Great Western Coffee Shop

Our 2016 Option 24/7 (http://option247.uk/O247proposal.pdf) proposals for bus franchising in Wiltshire included a proposal that bus services would be specified by a committee that brought together passengers, local authorities and bus companies. Unfortunately, Wiltshire Council were not ready at the time to accept what they considered to be a radical plan, and the proposal did not go ahead.

One of the reasons I moved to France in September 2017 was the opportunity to help shape the future of public transport in Brittany, as the specification of the local bus network transferred to the regional level and was placed under a unified structure with the local rail network which had been already specified by the region for several years. This unified structure came into being in September 2018 under the Breizhgo (https://www.breizhgo.bzh/) brand.

I am pleased to say that since then, bus and rail services in Brittany have been specified in a very similar way to that envisaged by us in Option 24/7. There are 7 Comités De Lignes each corresponding to a particular area of Brittany, bringing together passengers, regional and local authorities, SNCF and bus companies to specify their local bus and rail services.

My local Comité De Lignes covers the Saint Brieuc-Lannion, Saint Brieuc-Morlaix, Guingamp-Carhaix and Guingamp-Paimpol local rail services, and all the local bus services in the area shown in the map below:

(https://images.typeform.com/images/zAxiUnM4Rv99/image/default)

Each Comité De Lignes has an annual "listening exercise", where the views and ideas of the public on a wide range of issues are sought, and we are currently in the middle of ours, which runs from 1 February-14 February 2021. Normally we would accompany this with public meetings in various towns and villages, but this year due to coronavirus it is being conducted online and by post.

This doesnt mean though that the public only have a 14-day window each year to send in their ideas and suggestions. Far from it - These are welcomed by the committee all year round, and all are considered for the next upcoming timetable change. These happen 3 times a year in July, September and December, with bus and rail services changing together on those same dates. This aims to balance both the flexibility and the stability of the timetables, whilst allowing for their integration. However, just as we envisaged with Option 24/7, there is a mechanism that allows urgent or particularly no-brainer changes to be made at short notice if required.

Finally, in normal times, several public meetings all year round in towns and villages are organised, along with sessions in rail and bus stations that are very similar to the way "Meet the Manager" works in the UK. There is also a regular newsletter published by each Comité De Lignes, detailing the latest news, project updates, and including passenger numbers and performance figures for each rail and bus route in the area.