Billed by The TAS Partnership (TAS) as a “rising young star,” Matthew Moll has been promoted to the role of Senior Consultant. Dominic Ward caught up with Matthew to find out more about him
Ifirst heard of Matthew when I covered the Young Bus Manager’s Network event in Oxford (CBW1315). Although unable to attend, I received word after the event that Matthew had been promoted within TAS (CBW1316).
TAS, as its website states, provides high quality and robust research, as well as analysis and advisory services to the passenger transport sector, and has done so for over 25 years. Matthew joined as a graduate, and has now been promoted to Senior Consultant, but his love of transport is something in his blood.
Background
Matthew’s passion stems from his father: “I’ve always been interested in transport – something I inherited from my dad. I suppose it was the railway side of things that first grabbed me and that I originally wanted to get involved in.
“It’s been an underlying interest. Growing up in Cottingham, just outside Hull, East Yorkshire Motor Services (EYMS) was the local operator I grew up with. They’re a different type of company to ones you get elsewhere in some ways, I think. We used to travel around on the bus quite a bit. Then, when I was at university, I became more interested in the bus side of things.”
Matthew went to the University of Huddersfield and studied Transport and Logistics Management – setting him on the path to where he is today. As part of his course, Matthew’s year in industry was spent with TAS, followed by a six-month work experience placement with EYMS. “I was pitching in with anything and everything at EYMS really,” said Matthew. “They were very good to me – I got to experience so many different aspects of the operation. I worked mainly with Bob Rackley, and did some scheduling, sat in the control room at Hull Interchange for a while, and carried out passenger surveying for them. I also undertook fares reviews. So a varied look and, I guess, a two-way benefit really – they obviously gave me the experience in different roles, and I was able to use the skills which I’d developed at TAS originally to help them in return.
“I did about five months on secondment at Abellio Rail Replacement (North) in York. They’d just taken over the contract, for the old Northern Rail, so it was Abellio Serco. That was quite a challenge. I was part of the team in charge of control co-ordination, sat alongside members of Northern Rail, and obviously reacting to their demands and requests. I went in without much experience in coaching, and it was interesting to get to know different coach operators, and experience the various ways they work to bus operators.
“Then there was the completely different world of the rail industry. You slowly learnt who to phone and when – there’s certain companies, especially around the Cumbrian coast and the North East that you knew were the people to get in touch with because you could rely on them. It was an enjoyable experience despite the challenges” [wlm_nonmember][…]
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Current role
Matthew joined TAS in September 2012, and there is much he finds interesting.
“I’m involved in concessionary fares analysis for a major UK operator at the minute.” However, Matthew couldn’t tell me much more about his current work load, as some jobs are ‘hush hush’. “We have different categories for the work we get,” he explained, “and when it gets to certain categories of commercial sensitivity, we’re not really allowed to talk about them!
“I’m also involved in gathering and inputting fares data for the National Fares Survey 2017, and I’ve been given the task of project managing that, which is going to be engaging.
“Work at TAS does vary from week to week. We carry out bus network reviews one week, and then perhaps survey-based work the next – I get to do all sorts, really.
“I do enjoy the scheduling side of things – another area of work we attract. So when we helped the Shetland Islands Council to conduct a whole-scale network review of all its transport and home to school services about three years ago now, I produced schedules to improve and rationalise routes for that. I was also seconded to help an operator as an extra man in the schedules office as they prepared for a network change. It was an enjoyable experience to go and be part of a team.”
I asked Matthew whether he enjoys travelling to see other operators. He quipped back: “Well, we get to go to the most glamorous places, like Swindon!”
Matthew also said he has provided a great deal of input into team projects, and one he most enjoyed was work on Preston Bus Station. “It got very complicated as to who was contracted to whom,” said Matthew. “We were sub-contracted by the architects to produce the stand allocation plan, and then we had a sub-contractor who did a report on wayfinding. I did the main bulk of the allocation, with colleagues checking that it made sense, and also experienced the view of the wayfinding consultant who had quite a lot of guidance to give. Unfortunately, his input seems to have been ignored, which is a shame, but the changes made on the ground are more or less what we suggested – which is quite rewarding.
“We’ve done work for operators like Nottingham City Transport, where we’ve made suggestions and they’ve actually listened to and implemented them, and that’s nice to see. Often I’ve witnessed the other side, where we’ve carried out surveys and gone along and said ‘this is what people say,’ and they’ve said ‘well that’s more or less what we were thinking anyway.’ With Nottingham, there’s one route that a couple of years ago they were thinking of converting to double-deck operation, and the survey came back and showed people wanted more seats, and confirmed an actual demand for larger vehicles. Putting the two together is satisfying.”
Speaking of the future, Matthew continued: “It’s hard to say what’s coming up really, as a lot of the work we do boils down to what comes up and when; some of it is quite short notice. We’re on the Department for Infrastructure Northern Ireland framework, which is to do with Local Public Transport Planning and Operation, which includes things around the Belfast Rapid Transit (BRT). That’s a TAS thing, and I’ll wait to hear if I’m going to be involved.
“There’s also the National Fares Survey, which promises to be an interesting piece of research, and will draw in some relevant information comparing the cost of bus travel in certain cities against average weekly wage, and hopefully showing how little bus travel is as a proportion of that weekly wage.”
Matthew told me he’s happy with the way things have turned out for him, and that it can be quite a varied existence at TAS. Matthew also added that he’s part of a small team, which he enjoys: “We’re a small office, and we’re quite a close-knit team in many ways, which is very beneficial really. We vaguely know what each other are doing most of the time! It’s a good company to work for, in that respect. We’re well respected by much of the industry, so it’s nice to meet people at events like Young Bus Managers and the UK Bus Awards, where people are complementary about what we’re doing.”
Ambitions
Speaking to Matthew, it’s evident he’s truly passionate about his work. Spending his life around transport, it’s clear that he wants to continue, and sees TAS Partnership as the place to do just that.
Matthew also gave me an insight into what the future holds: “With the Bus Services Act and franchising, I think it’s time for the industry to start working on, in some ways, pre-empting pushes by the former PTEs and other authorities for franchising and looking into partnerships and joint ticketing schemes, and it would be good to be part of that.”
Matthew also said he would like to be involved in planning networks around housing developments, which is something he has been examining as part of a job in the Lincolnshire area. Matthew commented: “We’ve been looking at a new housing scheme, and how buses could fit into that using existing and new routes. I think that’s quite an overlooked area in some ways. Stagecoach produce a wonderful guide in terms of infrastructure, but I think what’s missing is knowledge – planners often think ‘oh well there’s bound to be a bus route’ or just assume there might be one. However, they don’t look at the holistic view of where the development sits within the network, and what are the potential links, and I think that’s something that could be exploited, but how we go about doing that is the challenge.”[/wlm_ismember]
