Agenda item

Ø  Bus services in the Town Centre – Michelle Wildish (TfL)

Ø  Liveable Neighbourhood Bid(Buses to serve Old Town) – Ian Plowright & Michelle Wildish (TfL)

Ø  Advance notice of timetable changes (Notice of recent diversion of Route 50 was poor, and left passengers confused & short notice of bus timetable changes in Norbury) – Michelle Wildish (TfL)

Ø  Norwood Junction – Issues boarding buses at close of school times, with secondary and primary schools causing overcrowding (South Norwood Clock Tower Bus Stops, Grovener Road 130 & 160 Bus Stop, Portland Road Northbound Bus Stop) - Michelle Wildish (TfL)

Ø  Route 130 (Need for an additional stop on Portland Road to service Norwood Junction Station & diversion to serve Kestrel Way stops) – Michelle Wildish (TfL)

Ø  Update on 404 and 434 Buses – Michelle Wildish (TfL)

a)        Bus services in the Town Centre

The TfL Croydon Town bus changes presentation could be found attached to the minutes.

The TfL representative introduced the presentation which outlined the central Croydon bus changes from 2 November 2019. The changes followed public consultation from November 2018 to January 2019 and the results were published in July 2019. TfL was committed to working with the council to keep the bus network under review and adapt to growth. The aim of the changes was to allow for a simpler and more efficient bus network by ensuring that resources were invested in locations of the highest user demand. Customer information on the changes were provided in leaflets, as bus stop notices, in web page updates, from travel ambassadors in the town centre and from public drop in sessions which were scheduled at the end of October and in the first week of implementation at the central library.

The East Surrey Transport Committee representative stated that the current plans were a significant improvement to the original suggestions, however small adjustments would improve the plans. The 405 and the 412 route change to curtail at Katherine Street were poor arrangements because this forced passengers to walk approximately 150m between connections. Providers should have listened to passenger suggestions to extend the service to Park Street and to provide double decker buses during peak demand.  The 264 bus was the main route to the Tooting St Georges Hospital which now curtailed in West Croydon instead of Croydon Library, this would result in only one bus that connected to this service and all passengers taking this route would be affected.

The TfL representative stated that routes 405 and 412 would now only operate to Katherine Street although they would continue to operate seven buses per hour on Pampisford Road using routes 405 and 455. Passengers from Redhill still had the opportunity to change for West Croydon using the route 60 or 166 in Coulsdon. In relation to route 264, it was understood that many passengers would need to make a second change to reach the hospital however the route would be under review.

In response to the Chair asking what the planned timescale of the review would be in relation to the changes that may be necessary, the TfL representative stated that review would be continuous and the number of passengers waiting at stops would be monitored, however judging those patterns would commence over several weeks.

Councillor Hoar indicated that the changes seemed to deter residents from using bus services even though Croydon was one of the few boroughs where bus use had increased. Many of the provision changes seemed to require extensive bus timetable knowledge from users and some services would see such a reduced frequency that passengers would be completely discouraged, which could lead to services being totally withdrawn. For more vulnerable users the changes could mean that they could potentially be forced to stand after their first or second change in their journey. Plans included implementing more passenger changes at Katherine Street whereas the logical changeover would be at the West Croydon interchange therefore making passenger journeys more difficult.

The TfL representative stated that the changes were intended to improve the network by increasing ridership across Croydon which would be aided by decreasing the number of empty buses travelling through central Croydon. The savings made from reducing some routes would be reinvested in to other areas of the borough and used to address other challenges.

A resident suggested that overtime the pubic would get used to changing buses and that the transport was wheelchair accessible. After changes, improvements could only be made if problems were flagged to TfL believing that there was goodwill to make improvements and respect of duty of care for passengers. The planned public engagement sessions would include journey planning exercises for passengers that would explore alternative routes and they highlighted that passengers were not limited solely to bus services and they should explore other public transport options such as the tram network.

The East Surrey Transport Committee representative welcomed the investment in resources and the focus interest was helping passengers travel between boroughs and districts, not exclusively to the town centre. The reasoning to reduce busses in the town centre due to empty buses was not airtight because the centre was where the three main destinations in Croydon were, therefore reasoning would suggest that high number of passengers would alight around the centre resulting in empty buses.

The Chair stated that it was important for TfL to robustly communicate all of the impending changes to passengers and suggested that there could be an on-board bus notification system to inform and remind users if a route was to terminate earlier than the historical route and promote alternate journeys during the first month of service changes because the biggest worry for passengers would be not being able to reach their destination. The Chair invited the TfL to return to the next meeting to update the Panel on the feedback and monitoring data which would be useful to analyse after three months of implementation.

b)        Liveable Neighbourhood Bid

The Head of Transport stated that council would be investing in projects for the Old Town and the flyover, from the received Liveable Neighbourhood funding, in the effort to make the areas more pedestrian friendly and less car dominated. Bid suggestions included running a bus services along the Roman Way to normalise the route and to improve the accessibility to the Old Town, which was part of the town centre bus review and would be facilitated by road changes.

The East Surrey Transport Committee representative welcomed the planned improvements to bus services to Old Town. Changes to improve the connections for the area could be easily implemented prior to the longer term regeneration plan because the 264 already travelled down the Roman Way, though without stopping, and that the 433 route could be easily extended to service the area. The Head of Transport responded that options would be explored in partnership with TfL.

c)         Advance notice of timetable changes

The TfL representative gave apologies to the Panel for the timetable disruption and said that wherever possible TfL would provide as much notice as possible to passengers when bus routes had to be diverted. In normal circumstances there would be bus stop notices and email notifications circulated to passengers that had subscribed to updates approximately five day in advance, however this was not always possible for unplanned works. The Norbury case related to Thames Water sewer works scheduled for a six week period from 22 July. There were discussions with Thames Water leading up to the works however their road closure application had not included Merton Road therefore was not publicised which resulted in emergency diversions.

In response to the East Surrey Transport Committee representative explaining that occasionally during works single decker shuttle services were assigned to routes normally served by a double decker buses and asking why there was no shuttle route provision at all in some cases, the TfL representative said that in cases of zero provision the planners would not have been given the required notice and often there were no spare buses available at a later stage and that it was not clear in some instances who would foot the bill.

d)        Norwood Junction – Issues boarding buses at close of school times, with secondary and primary schools causing overcrowding

The TfL representative stated that they would explore the issue in greater detail, contact Councillor Jewitt who was a ward member for the area and provide a written response for the Panel.

e)         Route 130

The TfL representative informed the Panel that additional buses had been provided to cater for bulge times of school commutes into the evening from Monday to Friday. They were also exploring the feasibility of a new bus stop for the route where they were currently executing a road safety audit and at this stage they could not progress further until a safe position was identified. Route 130 would not be diverting to serve Kestrel Way because there was insufficient demand to justify additional resources.

In response to the East Surrey Transport Committee representative conveying their disappointment at the balance between business cases, available resources and the real changes implemented, the TfL representative stated that the logic and costings of the business case had to be considered and that they planned to meet with a business panel and speak to experts to agree a sensible destination.

In agreement with The Head of Transport’s view that the passenger and individual had their own case alongside the financial business case for service provision feasibility, the Chair stated that TfL could return to a future meeting with details of the business case and that the plan should account for the Mayor’s Transport Strategy.

f)          Update on 404 and 434

The TfL representative stated that following the development of the Cane Hill area in Coulsdon they had worked with the council to provide a bus service to the new area. There was also ambition to improve services to both west and eastern sides of Coulsdon and that local engagement on the matter had generated mixed feedback.

The Chair praised the move to increase public transport services which encouraged people away from car travel. This ambition would be supported by good passenger experiences therefore meaningful customer feedback was crucial and if benefits were not found there should be further consultation.