Written evidence submitted by Nottingham City Transport (BHC0072)

Message from Mark Fowles, Managing Director

Nottingham City Transport is one of eight municipal bus companies operating in Britain today. In 2018

we are celebrating 140 years of continuous public service, and we are delighted that in such a

momentous year, we have once again achieved an exceptional Transport Focus passenger satisfaction

score of 94%. This demonstrates that our customers are the most satisfied City bus users in the country.

Such high satisfaction levels help to explain why Nottingham has such high bus use per head of

population and in 2017/18 our ridership levels were stable against a national decline in bus use of 2.2%

outside London. Our fleet of 320 buses carry 1 million customers every week.

Such success hasn’t been achieved by chance.

We have consistently reinvested the profits that we make back into the business and this has helped us to:

• Offer our customers smartcard ticketing technology for the past 18 years
• Invest in our workforce of 1,100 local Nottingham people, with comprehensive training programmes and  a strong emphasis on customer service training for our bus drivers
• Provide a fleet of buses that are all fitted with CCTV cameras (up to 18 cameras on each double –deck vehicle)
• Provide free WiFi on-bus and are also now fitting complimentary USB charging equipment to the fleet.
• All of our buses feature next stop visual and audio announcements
• Invest £16.8m in 53 bio-gas double-deck buses with another 67 on order for delivery in 2019. With a further £3m being spent on exhaust treatment systems, the entire NCT fleet will meet euro 6 standards by 2020 with an average fleet age of just 6.3yrs.

We are working to roll our contactless ticketing over the next year, and we will guarantee to our customers that they will always be charged the most cost effective fare for the daily journeys that they make.

Our main competitor is the private car and we strive to deliver a bus service that offers a realistic alternative, particularly for journeys to the City centre. Up to 40% of our customers tell us they have a car available for the journey they chose to make by bus and this suggests we are meeting many of their expectations.

I must emphasize that our success has not been achieved in isolation. A supportive local authority with a pro-public transport agenda has been a key factor. Our major shareholder, Nottingham City Council, provides 28km of bus lane on the main radial roads, and Nottinghamshire County Council provides buses with traffic light priority through key road junctions.

By working in partnership with both local authorities, Greater Nottingham is able to boast one of the most comprehensive bus passenger real time systems in Britain, and by the end of this year we will have reached the significant point where every inbound bus stop will feature a real time display, providing customers with next bus real-time predictability.

We are firmly of the view that the bus can and should be part of the solution to growing congestion in our towns and cities and improving air quality standards.  We would welcome the opportunity to share best practice.

Delivering a high quality bus service to attract new customers

Reliable and Punctual

• 99.11% of all timetabled journeys are consistently operated
• 91.9% of all operated journeys are on time
• All buses are fitted with AVL tracking which feeds the passenger real time system
• Our control centre has direct access to the City Council traffic control CCTV cameras
• Bus Priority – 28km of bus lane and traffic light priority at major junctions

Attractive bus fares

• A simple flat fare structure applies on the City bus network
• A lower priced inner-city return fare is available
• The cheapest adult day ticket in England’s core Cities is priced at £4.00
• The Group Rider ticket at £5.00 allows up to five people (max. 2 adults) to travel together after 9.30am Monday to Friday and all day at weekends and during school holidays.
• We have offered discounted pre-paid smartcard travel for 18 years
• Mobile ticketing now offers convenient access to pre-paid travel for the occasional traveller
• Contactless ticketing is coming to all NCT services in the next year!

Simple fares to attract young people

• Increased the availability of discounted fares by increasing the young person age from under 16 to under 19
• Discounted academic year passes for sixth form and university students at just £239!!

Accessibility

• NCT bus fleet is fully DDA complaint
• Both visual and audio next stop announcements are given on our buses
• Larger wheelchair and buggy areas are provided on our vehicles

Access to information

• NCT App - 60,000 downloads so far have provided access to live departure information and service disruptions
• Website – 5million page views each year. Customers can personalise access for their particular travel needs.
• Social media – NCT has 120,000 facebook and Twitter followers, accessing live departure data, service information and customer service queries.
• Bus stop information. NCT provides printed information at every stop, listing all departures and the fares available from that stop.
• Real time information – by the end of this year every inbound bus stop in Nottingham will have a real time information display.

Staff training & development

• Over 7,700 person days of training delivered in 2017/18
• Training delivered in-house by highly qualified team to ROSPA Gold and JAUPT standard.
• All drivers undertake disability awareness training
• Staff sickness levels of less than 4%
• Highest driver pay rates in the region. Standard hourly rate is £10.11 after 6 months service rising to a top rate of £12.50ph

Partnership working

• Participate in the “Robin Hood” multi-operator ‘Oyster-style’ Pay As You Go card with other bus and tram operators and Nottingham City Council.
• Delivered the Statutory Quality Partnership Scheme for Nottingham City centre, raising the quality threshold for all bus operators in terms of vehicle age and emissions, and adhering to a slot booking system for key City centre stops to control the flow of bus movements through the most sensitive areas.
• Dedicated buses onto campus at both of Nottingham’s universities to greatly reduce dependence on car travel

This has all helped to achieve:

• Very high bus use per head of population – 149.4 trips per person per annum
• Passenger growth in 10 of the last 11 years
• Stable patronage in 2017/18 against national decline (outside London) of 2.2%
• Transfer from cash to mobile ticketing – 25% of day tickets now sold on NCTX-Buses App.
• £16.8m invested in 53 bio-gas buses to help the environment, with another 67 on order for delivery in 2019.
• Average fleet age of 6.3 years
• NCT being the only operator to be crowned UK Bus Operator of the Year 4 times!

September 2018