We’ll ignore petitions, says bus operator

BUSES

Bus operator National Express West Midlands says it will disregard petitions about the future of bus routes that are subject to live consultation processes. 

The operator says listening to petitions could skew its network review process, which involves several stages of public consultation.

“We would ask councillors to wholeheartedly support this process in the interests of openness and good practice,” it says. “Our network planners are very skilful and experienced at designing public questionnaires to properly interrogate our customers’ current and future travel patterns. 

“The questions are specially designed to decouple passengers’ thinking from specific current routes and drill down to their core transport needs. We are trying to find out what people really do and what they really want from their bus service.” 

The operator says petitions usually take the form of statements such as “Save the 35!”. “This blunt call for action is unhelpful to the network review process as it does not necessarily address or draw out the detail of what our genuine passengers are trying to tell us.

“Our bus routes are very long. Are people saying they want the entire route saving exactly as it is? Or just the bit they use? And which bit is that – the end, the other end, a section in the middle? 

“Do people just want to travel on a bus that says 35 on the front? If a bus with a different number took them from the same A to the same B, would they be satisfied?

“Petitions skew the data in our consultations. For instance, in the first round of the south Birmingham network review consultation, 70 per cent of respondents were in favour of the changes we were proposing in Warstock. Then a petition was launched and the figure in favour dropped to 55 per cent.”