CPT Annual Conference & Dinner 2024

Jonathan Taylor attended the 2024 CPT annual conference and dinner on 18 January

Maybe it’s an oldie thing, but I have to admit that going to London is no longer one of my favourite things to do. However, London is where the CPT held its 50th anniversary conference and dinner, and they kindly invited CBW, so that’s where I headed.

How to get there? I’m definitely not driving into London, that’s madness and private motorists are positively discouraged from attempting it.

It could be that the GWR train to Paddington from Kemble is the best option. It’ll take 25 minutes to get there and park up. It’s about a £9 parking fee for the time I’d need. Then it’s £57.60 for the return off peak trip and a 72-minute ride to Paddington followed by a £25, 25-minute Uber ride to my hotel (I don’t much like the underground these days either). Total travel time each way, 2 hours 2 minutes. Total cost for the return trip £116.60.

Or, as it’s on CBW business, I could take the National Express (NatEx) coach, the direct competitor to the train.

The service for me would be the NX444, run by Bennett’s Coaches, which operates from Gloucester, via some local stops and London Heathrow, to London Victoria Coach Station, a short walk from the hotel I’ve chosen for my two-night stay. My nearest stop is just a 3-minute car trip from home, convenient. The travel time is 2 hours and 35 minutes inbound and 2 hours 25 minutes outbound. The total cost is £24. I book my tickets online and am duly dropped off 10 minutes before arrival as per instructions on the ticket.

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Despite the extra 33 minutes’ travel time, this is fantastically competitive and the obvious choice for the trip.

There’s a tiny ‘NX’ sticker at the top inside of the shelter but no other sign that this a NatEx stop. I trust the location instructions. Last time I tried this, from a stop in Swindon, the NatEx coach sailed past (over 20 minutes late) and I realised I had got the exact pick-up location one stop wrong. I missed it of course, had to drive to Reading, find a parking space and catch the Elizabeth Line train service in to central London instead.

This time the temperature outside is just below zero and the bus is 10 minutes late… 20 minutes waiting in the freezing cold, not great. The coach arrives, the driver apologises, stows my luggage and there is plenty of room on board. I choose the emergency exit seat at the offside rear because it has masses of legroom. Unfortunately, I soon discover that there is no heat there and the nearest passenger to me says she hasn’t got any heat either. It’s extremely cold and I start daydreaming about the luxurious comparative comfort of modern cars with spacious heated seats and individual climate control.

Also, annoyingly, there’s no WiFi on this service. When we get to Heathrow, I ask the driver if he can put the heat on because we’re all freezing. He says “it’s already set for 24C so it should be working because it’s working for me.” I say “it may be working for you, but it’s not working for us passengers.” He promises to turn it up. There is still no heat coming out of the vents for the rest of the journey. My fellow-suffering passenger thanks me for trying. Everyone’s wearing coats and scarves for the whole journey.

I know that Bennetts is in the final stages of completing the new state-of-the-art Triangle Park depot in Gloucester to house its NatEx coaches, but doesn’t anyone at the depot (in winter) check that the heating system is working for passengers throughout the vehicle?

We’re meant to arrive at 15:20. We actually arrive at 15:10 so everyone’s happy with the journey timing.

At the price, if WiFi had been available and there had been some heat, basics really, then it would have been a spectacular bargain compared to any other way of doing the journey. The details really matter to passengers.

By the way, if there had been a three-seat-across section laid out with double seats, an aisle and then one seat in 2+1 format, all seats 20% wider and with better-than-standard legroom, for maybe £36 return, I’d have happily paid it.

The conference

So on to the CPT 50th anniversary conference. After a networking breakfast we were welcomed to the event by Graham Vidler, CPT Chief Executive.

If you want an ‘executive summary,’ I’d say that the conference talked about the need for a ‘modal shift’ to get people out of private cars and onto public transport. There are various ways of achieving that and various ways of delivering public transport. Unfortunately perhaps, it’s become a political football which rolls back and forth across a see-saw, balancing free choice on one side and political control on the other.

The first session was titled ‘What will the General Election really mean for public transport.’ Chair for this discussion was Catherine de Marco, Partnerships Director at First Bus, with speakers Christine Quigley a former Labour political adviser now Public Affairs Director of Grayling UK, and Sonia Khan, a former Conservative Treasury political adviser now Associate Director at Cicero Group.

Perhaps there should also have been people from the Liberal Democrats and Greens as they could possibly hold the balance of power after the election and demand proportional representation as the price of support. And in that case, perhaps also a Reform UK representative would have been interesting. However, time is short for these sessions, so I am sure the CPT were right to keep panel member numbers low.

We’ll find out soon enough what the election outcome will be.

Slightly oddly I thought, Graham Vidler introduced the session with “There is no more important cause (facing the industry) than the Women in Bus and Coach Initiative” and mentioned the issue of achieving diversity. I felt there must be some other even more important issues for the industry. I can think of a few. Let’s see what the conference reveals.

Christine set out Sir Kier Starmer’s five big ‘missions’ for a Labour Government: ‘Get Britain building again’; ‘Switch on Great British Energy’; ‘Get the NHS back on its feet’; ‘Take back our streets’; and ‘Remove barriers to opportunity.’ She said that buses are ‘critical to help’ the ‘removal of barriers to opportunity’ mission and that ‘the Labour party is really passionate about this.’

Sonia thought that Conservative politicians viewed buses as a reactive short term sector where investments could be made with quick results to demonstrate that levelling up is happening. She also mentioned how much the Conservatives worry, on the other hand, about private motorists as their core voters, characterised as ‘ordinary people.’

They discussed Labour’s desire to see a ‘modal shift’ from private to public transport as part of decarbonisation and helping cleaner air policies and encouraging people to take public transport. Christine, however, recognised that if Labour is to win the next election it has to win rural seats where a modal shift just isn’t (for practical and maybe political reasons) going to happen. There didn’t seem to be an answer to this conundrum.

Right approach needed

My suspicion is that one size doesn’t fit all and that public transport policy should always be solutions and innovation-driven, not politically driven. Politicians telling us how to travel doesn’t sound like a recipe for success in a modern competitive, democratic economy.

Both guests realised that, post election, there will be significant financial constraints on whoever is in government, with the threat that current subsidies might not last. Cliff-edge sudden removal of subsidies to be avoided at all costs please, says the industry. However, the idea of a modal shift from private to public transport became a bit of a theme for the day.

They both added that the likelihood of further devolution would mean differing policies across the UK.

One thing was clear from Christine and that was Labour’s desire to give control of privately operated public transport as much as possible back to local authorities via franchising, not just for the big cities, but for every local authority. There was, however, a recognition that new franchising schemes cost more than most smaller local authorities could afford, given their other more pressing spending priorities.

Aaron Hill, Director of CPT Cymru, asked what Labour thought about the 20mph limit in Wales. There wasn’t a clear answer.

Graham Vidler asked ‘What about coaches?’, a good question. Christine thought that Labour would ‘try to raise the profile of coaches.’ Sonia thought that ‘MPs don’t really know about coaches.’ Frustrating isn’t it.

The economy

It was time to move on to economic analysis. The second session, entitled ‘Where next for the British economy’ was chaired by Ralph Roberts, outgoing CPT President and CEO of McGill’s Bus Group, with the analysis delivered by David Leeder of Transport Investment Limited, a consultancy advising businesses and governments on transport investments.

Of course, economic crystal ball gazing is fraught with difficulty. David wisely tended to concentrate mainly on the past and the present, solid factual territory. My own view is that our economy is still suffering from over-regulation which hasn’t been tackled post-Brexit, and we’re also suffering from inflationary money printing. Governments appear to be addicted to ‘bribing’ voters by creating debt which those same voters and their future generations then have to repay.

If Labour wins, they’re ideologically unlikely to change the UK into a dynamic, entrepreneurial, high-growth economy. Despite gaining the opportunities of Brexit, the Conservatives have done little to change the highly-regulated, stagnating economy we had when we were in the EU.

David ran us through a range of interesting slides showing exactly where the UK stands, economically. It wasn’t a pretty picture in his view, with living standards for many in the north and coastal fringes close to par with people in Czechia. London is a special case with much higher levels of wealth, he said, which pays disproportionally for regional spending.

He showed us that public spending as a proportion of GDP is historically extremely high, but worse, it now includes interest payments which take 9% of all public spending. He thought that further debt by borrowing was difficult because of that high debt/GDP ratio. He thought that a new government would be likely to increase taxes to raise revenue. But he pointed out that people react to tax changes which then don’t yield the projected revenue increase. Catch 22.

He then showed us the huge increase, post-Covid, in the UK’s long term sick population, now at about 5.5 million. Are they really sick? They’re certainly claiming from the social security pot and that’s a big problem for spending.

He also noted the ‘huge inward migration’ figures as higher than before the Brexit referendum.

On climate change, he said that the UK emits only 1% of global CO2 emissions and in the UK we are now back to 1850s levels of emissions. But he said it should be noted that our changing economic landscape has meant that formerly manufactured-here big-emitting items like steel have exported some of our emissions to other countries… we still use the steel.

On power generation he showed that solar and wind renewables are now contributing 30-35% of our needs (and rising, presumably) but reminded us that actual generation levels fluctuate widely during a 24-hour period. Other, more stable, sources of power are needed to offset that.

His thought on Brexit was that we haven’t yet diverged from the EU so far as regulations are concerned and a Labour government would likely take us closer again, passing new EU regulations into law here. Something tells me this could become a problem with some voters.

On devolution he foresaw a Labour government going for a more federal arrangement between individual countries and the UK parliament, further widening the differences in bus regulation by region.

London decline

Closer to the conference audience interest, David told us that bus passenger numbers in London were in a 10-year decline. He thought there were some important factors in this: the Covid effect (I’d prefer to call it what it was, the effect of imposing social distancing throughout society); 20mph zones increasing journey times; an improved rail network; and the increased popularity of cycling for journeys.

Maybe London doesn’t have enough hills. David showed us that hilly Brighton and Hove, without rail competition, was successfully increasing its bus patronage along with Leicester and Reading. Ultimately he thought that journey speed was critical. If the bus is no faster, or is even slower than cycling, a lot of potential passengers will cycle. London Mayor, please note.

The sad, and discouraging result of these factors for London is fleet size reductions and some operators in loss. Surely a wake-up call to our politicians.

Good questions from the floor prompted David to list bus priority measures, higher speeds, integrated timetables and fares and better city centre access as the way forward. Andrew Luckett reminded us that the economy did recover after the 1974 crisis, and asked: “So how will we get better now?” David, effectively, said we have to cut public spending.

Richard Stevens of Go-Ahead asked if David had worked out ‘what it would cost to do buses well?’ David said: “We haven’t worked that out.” He did go on to note that quite small amounts spent on bus services in targeted areas can make a big difference and that rail costs have gone “out of control” (he gave some examples).

Change and innovation

You will understand, from my earlier comments about my journey into London, that the third session, entitled ‘Embracing change – putting customers at the heart of innovation’ piqued my interest. With Jane Cole, CEO of Blackpool Transport, in the chair, Alex Jensen, the ‘new’ CEO of National Express (she started her role in September last year after a recent career at BP), gave us her insights. Alex is responsible for NatEx bus and coach in the UK and Germany, as well as NatEx rail in Germany.

If economics was beginning to make some of the audience drowsy, Alex woke them up with a bright, punchy address. She delivered a positive call to action for everyone in NatEx and, by extension, the industry to work on our:

1. Purpose, which she defined as “make public transport so good that people deliberately choose it”;

2. Transformation, to achieve the purpose but recognising that investment is needed and;

3. Environment, by all doing our bit to improve it.

Alex looked at us and said: “People think everyone puts customers first, but we don’t.”

She gave the example of studying the electronic destination board at Victoria Coach Station. Looking in vain for her destination, Bath, she realised that the board was only showing the final destination for each route, not all the en-route stops. That’s pretty useless for customers going to any of those intermediate stops. Apparently, that’s going to change. When I was there, going home the next day, my destination didn’t appear, but thanks to Alex, I was ready for it. Others I heard asking questions to staff were definitely confused and worried about getting the right service. The man getting on the (correct) Gloucester coach after me sat down, leaned across and asked if he was on the right coach! Clearly, it is a problem and stressful when you’re travelling.

Alex gave us various examples from her previous roles illustrating how she’d achieved her purpose, transformation and environment goals. However, she recognised that it’s more complex in this industry to achieve them.

She wants the next government to “invest in the vision of building a public transport system that people deliberately choose.”

Jane loved the talk and also took us through what she’s been up to, successfully, in Blackpool. Audience questions to Alex were: ‘Hydrogen or electric?’ NatEx is looking, with Caetano, to trial a hydrogen coach which Alex thought was ‘the obvious choice for long distance.’ However, NatEx has 20 hydrogen buses running in the West Midlands and is experiencing some supply system problems. Alex warned against having too many different fuel systems in place.

Claire Walters (CEO, Bus Users UK) reminded us that both battery production and end of life disposal were not necessarily clean or ethical. Jane agreed, encouraging operators to check battery suppliers’ complete battery life credentials before investing.

Alex and Jane are two female role model leaders in the industry (amongst many others) who are determined to achieve positive change. They received appreciative and generous applause.

New perceptions

The penultimate session before lunch was titled ‘Changing perceptions of public transport.’

Speakers, Alex Robertson from Transport Focus, Aleena Khan from the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales and Gordon Dickson, Head of Bus Strategy and Delivery at the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, were chaired by Aaron Hill, the Director of CPT Cymru. They were there to ‘reflect on how the decision-making landscape in their part of the country has affected bus services, and how the perceptions of the industry have influenced decision makers there.’

Alex, having previously spent 18 years at TfL, thought road pricing might be useful to achieve change but wasn’t sure. He did think that people view buses as inconvenient and slow, causing average adult bus journeys to fall from 59 per annum in 2009 to just 34 per annum in 2023. We’re obviously doing something seriously wrong, or our competitor transport modes are doing something very right, or we’re just not travelling as much. Which is it I wonder.

Alex said that we have to get the core service right, deliver value for money and make sure people know about the service we’re offering.

One good survey result from Transport Focus was that people feel positive towards bus drivers. Transport Focus wants to help get the spotlight on to coaches.

Aleena explained what the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales (NICW) was and that it reports directly to the Senedd. We then watched a promotional video about the NICW in Welsh with English subtitles. Aleena told us that buses were ‘very important in Wales’ presumably because it’s not an easy landscape for rail.

Gordon, grateful to be invited to speak, informed us that the SPT is a grouping of 12 councils representing a population of 2.14 million. There had been close working between operators during Covid which had made for good partnerships going forwards.

Aaron closed the session bemoaning short termism and wondering how to get the balance right between long and short term infrastructure and service planning. There were no questions from the floor.

Ministerial comment

With the last slot before lunch, our current Minister for Roads and Local Transport, Guy Opperman MP addressed us via a pre-recorded video. Frankly, he waffled about how sorry he was that he couldn’t attend in person, how good we all are and how much he looks forward to continue working with us. He threw us £1bn for a bus service improvement plan and more funding for electric buses through ZEBRA 2 (Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas scheme). The short talk was a wasted opportunity. We learned nothing.

Time for lunch. At my table were two ladies from the DVLA. I asked them to give me their honest view about being female in the regulatory side of the industry in Swansea. Suffice to say that male behaviour towards them was not good in the past, has changed for the good in recent years and things are looking even better for the future … all making for a better work environment and experience. Good to hear. I also got some specialist advice, and an expert check over my licence, from them about some voluntary service driving I’m involved in at home. Thank you ladies, much appreciated, you know who you are. They also loved Alex Jensen’s positive talk.

The lunch offering was a bit too London-trendy for my Wiltshire taste, but I found some soup and a small bowl of fruit and was satisfied. My table companions’ sweet-tooth tastes were also satisfied by an impressive pud.

Now we moved on to ‘The view from the opposition benches,’ chaired by the Graham Vidler and given by Simon Lightwood MP (Wakefield) from the Labour Party. I thought I’d look him up. Simon got his Theatre Acting degree from Bretton Hall college and then became a case worker for Mary Creagh, MP, followed by a job in the National Health Service. At the time of running for parliament, he was head of communications for Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust. For balance, Guy Opperman is a former Harrovian barrister from Marlborough.

It cannot be said that we are blessed with either a minister or shadow minister who have any transport experience other than as passengers (hopefully) and from advice given to them by their departments. Their direct contact with the industry is from trips out and from meeting the CPT. It probably makes for hard work, professionally given, by Graham and his CPT team.

Simon told us that his focus, if in government, will be ‘national renewal of the public transport sector.’ Unfortunately, he then wasted 90% of his time slot slagging off the Conservatives, forgetting that the conference was not an election hustings. With the remaining time, he told us that:

1. ‘Labour will accelerate domestic battery manufacturing’;

2. ‘Every local authority will have the power to franchise’ (for local bus services);

3. ‘I want to hear from coach operators’ and

‘I want to hear from everyone, my door is always open’ and;

4. ‘Everybody benefits when industry and government work together.’

Graham asked: “Where do you want bus and coach to go in 5 or 10 years?” Simon replied that he wanted to ‘increase passenger numbers and achieve our carbon targets.’ There was mention of helping smaller local authorities with franchising via centralised support from the DfT. He wanted to avoid a cliff edge if ending the £2 fare initiative. Finally, he wanted ‘more regular, affordable, green accessible buses for everyone.’

Industry experience

By contrast, a team of industry experts took the stage for the next session, titled ‘Tackling the big challenges – working in partnership.’

Paul Sainthouse, MD of Dawsongroup Bus & Coach, took the chair bringing together Darren Roe, MD at Stagecoach East, Tom Cunnington, Head of Bus Business Development for TfL and Matt Clayson, MD of Readygroup.

Darren described taking over running the business which was experiencing a £7m annual loss, with 20 under-performing routes (one fifth of the business). He had to focus on what would happen to rural services and set up a bus summit group to solve the problems. We didn’t hear much about outcomes; perhaps it’s too early stage for that yet.

Matt explained how he got NatEx to cooperate with Uber to provide seamless bus to private taxi services. He thinks that the coach sector just doesn’t shout loudly enough about itself despite enabling 23 million tourist visits across the country worth £14bn (CPT numbers, pre-pandemic, I believe).

Tom worried that London boroughs don’t understand or realise what buses and coaches really need when they’re designing bus lanes and road closures. He thought that they and TfL didn’t always appreciate that operators have to make a ‘profit’ to exist and that it isn’t a dirty word.

On zero emissions structure, Matt said that it’s not in place, for example there are no coach-sized charging bays at service areas yet and only one electric coach manufacturer in the UK at the moment. Tom thought there’s no case for rural electric services, but that hybrids were possibly the best answer.

Claire Walters asked, rightly, if they weren’t all forgetting the customers, who hadn’t been mentioned. Tom recognised that franchising moves operators away from customers because their contract isn’t with the customer, it’s with the local authority.

This modal shift which everyone had been talking about, is actually about shifting potential customers from their beloved cars, by stick or carrot, to public transport. Claire’s question was bang on. We’d better start with, and stay focused on, what customers really want if the fabled modal shift is to have any chance of success.

Manifesto priorities

Well, the final session of the day was the CPT’s announcement of its priorities for the next government, a bus manifesto and a coach manifesto. CBW will look at those in a separate feature very soon.

Overall the conference was professionally organised and run. Congratulations and thanks to the CPT. Thanks also to the conference partners: Backhouse Jones, EuroBus Expo 2024, Alfatronix, HGVC, TruTac, Rise Digital Media, Drivetech, Questar and RouteOne. It contained some thought-provoking sessions and some serious questions yet to be answered.

After a fine annual black tie evening dinner and a good sleep back at the hotel, it was time for the return journey. I walked to Victoria Coach Station.

You know about the destination board now. Looking around at the less-than-inspiring interior and the other passengers waiting in the cold, I thought that this obviously wasn’t designed for me as a passenger. I can’t find the exact number, but it seems to be between 10 and 14 million passengers using the station annually. For that many people, the place is grim and dire. I don’t want to be there.

At my ‘gate’ the doors were open, so I thought I’d take a line-up-of-the-coaches picture. A member of staff immediately came and told me that I couldn’t take a picture. “Why not?” I said. “It’s not allowed, taking pictures is not allowed,” he said closing the doors and making an aggressive hand gesture in my direction. That’s a red rag to a CBW bull… here’s the picture I eventually took and there’s also one of the grim scene inside for passengers.

In my view, if the industry is going to get me, and 10-20 million people like me, to make a modal shift (assuming that it is a desirable idea, other than for commercial success) there first needs to be a modal shift in our thinking.

Serious thought needed

We need seriously radical thinking and then changes and improvements. If it doesn’t result in Alex Jensen’s nirvana of a customer base choosing the public transport option ‘because it is so good,’ we’ll have failed. Tinkering and politicking won’t do it and user numbers will continue to decline.

It is relatively easy to get the business of passengers who have no other choice. But the modal shift is about getting passengers who do have a choice to choose public transport. That’s why the thinking needs to be radical. The competition from other transport modes is extremely hot.

“The coach service to Gloucester via Heathrow, Cirencester and some other stops is now ready for boarding,” said the cheery driver. He stowed my case and I got on, choosing a seat towards the front. I detected some warm air around my feet on the way back, so I thought I’d plug in my USB cable and get some work messages done without draining my battery.

Alex (Jensen), will you come and sit next me on that NX444 coach and try to plug your and my USBs in? I tried for 15 minutes to plug one in, and failed. I reckon I would have had to lay on the floor to do it and still might not have succeeded. You’re probably expert at it, but I gave up and used the single, but more accessible plug socket instead and relied on my laptop’s battery life to see me through the journey.

There wasn’t enough room for me to use my mini laptop comfortably, but because no one sat next to me (deliberate off-peak journey timing) I managed to do some contortions and achieve an awkward but successful sideways spinal shift at some cost to my posture and get some typing done. Thank goodness for better battery life these days.

Well done driver, we arrived slightly ahead of schedule again. Twenty yards away there was a warm comfortable car parked and waiting to take me the short distance home.

A closer look at the CPT manifesto will appear in next week’s issue

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