This little known body, run by Transport Scotland wound up business in March 2013 – read also abolished. PVS with its catchy strapline “bridging the gap”, was a committee of the great and the good advising Scottish Ministers about passenger perspectives on public transport. Its record on the face of it seems somewhat unexceptional, however one thing it did do and will be continued is the work of the PVS sub-committee “Bus Passenger Platform”, a sort of bus ombudsman for Scotland, but less grand. If you ever had a complaint about a company that could not resolved by the company, that wasn’t to do with bus registration or compliance (that’s the the Transport Commissioners or VOSA), you could escalate the complaint to the BPP sub committee, provided you had any idea it even existed. The sub committee handled just over 500 complaints in the year ending March 2013 only double the number it started off with 5 years earlier. Almost 300 of the complaints were classified as out of scope for various technical reasons. The rest were mostly resolved after initial correspondence, so not much left to arbitrate.
RELBUS ANNUAL REPORT Highlights of 2012-2013
Statement from the chair
It has been a year since I took up the role of RELBUS chair in the aftermath of the devastating service cuts made by First. These cuts clearly demonstrated that the current legal framework for the operation of bus services does not always work in the best interests of the passengers. In the year things thankfully have settled down and it can be argued that overall we have better service provision now than before the cuts. This is in no small measure due to the cooperation of operators and the efforts of East Lothian Council. It has also been a year in which RELBUS has been particularly active promoting its own initiatives, sometimes jointly with others, and responding in a creative and positive manner to external initiatives.
Continue reading RELBUS ANNUAL REPORT Highlights of 2012-2013
Getting your bus stop fixed
If you’ve noticed something wrong at your local bus stop, or anywhere else for that matter, you might be wondering how to report it.
Responsibility for bus shelters and bus stop maintenance varies from region to region. Some councils contract the work out to private firms, and in other places the bus stops are the responsibility of the bus companies. Here in East Lothian it is the Council.
New Firstbus Timetables
I got an email yesterday complaining that Firstbus timetables had changed suddenly. Passengers were not given any forewarning it seems, and neither had Relbus. While there were rumours that changes were afoot, we assumed that we’d find out through the usual channels.
It turns out the usual channels means “a disgruntled passenger” complaint letter.
It seems to us that better regulation of the buses should include a wider public consultation stage, which could be added to the currently statutory consultation with the Local Authority, so that there are no surprises. And, whilst we are at it, the travelling public has a chance to put in their twopenceworth.
Continue reading New Firstbus Timetables