Better Transport

• Terry Kirby send them a message
• Tel: 01455 842891

Campaign for Better Transport, Leicestershire and Rutland campaigns on local issues and supports the national organisation in pressing for sustainable transport.

Upcoming meetings Press releases Latest news updates

Upcoming meetings

• September 2008: Leicester Panel meeting, email for details.
• 18 September 2008, 6pm: Bus Group discussion at The Last Plantagenet, Granby Street, Leicester. Bus users, Campaign for Better Transport members and non-members are invited.
• 20 September 2008, 10am-3pm: Charnwood and North West Campaign Panel, in association with Action for a Better Charnwood, will be taking part in 'In Town Without My Car Day', at Market Place, Loughborough. The panel will present alternatives to using the car, including information on public transport, walking and biking. Plus a local bus operator is invited to bring a bus display to Ashby Square.
• October 2008: No group meeting.
• October 2008: Leicester Panel meeting, email for details.
• 30 October 2008, 6pm: Bus Group discussion at The Last Plantagenet, Granby Street, Leicester. Bus users, Campaign for Better Transport members and non-members are invited.
• 8 November 2008, 10am: Group meeting at The Last Plantagenet, Granby Street, Leicester. Campaign for Better Transport members are invited; non-members are welcome. See group agenda.
• December 2008: Leicester Panel meeting, email for details.
• 11 December 2008, 6pm: Bus Group discussion at The Last Plantagenet, Granby Street, Leicester. Bus users, Campaign for Better Transport members and non-members are invited.
• 13 December 2008: Seasonal all-members' event.

Latest News :

Recent press releases by Campaign for Better Transport, Leicestershire and Rutland

Good bus route 'wrecked by neglect'

Reduced Inner Circle Link bus still needs added ingredients for future success

Inner Circle Link bus stop survey shows 'disregard for proper customer service standards'

City taxi action makes a difference that lasts only a month

Taxi Watch Campaign, Hinckley

'More pedestrians than cars' prompts call to close street to unnecessary traffic

Wrong time real time bus information raises 137 questions for city

Major campaign underway to get East Midlands based bus real time information system to 'show the right bus time'

Ban 'alighting only' bus stops in the city centre

Latest news updates

August 2008

Signing off!
Signing off now for the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Campaign for Better Transport, after one year of providing news and press releases for posting here.

The shape of the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Campaign for Better Transport is changing and with it will change this local pages format. See details here soon. Until panel members gain confidence in adding their local stories, there may be a brief interval with no news, but a better service is promised as soon as possible.

Thank you to all regular readers of this page for your interest. So, back soon! Keep checking for the new improved version: it's on its way! 

July 2008

Real time re-aligned
In an extraordinary and unexpected statement at a recent open meeting, senior Leicester City Council managers have at last 'admitted' that the city's real time bus information system was probably never intended as a system for putting passenger information at bus stops.

Demonstrating their view of the efficacy of the product as a bus operators' bus scheduling device, the council officers came up with the major re-alignment of thinking to explain away the poor bus stop survey results gathered by some councillors and by the Leicester Campaign for Better Transport.

The bus operators, however, appear to have shunned using the system as a scheduler, from a computer in their depots, in favour of putting staff on the street to check bus departures and timings in real-life real-time.
 
Too many bus stop names
The Leicester Panel of the Campaign for Better Transport has apparently succeeded in persuading Leicester City Council to review the naming of all 1,400 bus stops in the city. In a submission to the regeneration and transport task group of the council, the group illustrated the chaotic current position, citing some bus stops that have up to nine different names. This could mean, for the same bus stop, that the names on the bus stop flag, the bus shelter, the real time information sign, the timetables for up to three operators using the stop, the entry in the journey planning website, the name on the real time information website and the name on the standard NaPTAN List were all different!

Leicester City Council says it will take at least a year to sort out the confusion. Then funding will need to be agreed to put all the signs right after that.

Media impact
Terry Kirby, a key volunteer in the group, recently had a letter published in the Leicester Mercury. 
 
June 2008

Real time bus info: problems highlighted
Probably the worst ever survey results recorded by the Leicester Campaign for Better Transport in all of the eight years they have been campaigning to get the Leicester real time bus information system to work properly, were collected on the day the City Council and local bus operators attended a private summit to talk about the wrong data being displayed on the street-side signs.

The Leicester Campaign for Better Transport recorded the details of 95 buses passing the bus stop outside the Leicester London Road Railway Station during the one-and-a-half hours between 2pm and 3:30pm, at the sign at the bus stop welcoming visitors to Leicester, with buses taking rail station passengers into Leicester. Only four buses were shown correctly.

An end to bus disruption?
The Leicester Campaign for Better Transport is urging the Leicester City Council to get public transport back into really good shape during the 70-day countdown to the opening of the Highcross Centre retail development in the city centre. The building of the centre, as well as the repaving of all the city centre streets, has caused two years of total disruption to buses in Leicester.

May 2008: The number of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Campaign for Better Transport group meetings has been reduced from 12 to four per year to save group members' travelling and meeting time.

Having group meetings only once a quarter has saved about a full working week of travelling and meeting time for each of those participating. Participants are being strongly encouraged to use this released time for local Campaign for Better Transport campaigning activities instead. Time saved from meetings can be more productively used locally for matters of interest to the panels, recently set up in a number of localities around the two counties to give sound advice to the group.

Bringing people together from around two counties for meetings was not regarded as sustainable for a group campaigning about transport and reducing travel to combat climate change, even if it was done on the bus or by train.

In a parallel change, 'members' time', at which any local or national Campaign for Better Transport member living in Leicestershire or Rutland can have their say on any travel or transport matter they wish to raise, will be pushed from group meetings to panel meetings, so that this can involve potentially a greater number of members and promote a wider spectrum of responses.

These transformations are being brought forward as part of the Group Development Report 2008. Email for a copy.

April 2008: The Leicester Campaign for Better Transport is disappointed that after eight years of operation the local bus real time information system is still not working but giving wrong time real time information. 137 questions have been sent to the system operator, Leicester City Council, in duplicate: both to the Leicester City Council Transport Task Group currently scrutinising the system and to the Council enquiry service, which has catalogued the questions under the Freedom of Information Act. 

The first questions went in during December 2007 but still no answers have been forthcoming. Leicester City Council has informed the Leicester Campaign for Better Transport that it will answer at least some of the questions, but only at some unspecified future date, further reducing confidence in the Council's ability to manage the system adequately.

Read the questions sent to Leicester City Council (PDF, 88K). Leicester Campaign for Better Transport has removed product names, brand names and company details from this version of the questions. 

February 2008: The Hinckley Panel of Campaign for Better Transport was successfully launched at an inaugural meeting on 4 February 2008. The panel is now recruiting members and is giving locally-tuned advice to Campaign for Better Transport, Leicestershire and Rutland about the Hinckley town centre regeneration and redevelopment plan, bus and taxi networks in Hinckley and current town planning issues. To join the panel or for details of the next meeting, get in touch (see above).

December 2007: Campaign for Better Transport members from Hinckley, Charnwood and north west and Leicester are busy doing a 'Taxi Watch' in the run-up to Christmas to monitor taxi and private hire car congestion and vehicles running with defective lights after dark.
 
This survey is an expansion of a two-week-long Taxi Watch pilot done during October, which found 62 instances of defective lights on taxis and private hire cars operating in the city, potentially putting passengers at risk, and double parking congestion, some of which was causing severe delays to bus services. The survey will provide evidence to take to the three licensing authorities during 2008. Contact us for details of method and results.

December 2007: Campaign for Better Transport Leicestershire and Rutland is working to reclaim a street on the edge of Leicester city centre for pedestrians. We've recently finished surveying an estimated 12,000 movements of vehicles and pedestrians to establish a baseline figure to argue the case for restricting traffic. Already Churchgate, leading from the bus station to the city centre, is closed to traffic on weekend evenings without causing disruption.

In this campaign we're collaborating closely with the organisers of a music festival set to happen in June 2008. As plans progress, December 2007 marks the first of a series of meetings with local licensees and venue managers to gain their support for this proposed new weekend evening street closure. Evidence shows far more people than cars use the festival street site now and so removing through traffic could be expected to offer significant potential extra benefits.

November 2007: Two members of Campaign for Better Transport Leicestershire and Rutland have been 'co-opted' on to the Leicester City Council Overview and Scrutiny Board Regeneration and Transport Task Group.

With a determination to get changes made, members of Campaign for Better Transport are busy alongside Councillor Sarah Russell, Task Group Chair, preparing reports on street closures, Decriminalised Parking Enforcement, bus passes and a new Highway Development Control Design Guide.