The Panel has repeatedly made the point to SWT that being able to see things through the eyes of passengers is fundamental in striving to improve passenger services. In fairness to SWT they do regularly use the Panel as a sounding board and value the feed back that they get.
A programme of station visits during which members visit stations at random and check and comment on a whole range of services and facilities against a series of criteria we have established is one of the ways in which the Panel has worked to fulfil that function.
These Reports are circulated to members and, of course, to the Company and where appropriate discussed at meetings. A visit to Southampton Parkway by George Bailey, maybe surprisingly, ticked all the boxes and gave a picture of a clean and well run station overall. There were a few instances where more information for passengers would have been appreciated, in particular a lack of information about bus connections – a point that we repeatedly make. Whilst there were a few empty spaces in the car park, the cycle racks were full to overflowing as were the motorcycle bays and as a consequence there were bikes chained to railings and many other places. A few more cycle racks and motorcycle bays would certainly fulfil a need at this station – and maybe help the environment at the same time.
Much of the meeting was devoted to a discussion on Oyster Cards and Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) ticketing. The Panel was helped in this by a presentation from Danny Kennedy the Station Manager at Waterloo to whom we are grateful. As so often, the key to success turns out to be getting the right information across to passengers and the Panel were able to make various recommendations in that respect. One of the good things coming out of PAYG is that it has, apparently, resulted in shorter queues both at Ticket Vending Machines and at the Ticket Offices themselves.
The Panel took the opportunity in trying to get further information about SWT using the old Eurostar platforms at Waterloo. Unfortunately the progress we were all hoping for is just not materialising.
Information, or the lack of it, featured in many of the various matters that were discussed at the meeting. When trains divide, unlike some other operators, South West Trains do not mark nor indicate the carriages numbers so that it is often difficult for passengers to know in which part of the train they are sitting. There were also many instances where the lack of information was noticeable during the recent disruptions due to bad weather. As one member put it, ‘the flow of information was patchy at best’. We know that SWT spends much time and money on trying to address this but it still has some way to go.
On the question of information, we were assured that SWT gives this regularly to local radio stations but unfortunately some of them do not choose to use it. Whether they do or not is, of course, entirely up to them but it might help if passengers themselves were to phone in to local radio stations – all of whom plead for listener participation –to make the point that they would be helped if that sort of information could be broadcast regularly. Who knows. It might help.
Two good pieces of news. Andrew Fairbank, Head of Stations, well known to the Panel, has been seconded for a year to head up the Waterloo Integrated Control Centre (WICC), – the first time, we understand, that a such a senior member of the Customer Service function has been involved at this level. Andrew’s remit is to improve the quality and the flow of information from the WICC to passengers and staff across the South West Trains Network. We wish him well.
The other pleasing bit of feed back that members reported on when discussing the service during the recent bad weather were that there were many instances where, at times of disruption, passengers were saying “SWT are not normally late”. A huge change from some years ago when a South West train arriving on time was a matter of celebration.