can put grit down over a stone that didn't work. We were having an
internal conversation regarding whether or not that's fit for purpose and what we need to do with our contractor should this happen again.
But it's just saying obviously it wasn't as good as it could have been.
It was unprecedented across the whole of the North.
We normally get isolated pockets, it's much easier to deal with, but there are definitely some lessons to be learned.
And I think, you know, that's got to be acknowledged and I do apologize for that.
but happy to have a deeper and more meaningful conversation.
Lovely, thank you very much. So with that, if people don't mind, we just need to move on now
because we're going to be running out of time and I've failed enormously in this meeting,
I apologise to keep us on track, but these are all very important
Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council) - 1:42:21
questions from local communities
who are obviously concerned about their passenger transport experience by bus and rail. So thank
you very much for your attendance this afternoon and local transport plan then
yep thank you council I'll try and keep this brief and because then because of
time as well but the paper that was presented in the pack and was for two
purposes first of all just to bring to Transport Committee and the fact that in
Helen Ellerton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:42:51
December the devolution white paper was published and this sets out proposals to
strengthen the evolution there will be a longer conversation about this at the
combined authority next week, but it was just really to raise this for transport committee.
Within there, there was a range of proposed powers relevant to transport, moving the combined
authority and this combined authority, one of them to become a strategic authority.
The first thing, creation of an integrated settlement from which West Yorkshire will
be part of from March 2026 or April 2026.
The relationship and the creation of a local growth
plan and making the statutory for us as a combined authority
and publication of local transport plan guidance.
And so they'll come on to out where
we are in hours and a moment.
Also within that, specifically on transport,
providing the mayor with statutory powers on rail
and creating a move and those needed to therefore move forward our engagement
with GB rail to move and develop that as part of West Yorkshire and then finally
on roads creating a more coordinated approach to the key route network and
other areas across that consistency across another number of areas around
requirements in there so all of this is working forward as a program known
framework provided by government on that book was the same more conversational
be at the Combined Authority next week.
So then on to the local transport plan.
And thank you for some of the comments today,
and I appreciate the bus operators have left the room.
We are continuing to work with operators
to build the evidence base, and particularly
around information on where we have challenges

7 Local Transport Plan

across the bus network, reliability issues, et cetera,
et cetera, through our local transport plan evidence base.
We had a session with members in private of Transport Committee in December which went well and through that process.
The policy position, the evidence -based position and where we're travelling, going to if you like, through that we felt was well received and we're continuing on the basis of which was presented.
and
We we work through that some of the key areas in the evidence base
But also kind of our targets for where we want to take the local transport plan through more
We'll present more of this in public over the next few months
and the the main reason for bringing the local transport plan update paper to this transport committee was to enable kind of
Presentation and put into public the outcomes of the engagement that happened last summer
As you recall, we engaged on the vision, the principles and the network principles, sorry, and the objectives of the local transport plan
over the course of last summer.
And then today we're just coming back with all of that information and there is a link on the Your Voice page to present the full
outcomes of that. In real kind of high -level brief terms if you like,
the
The vision as presented, the objectives and the principles were generally well received
across the piece and they provided us with a firm foundation from which to develop the
policies for the local transport plan.
Prioritising enhancements to public transport was something respondents particularly highlighted
and fixing current infrastructure so that reliability, frequency, network coverage was
kind of top of that priority.
And feedback also consistently highlighted the need
for the local transport plan to prioritize inclusivity,
integration, rural transport, for example,
and making sure that we prioritize
how all of that works together on our streets.
So this can, and I appreciate that's very overarching
comments, but that feedback is then kind of being used now
to take forward our next steps.
So I guess kind of on those next steps,
We're working towards a combined authority meeting in April to work towards going to do the full consultation in public in June.
Thank you. And the local transport policy of this committee has had a lot of number of sessions, actually.
So thank you very much. Councilman Clopin. Thank you, Chair.
Yes. More devolution. Fantastic. I feel more powerful already.
Hooray! The local transport plan is what my question is about. We in Kirklees, it's written within our Constitution, this is about the flight path for the document, and I think it might be true of Wakefield as well, but don't quote me on that. It's certainly true of another one of the authorities, that it has to be passed by our
Cllr Andrew Pinnock - 1:47:37
cabinet and full council. So can I just ask that we make sure that
Cllr Matthew McLoughlin - 1:47:41
there is enough time built into the process to go through our proper governance structures? Thank you.
Thank you. So my questions on the consultation, a couple of areas of concern that have been
discussed across at C
climate emergency impacts that are referenced in the report. So the
Cllr Katie Kimber - 1:48:01
language of the draft
LTP and its policy body is not as forthright on climate as we might have expected and whilst
there are inherent links between transport, economic and environmental policy that require
an unambiguous decision by leaders on the renewed carbon pathway, there is a concern
that the economic need may be leading to a lessening of the priority on the environmental
and then associated with the climate concern and is a lack of language around
the transport demand management in the draft LTP and it's entirely absent from
me from the document so a district level and a district level can and must play
key role in dealing with these matters but there must also be hooks in the
regional policy context for that opportunity.
The Councilor Courtney.
Yeah, so yeah, we also welcome the white paper
and acceleration of the devolution process
and the delivery, yeah, we'll bring to West Yorkshire
Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council) - 1:49:07
as a mayoral region.
I think in the case of improved strategic powers
statutory functions in rail matters. It's critical that the Mayor and combined
authority officers supporting strengths and functions engage with district
partners across all levels to make sure that local knowledge is really embedded
in into making sure the strategic priorities are advanced effectively.
So basically involve us, talk to us, make sure that we're you know sort of like
thoroughly in there. But and I would say particularly around the electrification
with the Calder Valley line.
Didn't think that that wasn't gonna come up, did you?
Because it was obviously is going to.
I'm really sorry, but you know,
I feel like a bit of a stuck record.
So I mean, we sort of know really that we've got concern
that the national narrative,
that the national narrative doesn't recognize
the importance of the Calder Valley line electrification,
where other matters such as improved Bradford
to Huddersfield connectivity are interested by government
and the electrification of the C Calder Valley line,
Please, please can you advocate on our behalf and the in
So if it's advocated by the region and enhanced structure rail function
And this will yeah, these things will help the mayor in this endeavor
I just think I think I know and I know that it's money and I know that you know
It's all going on the transparent and it to be honest
it's not helped by the diagram in the you know, the corridors of opportunities diagram in the
local transport plan which basically sort of takes the one of the corridors
of opportunity. It doesn't get you know it doesn't it sort of follows the
motorway route through to Manchester from sort of like you know from Halifax
and Bradford it seems to follow the motorway rather than the train line and
while you know a lot of the economic opportunity is is you know we do
understand that but actually it sort of misses out the economic importance of
the upper cold valley as well. It's always the maps that that is down. I think it's meant to be the railway line not the motorway.
Perhaps Harrow just shifted. Yeah if you could have a look at that. I have brought it up a couple of times in a couple of different places but I'm happy to have a further conversation.
I'll have the pin up next and I'll come back to you.
Cllr Andrew Pinnock - 1:51:31
Thank you. I have a problem with democratic deficits but I won't talk
about that here because it's strictly nothing to do with transport. A lot of councillors around the table say we've got a democratic deficit. I still do have a problem but it's still not it's not
being completely finished yet so I I'm all in favor of devolution I'm rather
suspect that there won't be anybody in this room who isn't but it's how you do
it and as I say the discussion on how you do it democratically is probably for another
place rather than here.
But on the local transport plan there's some rather somewhat disturbing figures on page
41 the responses from from Calderdale and Kirklees seem to be very much very
much lower than everywhere else and I just wonder whether whether anybody has
any any inkling as to why this might be true because there are people interested
in transport in Kirklees and Calderdale. There's plenty of them and I know quite a
I know quite a lot of them. So the figures do seem to be much lower than everywhere else.
Okay, thank you very much. Helen, do you want to address the carbon deficit that Councillor Kimberley was talking about? Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor. Thank you for the questions and I appreciate your feedback. Thank you.
I think just to come back to your point, Councillor Kimberley, thank you. You welcome those comments and we've had conversations with the officers about that as well.
Helen Ellerton, Officer (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:53:14
I think and so and Councillor Carl's what so the the positioning on the policies the wording of the policies
We've tried to make it so that districts can take it to where they want to take it and each district obviously
the gold standard if you like
Can't be achieved by everybody at the start all at once. So it's about how that is applied in different places
So I'm but happy to have a further conversation with you on that
if you want, just to make sure we are appreciating where your feedback is coming from.
Sorry, I'm losing my voice.
And then just to pick up on your point, Councillor Pinnock, around the responses.
In terms of the overall West Yorkshire, we actually had a greater number of responses on this.
So given this is an engagement on the vision and objectives for a local transport plan,
It's not something that you would necessarily get a lot of response from from the general public because of its broadness
We actually got a significant did well proportionally shall we say on the number of responses and actually dare I say it?
We've got more than transport for the north on their strategic transport plan
and in terms of percentage of it in terms of percentage of responses by district actually they were
Kirkley's and Cauldell are actually in proportion of the population size
relative to other areas of West Yorkshire so I think it's just worth
clarifying that of where people live across West Yorkshire the number of
responses in those areas were relatively good. And I suppose this plan obviously is
coming to its completion we have to have a plan but presumably as we go
forward times change don't they and priorities change and hopefully we
Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council) - 1:55:01
things so it when is a refresh when is opportunity to update this so how often
do we look at it review so typically a local transport plan lasts for 10 years
however we tend to look at reviewing it by every five years to make sure it's
reflective this current one and was well our current transport strategy was
adopted in 2017 and obviously since then we've had covered we've had an mayor and
we've had a lot of big things happening West Yorkshire so the time for it really
is now and to enable us to kind of carry forward the next stages of our transport
evolution. Thank you very much. Council McLaughlin, very bleak for it briefly. I don't think you mentioned the
the flight path and going through our governance process. Apologies, sorry I
missed that one. So we are in conversation with your officers about
time is for that and each district as you pointed out is slightly different.
We, given our our consultation, our formal statutory consultation, will be
for 12 weeks from hopefully start of June all being well and we have had
conversations with making sure that with your officers that it goes through your
processes within that period, you know, immediately after that period to enable
us to adopt in March next year.
Can I just quickly comment on a couple of points as well, Matt?
So one point is with regard to Cold Valley Line electrification.
Simon Warburton, Executive Director (West Yorkshire Combined Authority) - 1:56:30
So it's in the Combined Authorities Rail Strategy and therefore it will be in the local transport plan.
And frankly, if we ever want to stop more trains at Mithern Road, for example, you need to electrify the line because the question wasn't answered for you earlier.
but the reality is you got slow trains quicker and speed them up quicker at the
stops in order to do so absolutely and with regard to the concerns around
consultation response I think my advice to members would be please don't concern
yourselves too much at this stage the consultation that we've run so far is a
very high level consultation around objectives that inevitably appeals to
quite a discreet audience despite the team's very best efforts to promote it
We'll be consulting this year as the report sets out on a detailed plan where we actually get into what are the proposed schemes and I think I'd anticipate that there will be considerably more response at that point.
So plenty of opportunity yet for the community to get involved.
Thank you very much. So we're coming to the end of our time.
There is a bus service improvement plan on there as well
Were there any burning questions to that that people had before we close the meeting to where people have transport?
To get to themselves as a pin it customer clock and council
Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe (Bradford Council) - 1:57:49
To something we talked about earlier related to chain bar
Cllr Andrew Pinnock - 1:58:08
came outside and she mentioned to me that Areva certainly have tried getting Highways
England to change the timing of the traffic lights and Highways England have flatly refused
to do anything like that because they're worried that it's going to cause tailbacks on the
now I
She did say to me would the mayor have any influence in this direction because it it does it does seem a really rather
pathetic answer
I'm not sure I'd use that word in public
Cllr Katie Kimber - 1:58:49
Thanks, yeah, thank you. So just just a very quick
Again, it's really important, especially if we don't want to see bus patronage drop off even more,
Cllr Sarah Courtney (Calderdale Council) - 1:59:03
that while we're waiting in our end of the valley for franchising,
that we really need to be looking at what investment we can have in our bus services in the meantime
because actually things are deteriorating.
And just on that, we have no zero emission buses in Calderdale,
so if we can have some of those, that would be really helpful as well
because that also enhances passenger experience because we know that they're nicer.
So as well as being good for the environment.
Neither do we in Bradford actually, I don't think.
I'll go with you.
They're all a bit possible.
They're all elites.
This is descending now, we're not getting...
We've broken out in unity here.
Excellent. Councillor McLachlan or Kimberley?
Thank you, thank you, chair.
This is on the table to our emerging customer principles and what it means for bus information and customer services.
The last one, supported and accountable. The sentence that accompanies
Cllr Matthew McLoughlin - 1:59:58
that doesn't mean anything.
And it doesn't mention being accountable. And I think we can do better.
Thank you. Councillor Kimber, final word? Excellent.
Any other burning questions before we all depart to our next meetings?
Thank you very much everybody for sticking with it. I know it's been a lot, but it's an opportunity really just to ask operators and help people to account.
So thank you very much for your participation this afternoon. Thank you.
you