\u00a0 \u00a0 This was a brand-new transport event that was billed as being unlike any other. It was the brainchild of CMAC, experts in planned and emergency ground transport solutions, and it brought together executives from the air, rail, bus, micro-mobility, taxi and active travel sectors in Manchester Airport\u2019s Concorde Hanger.<\/p>\n Ambitions for the future of transport were debated underneath a Concorde aircraft, a reminder of the ambition and ingenuity of a previous generation. And the debate was co-hosted by two transport experts who have spent their careers moving freely between different modes \u2013 Neil Micklethwaite, chief operating officer of CMAC Group, and Alex Warner, founder of AJW Experience Group.<\/p>\n A passionate plea for greater integration was made by Clive Wratten, chief executive of the Business Travel Association. He argued that the fragmentation of the transport sector was frustrating for travellers, but also unsustainable from an environmental perspective.<\/p>\n From personal experience, numerous recent trips I have taken using public transport have been far from seamless, not all, but far too many<\/p>\n \u201cFrom personal experience, numerous recent trips I have taken using public transport have been far from seamless, not all, but far too many,\u201d said Wratten. \u201cI am confident this sentiment resonates with many of you present here today, and I am also totally confident none of you want this to be the case.<\/p>\n \u201cCurrently the industry is highly fragmented, causing unnecessary issues for business travellers \u2026 It is time for change. It is time to make travelling in the UK a seamless experience, Bridging the gaps between different transport modes. We need to foster open dialogue and take meaningful action to build a transport system that is user-friendly, efficient and responsive to the needs of those on the journey.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to park competition for the sake of our planet and our economy. To do this it is vital that we prioritise greater collaboration and measurable action. Meetings are all well and good but if we aren\u2019t coming out of them with tangible targets, roadmaps and KPIs, then frankly what are we achieving? Put simply, we can\u2019t have competition without a functioning planet. We need to create an integrated transport network not empty promises.\u201d<\/p>\n Jacqueline Starr, CEO of Rail Delivery Group offered a candid assessment of why greater integration has not been achieved. <\/p>\n At the moment multimodal integration en masse,\u00a0I am speaking on behalf of the industry as a whole, is not a priority. It\u2019s very much an add-on to conversations<\/p>\n \u201cAt the moment multimodal integration en masse,\u00a0I am speaking on behalf of the industry as a whole, is not a priority,\u201d she confessed. \u201cIt\u2019s very much an add-on to conversations.\u201d<\/p>\n She continued: \u201cThere is still a lot of competition between modes, and that\u2019s not fostering the type of relationships and behaviours and prioritisation and investment.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there is also, dare I say,\u00a0a slight behavior and cultural\u00a0issue also in terms of the appetite to truly address the need and desire and the expectation of our customers now to have that end-to-end experience, regardless of modes.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd finally I think there is a gap in terms of data and being able to understand that first and last mile piece specifically, and really identify the needs of those customers in a way that really creates a compelling story for\u00a0us internally to lobby against some of those that perhaps don\u2019t want to respond to that growing customer need.\u201d<\/p>\n James Hammet, managing director of light rail umbrella group UKTram, also sees competition between modes as a barrier to integration. He contrasted this with the seamless experience of booking a package holiday, which might include flights, coaches, taxis, hotels and food: \u201cEverything is all in one and I have paid at one point, so why are we not doing that in transport?\u00a0It\u2019s doable.\u201d<\/p>\n Jacqueline Starr spoke about some of the work that is being done in the rail industry on issues like fares and ticketing and digitalisation to improve the journey experience, but warned that it is still happening in isolation: \u201cIt will take years to develop. It will take more years to deliver, and therefore if we don\u2019t approach that on the basis of Alex Warner, whose career has spanned Tube, aviation, rail, coach, bus and more, believes that the transport sector exists in entrenched modal silos that need to be broken down. He said that train company bosses often don\u2019t know the bus bosses on their patch, and vice versa \u2013 even when they are working for the same owning group.<\/p>\n Should the CEOs of the various owning groups seriously earn their money by forcing, right down to frontline managers, through their MDs, the bus and rail companies to talk to each other? This is why they are paid big bucks, surely?<\/p>\n He asked: \u201cShould the CEOs of the various owning groups seriously earn their money by forcing, right down to frontline managers, through their MDs, the bus and rail companies to talk to each other? This is why they are paid big bucks, surely?\u201d<\/p>\n Nigel Stevens, chair of transport user watchdog Transport Focus, believes that the technology sector can help to join up the transport sector \u2013 if the latter does not impede them.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are already doing a lot of this work of joining up the dots and at the moment they are held at arm\u2019s length, particularly I would argue in the rail sector where they are seen as the enemy, to a degree,\u201d he said. \u201cActually if we can get the Citymappers of this world, the trainlines of this world, engaged\u00a0and control their behaviors through data control, we can actually harness that power and that technology \u2026 It doesn\u2019t matter who owns the customer. It needs to be somebody who can deliver the goods.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cThey distribute revenue to individuals in China, distribution companies in the USA, couriers,\u201d said Micklethwaite. \u201cThey all get their money and it goes to the right place.\u201d<\/p>\n Later on, Graham Vidler, chief executive of CPT, suggested that a reality check was needed.<\/p>\n I think integration is important and will become more important. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s anywhere near the top of passenger\u2019s priority list at the moment<\/p>\n \u201cIf I could offer a slightly dissenting view on some of the debate we have had so far actually, I think there\u2019s a question here about priorities and what\u2019s most important to passengers,\u201d he said. \u201cI think integration is important and will become more important. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s anywhere near the top of passenger\u2019s priority list at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n Reliability, he said, was top of the wish-list for bus users: \u201cSo I think all of our focus, the vast majority of our focus, should be on cracking the things that get in the way of reliability, and in the bus sector that\u2019s a shortage of drivers, it\u2019s unreliable journey times because of congested roads. Those are the things that are most important right now. It was mid-way through the afternoon and Claudette Anderson, partnerships manager at Go Jauntly, said it was shameful that nobody had yet mentioned walking or cycling in the context of a discussion about multi-modal transport. Go Jauntly is a walking app that has worked with Transport for London, South Western Railway and soon Transport for Wales.<\/p>\n Walking is the most successful mode of transport and we need to recognise it as a mode of transport<\/p>\n \u201cWalking is the most successful mode of transport and we need to recognise it as a mode of transport,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you are a public transport authority or an operator \u2026\u00a0You need to be talking about that. You need to be making it very clear that that is part of your journey experience \u2026\u00a0You need to be talking about that. You need to be showing that you care about that, and that you know it\u2019s part of a really interesting, fun enjoyable experience for people every day. Nothing makes people more connected to where they are than walking.\u201d<\/p>\n Anderson asked why transport operators and authorities don\u2019t talk more about the environment. \u201cModal share is a huge part of the nature recovery plan,\u201d she said. \u201cClimate emergency is here. The biodiversity crisis is here. The mental health crisis is here. We are all living through that every day. Are public transport operators too scared to talk about that?\u00a0Does that make you too woke, or too green? It\u2019s neither of those things, it\u2019s literally happening as we speak. So why aren\u2019t we championing that more?\u201d<\/p>\n Overall it was a stimulating event that perhaps asked more questions than it answered \u2013 a rallying cry for others to take up and then thrash out the details. But, before we left we learnt that the majority of the audience had responded positively to Amazon selling becoming a retailer for public transport. Commenting via the Slido audience interaction app, a respondent named \u2018Jeff Bezos\u2019 quipped: \u201cImagine the size of the box for a train ticket.\u201d <\/p>\n \u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n The post Why isn\u2019t multi-modal integration a priority?<\/a> first appeared on Passenger Transport<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u200b\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2018It\u2019s the thing everyone wants but in so many ways it remains elusive. Last week\u2019s Great Transport Debate examined why we can\u2019t join up journeys \u00a0The debate brought together executives from the air, rail, bus, micro-mobility, taxi and active travel sectors in Manchester Airport\u2019s Concorde Hanger \u00a0 Why hasn\u2019t more progress been made to integrate different modes of transport to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-camcab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/redesign\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The debate brought together executives from the air, rail, bus, micro-mobility, taxi and active travel sectors in Manchester Airport\u2019s Concorde Hanger<\/em><\/p>\n
\nWhy hasn\u2019t more progress been made to integrate different modes of transport to create seamless door-to-door journeys that rival, or exceed, the convenience of the private car? This was a recurrent theme at last week\u2019s Great Transport Debate<\/a> in Manchester.<\/p>\n
\nmass integration, this situation remains unchanged for the next five to ten years. So we have to find a way to work together and combine that change now.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nThis prompted Neil Micklethwaite to harness the power of techology to pose the following question to the audience: \u201cCan Amazon sell tickets for us?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe commercials will drive integration when it becomes more of a priority for passengers, and when passengers are demanding that sort of integration.\u201d<\/p>\n
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