Minutes:
The chair said that in previous meetings, concerns had been raised about the 42 and 484 buses, and about the behaviour of some bus drivers regarding older passengers, or those with mobility problems getting on and off the buses. He welcomed George Marcar and Steve Kearns from Transport for London (TfL).
George Marcar told the meeting that while the punctuality of buses had improved, this sometimes caused drivers to start driving before passengers had sat down, or not pulling up all the way to the kerb. These issues would be addressed. All 8,500 buses were now low floor vehicles. By the end of 2016, 95% of bus stops would be accessible. TfL had also recently started delivering a two-day customer experience training course for drivers in-house and was currently training all 20,000 drivers. The training included the social model of disability, customer service skills, empathy training and overt and covert observation over 12 months. The training also included a section about letting passengers sit down before putting the bus back in motion, especially at hospitals. These measures were paid for by a Greater London Authority (GLA) grant.
In response to questions raised from the floor, George Marcar said that there was a phone number, postal address and email on any bus to which passengers could complain about, or praise, a bus driver. All complaints would be investigated including with the help of CCTV. If drivers did not obey traffic laws or endangered passengers in any way, they would be disciplined and could lose their job. George said he would provide some statistics about serious incidents.
The chair said that there was a need for better feedback mechanism to complaints and that most bus drivers were doing a good job in sometimes difficult situations.
Steve Kearns from TfL told the meeting that there had been more than 490 responses to the bus 42 consultation, 389 of which were in favour of extending the route to the Sainsbury’s in Dog Kennel Hill. TfL were looking to run double-decker buses on the route, which would cost an extra £700,000 a year. In order to accommodate this, the route would no longer be running down Sunray Avenue, but instead run on Red Post Hill. At the new terminus more land was required from Sainsbury’s, which would have to be negotiated. Steve went on to say that Tower Bridge would be closing from 1 October, so that bus 42 would be running short, and would not be running across the river. Overcrowding would be addressed by running double-decker buses.
In terms of the 484 bus, there was a problem with the regularity of the service and with overcrowding, which was mostly due to the works around the Lewisham Gateway which would soon be completed. The inaccuracies on the countdown for route 484 at Camberwell Green was due to buses being at the garage which was very close. The GPS was not able to pick up the difference between a bus being parked at the garage or moving towards the bus stop. The next generation of GPS would take care of that glitch.
On a general level, Steve said, the funds received by TfL had consistently gone up over the last 20 years, however these subsidies would soon be taken away by the government. In terms of major public transport infrastructure projects, no funding had been secured beyond Crossrail 2, so the Bakerloo line extension was uncertain to go ahead soon. The likely route would be running down the Old Kent Road, as there would have to be financed partially by contributions from all the new developments.
In answer to questions from the floor, Steve said that TfL were trying to phase the buses running from Camberwell to Elephant and Castle more efficiently, and to review the traffic layout on Walworth Road.
The meeting also heard that the 484 bus should also loop into Sainsbury’s car park on Dog Kennel Hill, and that plans for the 42 bus parking at Sainsbury’s had been worked up a few years ago. The juncture with Dog Kennel Hill was already difficult to navigate for buses, but that this road was Southwark’s, rather than TfL’s responsibility. Concerns were raised about the effect of the new 42 routing on economic well-being of Camberwell town centre.
Young people from the Albrighton Centre told the meeting about the activities for young people at the centre and the off-site activities that the young people were part of, like sporting and educational trips.
At this point the meeting took a ten-minute break.