Buses will only flourish if transport planners understand their needs

John Dales’ article on buses (‘Buses: no room at the kerb’ Transport in Urban Design LTT 29 Jan) unfortunately implies a rather remote, passing interest view of the way that buses need to be accommodated in city centres – maybe we should, maybe we shouldn’t do this or that. And he seems to imply that it’s a bit of a joke that no-one has actually considered what the customers think of bendy buses (although I am aware of one very good study by Cardiff Bus that showed a preference for them).

I have no doubt that he has much firmer views than his article portrays but I believe that he is, in fact, expressing the typical misunderstanding that most transport planners have of ‘customer service’. A one-time transport planner, I have spent the past five years working with operations managers in the bus industry and I have come to understand that, to attract people to use the bus, it is not good enough to provide just a mediocre level of service. To really make a difference it is essential that the offering to them represents a whole package of excellence. Furthermore, the conditions of the wait at the bus stop and its proximity and convenience to destinations is an extremely important element in that offering.

In my ignorance, in the past I have provided inadequate waiting space at bus stops, remote bus interchanges, poor crossing facilities and many other less-than-excellent facilities, all in an attempt at compromise with those other objectives that transport planners pursue.

But I now see that it is simply not good enough – if your prime objective is to attract more bus use – to position stops on bleak and windswept north-facing frontages, or on narrow busy footways, or to put up street advertising so that passengers cannot see an approaching bus, or to build new bus stations (and here maybe I should put a full stop) that are too far away from the main destinations.

I believe that this is a consequence of the way that the transport planning profession has wedded itself to simplistic quantitative market research techniques that fail to account for the top-two-box approach to customer satisfaction. By ignoring the responses to the ‘Are you just a bit satisfied?’ question and by focusing on only the ‘Are you satisfied?’ and ‘Are you very satisfied?’ responses, the retail industries get some understanding of what they need to do to win and keep customers.

Moving on from there requires analytical survey methods that are far more sophisticated than, it seems, the transport planning profession is familiar with.

Peter Wiltshire

Great Missenden

Buckinghamshire HP16

Customer Service Excellence & the Travel Experience takes place in London on 26 February.  To book your place contact conferences@landor.co.uk or call 0845 270 7965