Agenda and minutes

There were no declarations of interest.

(a)  To agree the Minutes of the meeting held on 28^th January 2015

(b)  Matters arising

The minutes of the meeting held on 28^th January 2015 were agreed and signed as a true record. There were no matters arising.

The Scrutiny Board will receive a briefing on public transport in the City.

Briefing Note of the Executive Director of Place

(Guy Craddock, Centro’s Area Manager – Coventry will be presenting at this meeting)

The Board received a briefing from Guy Craddock, Centro’s Area Manager for Coventry, and Pete Bond, Centro’s Head of Transforming Bus Travel, on bus service provision in the City. Councillor J McNicholas, Deputy Cabinet Member for Business, Enterprise and Employment and the Chair of Centro, attended the meeting for this item.

Centro was responsible for delivery of public transport in the seven metropolitan councils of the West Midlands: Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall and Wolverhampton. It was largely revenue funded through a levy, totalling £138.7m for the current financial year, and was proportionally based on the population size of each district. Centro worked to ensure everyone benefited from an effective transport system that met the economic and environmental needs of the region, as well as providing access to jobs, finding innovative ways to help reduce congestion and offering seamless connections for people and goods. Across the Country road based public transport was defined as a bus service that was open for any member of the public to use and that the user pays a separate fare for that travel whether personally or on their behalf in the case of concessionary travel holders.

In Coventry:

·  Bus reliability stood at 98.0%, above the West Midlands average of 96.7% and currently the highest of the districts

·  Overall bus customer satisfaction was running at 81% who were satisfied or very satisfied with the bus network

·  19.6 % of all subsidised bus journeys operated in the West Midlands were in Coventry and Centro spent around £1.56M per year on these services

·  12% of all registered users of Ring and Ride lived in Coventry and they made 13.6% of all trips made across the West Midlands

·  All bus services in Coventry were operated by low floor wheel chair accessible buses apart from service 30 which would be from 26^th April.

·  There were a total of 1430 bus stops in Coventry and 450 had Real time passenger information scenes and 550 had bus shelters.

·  There were 53,083 active English Travel Concessionary Scheme cardholders living in the Coventry area (from 537,000 card holders across the Centro area).

In 2011 in response to general concerns that the Coventry bus network did not meet user requirements, Centro undertook a fundamental bus network review in the City (along with a number of others across the Centro area). This was in conjunction with the bus operators, City Council, elected Members, users and other key stakeholders.

The new network was launched in February 2012 and included:

·  More buses between the rail station and the City Centre

·  Improved links to the Coventry and Warwickshire University Hospital

·  Generally a more simple network of routes that are easier to understand

·  Increased frequencies on many radial corridors of less than every 10 minutes eg. London Road every 7-8 minutes and Foleshill Road every 5 minutes

A key output was the creation of a voluntary multilateral bus partnership agreement for Coventry. Partners to this were Centro, Coventry City Council, the bus operators, Warwick University and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 43.

Outstanding Issues are included in the Work Programme below

Outstanding issues were included in the Board’s Work Programme.

Report of the Scrutiny Co-ordinator

RESOLVED that the Business, Economy and Enterprise Scrutiny Board (3):

1)  Notes the Work Programme for the remainder of the Municipal Year 2014/2015.

2)  Agrees that the following matters be added to the Work Programme for the Municipal Year 2015/2016:

·  The Coventry Gateway

·  Visit to National Express Garage - Automatic Vehicle Location System Control Centre

·  Presentation on Rapid Bus Transit

There were no other items of public business.