Calls for improvements to be made to West Midlands bus services to 'encourage more usage'
Calls have been made to improve the marketing of West Midlands buses to encourage more people to use them.
At a West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) joint overview and scrutiny committee meeting, Solihull councillor Andrew Burrow said people still continue to use their cars despite subsidised bus routes going exactly where they want to go.
At a previous meeting Councillor Burrow, who also admitted he didn’t use the bus network, called for work to be carried out to look at the issue and asked about progress on this.
Bosses said studies are being conducted and these will form a part of the move to a franchised bus network from the current private operator led model.
Councillor Burrow said: “We asked could you create a study to look at why daily users of cars in those areas where bus routes are subsidised don’t use buses.
“This is despite the fact the buses go to where they want to get to.
“As a ex-private sector person, I cannot believe how awful the marketing is in my area.
“By marketing I mean the company understanding what they need to do to get people on board and communicating with them.
“If I talk to my residents about the customer service levels, it doesn’t surprise me we haven’t got people on buses in my area.
“I don’t travel on them because I don’t know how to. I speak to people around where I live, the southern part of Solihull, and that’s common. You do it if you only have to.
“We’ve got to get those people onto the buses, including me, because that way it reduces the subsidy and we can run more services.
“But it is going to require total change, when we go to franchising, in the way we do stuff. That’s my great hope for franchising.”
West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker said: “The choices the residents make about whether they use a car, a bus, a train often depends on personal preferences but also reliability, affordability of public transport and the safety too.
“The team have been looking at that. Monitoring is done on a regular basis around usage and across this region, the bus network is still the most popular mode of public transport.
“Around 80 per cent of transport users in the region use the bus network.”
WMCA interim chief executive Ed Cox added: “As part of the work we are doing for franchising, there are a number of different studies going on that will inform the franchising process and this is one of them we are looking at.”
