The Go-Ahead group have been fantastic in providing us with coaches and drivers for free travel from Swindon to Taunton and from Bournemouth to Taunton.  On this occasion, we are unable to cover the Swindon north Bristol route, however this will be in place for March 7th meeting.

If there are people who should be attending and have so far being unable to because of the transport costs, please encourage them to use the service. Even if they have to download Podcasts and take a picnic it is good to have more people onboard.

Get in touch with us to reserve your space.

secretary@travelwatchsouthwest.org.uk

I have asked the question. Some of you may remember me bringing Teasel to events at other venues in Taunton.


ANSWER:   Permission for your dog is granted.  Happy hounds and humans

Just to clear-up any confusion,  I jave checked and it appears this is not news, just implementation.  This is the anticipated fares increase which we hap notice of in December.  Perhaps someone had sight of a notice to remind ticket staff?
It is a national fare increase, announced by the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64066678
 
They positioned it as a reduction in the rise that they could have imposed as generally they use the rate of inflation in July, which this year was 12.3%, but it was still a significant rise of 5.9% which applied from March.
 

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/twsw-webinar-series-2-no-26-decarbonisation-goals-and-public-transport-tickets-136255424643?ref=eios

Register for the TWSW^» (TravelWatch SouthWest - website) fireside chat around decarbonisation foals and public transport on Eventbrite or pasting the link above into your browser.

Speakers include James White from WECA^» (West of England Mayoral Combined Authority - about), and Mike Birkin from Friends of the Earth.

This will be the 6th next in our WEBINAR SERIES.  Contributions have been incredibly valuable and we are particularly flattered that so many of the esteemed speakers have decided to come back as part of the general discussion group.

Thoroughly enjoyable an full of ideas and friendly challenge to stimulate thoughts . Many sub-topics could each have had their own fireside chat.  Thank you host

Actually I could do an evening one too if that would help us get more people involved after days work which seem sensible. Sorry not to have made today’s when I was busy arranging the webinar for Friday

If you go in via the chrome browser, it is possible to avoid all the nosey attempts until you are under less duress.  I do recommend playing with the app and watching the i ro web ar when you have a spare 34 minutes.

Bus Lady makes many excellent and valid comments.  In the longer term, operations could be financially sustainable if we can shift car users onto bus and train and spread this across the day.  This may be out best opportunity but will require local authority, community and workplace collaboration to deliver the shared vision. Shift from car will require much greater public transport capacity.  This will be easier for bus to deliver.

It’s increasingly important that we get businesses and board with developing a broader range of work travel times. There is an appetite out there for varied starts and finishes which could work well in more equally spreading resources and providing a consistent level of service.This will also mean onward connections must be provided in a matching way.  I’d be really keen to hear ideas that people have about coordinating working days, matching to school and out times, hospital appointment arrangements et cetera

Going forward, we could be looking at a very different work pattern as more people work from home, Possibly some those who must travel will have staggered shift patterns to their working day.  Handled in the right way this could also present enormous opportunities for an improved passenger experience but we need to get over the inevitable challenges which situation presents to the businesses which inherently rely on numbers. 

Most immediately, TWSW^» (TravelWatch SouthWest - website) are keen hear from member groups about safety, reassurance and what it will take to persuade them to choose public transport over the car where there is a choice. There are some really good figures available from Transport Focus which demonstrate passenger fears Which we can use as a basis for discussion with our members which may produce some really good ideas about measures which can be taken to provide adequate safety & reassurance.

We need to make sure that public transport remains affordable for all and we bring the opportunity to use public transport to everyone.  Connectivity must be appropriate for whatever a new norm is, while we accept the system we make now may determine the new norm.

I am given to believe that LA^▸ (Local Authority )’s running many smaller operators remain inadequately to rewarded to maintain connectivity for communities nor survival of small operators unless there is an additional conversation happening about covid payments for LA somewhere?

This could really frustrate some of the rolling connectivity improvements to integration and seems shortsighted in terms of the necessary modal shift.  

I would be very interested to hear from our friends “in the know” on an area by area basis.