“Delivering on our promises is one of our core values. We seek to continually improve (sic) our services to promote high levels of customer satisfaction and encourage greater use of public transport”So says First Group’s 2010 Corporate Social Responsibility report, published earlier this month. Though First show what appears to be volatile satisfaction levels for its four rail franchisees, specific bus passenger figures are missing. It’s therefore difficult to see whether there’s been an improvement or not. One wonders why the figures are absent and perhaps that’s because it’s inevitable that a year of bus cuts will have a negative impact.
What First does publish, unlike the other Big Five operators, is punctuality and reliability statistics*.
There’s usually an item on each of First’s subsidiary’s websites, though few now seem up-to-date or as regularly refreshed as they used to be. Some are over a year old and others, more so, in spite of promises on some sites to publish monthly. Some nevertheless were uploaded as recently as last month.
In the CSR report, First aggregates the total, so that we know punctuality has improved by one per cent to 91 per cent, comparing 2007/08 with 2009/10. It’s a brave operator indeed who publishes information four percentage points below the traffic commissioners’ expectations.
Reliability slipped marginally in 2009/10. It dropped from 98.8 to 98.6 per cent, attributable to the poor start to the year’s weather. Still, that’s a good result and, rounding up to 99 per cent, it’s the only statistic in which the public is interested, other than 100 per cent itself. Even if the government expects 99.5 per cent.
Perhaps people get bored with meaningless statistics and may be that is why they are no longer so prominent on First sies. Perhaps passengers show an intolerance to figures whose decimal points don’t move. Perhaps they think, “yeah yeah, if you say so”. Yet, operators do take KPIs very seriously.
* And why don’t the others? Information available to the public would go a long way in countering prevailing perceptions
| SUBSIDIARY—latest stats (E&OE) | Punctuality | Reliability |
| Aberdeen | 90.0 | 95.0 |
| Berkshire & Thames Valley | 91.4 | 99.4 |
| Bradford | No info found | No info found |
| Bristol | 91.0 | 99.2 |
| Somerset | 93.5 | 99.6 |
| Calderdale | 92.8 | 99.5 |
| Huddersfield | 94.3 | 99.5 |
| Chester/Wirral | No info found | No info found |
| Devon & Cornwall | 91.1 | 99.7 |
| Dorset | No info found | No info found |
| Eastern Counties | 86.4 | 99.0 |
| Essex | 88.3 | 93.8 |
| Glasgow | 94.0 | 99.1 |
| Manchester | 89.0 | 99.0 |
| Hampshire | 90.1 | 99.4 |
| Leeds | No info found | No info found |
| Leicester | 96.0 | 99.5 |
| Northampton | 96.0 | 99.5 |
| South Wales | No info found | No info found |
| Edinburgh | No info found | No info found |
| South Yorkshire | 92.5 | 99.4 |
| Hereford & Worcester | 96.0 | 99.5 |
| York | 87.0 | 98.8 |
5 comments:
Are punctuality figures meaningful, when (at least at my depot) they've persistently slackened every timetable so now we spend fifteen minutes in the hour waiting at timing points?
I don't think anyone in York will be surprised that it is one of the company's worst performing divisions - although they might be surprised that the figures are as high as they are!
Edinburgh No info found
No surprise there, REALLY!
First Potteries must be sooo bad on punctuality that they don't exist!
Marcus
Essex and Eastern Counties - shocking but unsurprising
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