Agenda Item No. 12
Meeting:
Putting Passengers First Committee
Date:
16 February 2015
From:
Head of Customer Services
Subject:
Third Annual Putting Passengers First Conference - 19 March
2015
Lead Member:
Cllr Kath Hartley, Putting Passengers First
Purpose of Report
1.
To update the Committee on the arrangements being made by the Conference
Working Group to deliver Centro’s third Putting Passengers First Conference on 19
March 2015.
Recommendations
2.
The Committee is recommended to note the progress being made in arranging the
third annual Putting Passengers First Conference.
Background
3.
Centro will host its third annual Putting Passengers First Conference at Centro
House on 19 March 2015. The Conference has become a key event in the customer
engagement calendar, providing an opportunity to consult and engage with a wide
range of stakeholders and individual public transport users.
4.
At its meeting on 8 December 2014, the Committee agreed to delegate the delivery
arrangements for this year’s event to a Conference Working Group including Centro
Member representation from the respective Chairs of the Putting Passengers First
Committee and the Partner Engagement, Petitions and Appeals Sub-Committee. The
Conference Working Group has established a number of objectives for the 2015
Conference and is working to design this year’s event to achieve these aims.
Conference Objectives
5.
The Conference will bring together a range of stakeholders and will achieve the
following objectives:
1
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Showcase key achievements since the 2014 Conference
Highlight the excellent partnership working arrangements in place with
transport operators and particularly how these work to ‘put the passengers
first’
Share Centro’s priorities for the year ahead and in doing so;
Engage with stakeholders to collect customer insight in order to further
develop Centro’s future delivery plans
Conference Agenda
6.
Arrangements for the 2015 Conference have been developed in the context of
feedback provided by delegates who have attended the event in previous years.
Attendees of both the 2013 and 2014 Conferences have pointed to the need to
engage with a wider audience in order to capture the views from those groups so far,
underrepresented at these events. In order to facilitate attendance by peak time
commuters and younger people who may not find it easy to attend during the daytime
around work and education commitments, an afternoon/early evening event has
been organised. This will see the formal Conference agenda commencing at 1430
hours and close at 1900 hours.
7.
Delegates are being invited to arrive at Centro House from 1330 hours with the
formal agenda commencing at 1430. This first hour will provide an informal
opportunity for attendees to network with Centro Members and Mangers as well as a
number of Centro’s transport operator partners.
8.
A series of short presentations will be delivered at the beginning of the Conference.
The details for these are being confirmed and will include addresses from Centro,
National Express West Midlands and London Midland.
9
Delegates will be invited to participate in two out of a total of four seminars which are
being developed to seek views and insight into subjects of key importance for Centro.
The feedback from each seminar will be used to help Centro in the development of
future delivery plans. A summary of each seminar is provided at paragraphs 9A
through to 9D below.
A) Seminar 1 ‘Making Life Easy through Innovation’ - This seminar will look
at how Centro is using new technology to make the use of sustainable travel
easier for people to use and help to make sustainable transport the natural
choice for their journeys across the West Midlands. This will involve
participants sharing their vision for how new and emerging technology could
be used to improve their experiences and propensity to use sustainable travel
modes such as bus, train, Metro and indeed to make more walking and cycling
journeys.
B) Seminar 2 ‘Going Local – Rail’ – This seminar will explain the current
proposals for increasing local influence over rail services in the West Midlands
including the formation of a new body – West Midlands Rail which has been
set up to take responsibility for managing local rail services (subject to
government approval). The session will seek delegate views on what should
be the priorities for improvement on a range of aspects including timetables,
fares and ticketing as well as service quality and performance.
2
C) Seminar 3 ‘Metro – Shaping the future’ – This seminar will invite delegates
to help inform the development of future operating arrangements for the
Midland Metro service. The session will focus on passenger information,
onboard tram facilities and ticket retailing in order to understand what is
important to passengers and what should be considered when developing new
operating arrangements from 2018, when the current contract to operate the
service expires.
D) Seminar 4 ‘Joining our Communities’ - This seminar will explore local
connectivity between communities by sustainable means. The session will
look at the some of the work being progressed through the Smarter Networks
and Transforming Bus Travel programmes aimed at improving access to
health, leisure and employment through walking, cycling and bus use.
Delegates will be invited to contribute to the discussion on what further needs
to be done to encourage more journeys to be made by healthy and
sustainable means.
10.
Following the success of the ‘Your Questions Answered’ feature at last year’s
Conference with 92% of attendees rating this aspect of the day as either good or
excellent, a similar question and answer session is being organised as part of the
2015 programme. Delegates are again being invited to submit their questions in
advance and having taken into account feedback from 2014, any not answered on
the day will be responded to in writing after the event.
Attendees
11.
Invitations have been sent out to a wide range of stakeholders. These include PEG
participants and other stakeholder groups, Public Transport Operators, Passenger
Champions for all three modes, and Youth Forum and Business representatives
engaged with through the Smart Network Smarter Choices work.
Financial Comments
12.
There are no financial implications arising from this report.
Legal Comments
13.
There are no direct legal implications arising from this report.
Sarah Jones
Head of Customer Services
Centro Media Contact:
Steve Swingler, Media Manager
tel:
(0121) 214 7073
email: steveswingler@centro.org.uk
Contact Officer:
Sarah Jones, Head of Customer Services
3
tel:
(0121) 214 7014
email: sarahjones@centro.org.uk
Background Papers:
4
Glossary
PEG
Partner Engagement Groups
5