Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillors R. Blackmore, Hall and Porter.

Members are asked to declare any interests they may have in the business on the agenda, and/or indicate that Section 106 of the Local Government Finance Act 1992 applies to them.

Councillor Newcombe disclosed a personal and non-prejudicial interest in the issues to be discussed as he was a bus driver employed by a company operating within the City.

Councillor Thomas disclosed a personal and non-prejudicial interest as he had an objection to companies who provided a service to the public at a profit to the company.

To discuss the questions that will be put to the Bus Companies later in the meeting.

Councillor Russell outlined the basis of questions to be put to the bus company representatives present at the meeing as follows: -

Has Star Trak increased passenger numbers, is there anecdotal evidence

Confidence in the system

Providing passengers with a good service

Does system work

Main barriers to 100% success

Roll out across all routes in the City

Investment in Star Trak

Dots or not

Buses running early – good or not

Officers reported that it would be possible to demonstrate to members the management information available on Star Trak and available to Arriva Midlands and First Leicester.

Campaign for Better Transport stated that whilst investment in new vehicles in Leicester had been good there had been cases of reasonably new Star Trak equipped vehicles being cascaded to another area that did not have Star Trak in operation.

To receive a presentation from Campaign for Better Transport.

A copy of a Briefing Note from officers is appended (Appendix A).

A presentation, previously seen by some members of the Task Group, was given by Campaign for Better Transport. The presentation highlighted issues around the actual operation of the Star Trak system from the perspective of bus users. The presentation centred on one particular bus corridor into the City between Western Park and the City Centre.

At the conclusion of the presentation the First Leicester representative stated that he was not comfortable with the presentation, as he would have preferred to see recommendations on the table. Councillor Russell stated that this concern would be addressed at the next meeting.

To interview representatives from: -

            First Leicester

            Arriva Midlands.

At this point of the meeting a series of questions were put to: -

            Mr. Steve Zanker – First Leicester

            Mr. Steve Smith – Arriva Midlands

The responses are also shown.

1)         Has Star Trak increased the numbers of passengers carried on Star Trak routes. Is there anecdotal evidence to support this?

            Arriva

            Difficult to say as the operating conditions over the past 2 years has been difficult. Arriva had invested £10m in new low-floor vehicles and it was difficult to assess the benefits against the on-going city centre operating experience.

            First

            On the 22 route, as well as several other routes, passenger growth had been experienced. On the 22 the public perception had been that the service seemed to be more reliable. There was no evidence to support that the introduction of Star Trak had increased passenger numbers.

2)         Do you have confidence in the Star Trak system?

            Arriva

            Yes, and the 153/154 route, converted in 1996/7 had become one of the most successful Star Trak routes operated by Arriva, although it was predominantly a rural route and was not high frequency. Within the City Centre there had been a number of reliability issues with Star Trak that had now largely been addressed by the City Council. A large influx of new vehicles for the City Centre – Wigston services had led to delays in getting electronic timetables to be available, due to issues with setting up the on-board equipment.

            First

            Yes, the system provides much data that can be used by management, although this was not fully utilised at present. First had invested in a large number of new Star Trak fitted vehicles and by tackling one bus corridor at a time the implementation had worked well, although it may have been better to just tackle one route at a time. Overall the system worked well but it was felt that more work was required to make the system totally effective.

3)         Do you feel that Star Trak offers passengers a good service?

            Arriva

            The system offers confidence to passengers, particularly in isolated areas where the need to know that a bus is going to arrive is crucial.

            First

            Regarding the 22 route, on Belgrave Road, only 2 routes are shown on Star Trak, although there are at least 6 other bus routes serving the road, and people were not necessarily aware of these services. Star trak was more useful in areas where there were fewer services. The inbound facility towards the City centre was probably less useful than the outbound facility. Overall it was not felt that ‘real time’ information could be taken in isolation, rather taken as part of an overall package of better quality vehicles and reliability of services.

            Early Running of buses

            The bus company representatives were questioned as to the possible early running of buses.

            The Task Group was informed that early running of buses was unacceptable. Bus routes were registered with the Traffic Commissioners and timing points on all routes had to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

The meeting closed at 12.02 pm.