The West Midlands is never far from the spotlight \u2013 from hosting the Commonwealth Games through to being the new home of everyone\u2019s favourite mechanical bull (more of him later!).<\/p>\n
As a key part of the public transport network right in the centre of Great Britain, the West Midlands region certainly keeps Transport Focus busy.<\/p>\n
Our colleagues are regularly out and about across Britain \u2013 their feedback and observations enable us to campaign for improvements and changes for passengers.<\/p>\n
Our man in the Midlands is Geoff Grant, who\u2019s been with Transport Focus for four years and is based in Birmingham. So, what does a typical day for Geoff look like?<\/p>\n\n
In his own words \u2018there\u2019s probably not a typical day as we\u2019re involved in so many initiatives, every day is different.\u2019<\/p>\n
As passengers are at the centre of our work there is a real focus on customer facing information. A day\u2019s tasks can include checking on communications at rail stations and travel hubs \u2013 everything from posters and websites to electronic screens and leaflets.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s essential we see how operators are communicating with passengers and checking that they can easily find and access that information. This is something that has been particularly important during recent industrial action and is something we keep a strict eye on during any engineering work.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re there to challenge and influence operators and stakeholders to do the best job possible. We regularly publish the results of our research with passengers \u2013 both the good and not so good. Part of the day can be providing details of these results to the regions\u2019 rail strategic supervisory board, the Grand Railway Collaboration, train operators or a specific station, so they can understand the passenger perspective.<\/p>\n
We know that passengers don\u2019t care where things go wrong, they just want them to be put right, and we champion their cause.<\/p>\n
Partnerships are key in the West Midlands, and we\u2019re pleased to be part of a number of important groups who are influencing, and delivering improved public transport and ensuring the passenger voice is heard. The afternoon of a typical day might include chairing the region\u2019s bus alliance where we recently pushed for speedy resolution on bus strikes, as well as encouraging ticket acceptance on other operators.<\/p>\n
This was particularly important for passengers with health and accessibility needs. We also contributed to the station newsletter for New Street, giving positive feedback when we\u2019d seen some great service over a Cheltenham race day, and explaining what our latest survey means.<\/p>\n
And finally, back to that mechanical bull\u2026 anyone watching the Commonwealth Games will not have missed the mechanical sculpture known as \u2018Raging Bull\u2019 displayed in in the centre of the city. It was due to be dismantled at the end of the Games, sparking public outcry, but in the ultimate act of recycling it will be installed in Birmingham\u00a0New Street station by Network Rail this summer.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re proud to be involved with public transport at a community, local and regional level, making sure that the passenger voice is heard, good practice is promoted, and that information is improved and joined up \u2013 all changes that make a difference regardless of how you choose to travel.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re keen to make your<\/em> voice heard, do consider joining our Transport User Panel\u2026.. Transport User Panel \u2013 Transport Focus<\/a><\/p>\n The post At the centre of everything \u2013 West Midlands<\/a> appeared first on Transport Focus<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The West Midlands is never far from the spotlight \u2013 from hosting the Commonwealth Games through to being the new home of everyone\u2019s favourite mechanical bull (more of him later!). As a key part of the public transport network right in the centre of Great Britain, the West Midlands region certainly keeps Transport Focus busy. Our colleagues are regularly out…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-camcab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2616"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2652,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616\/revisions\/2652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}