& Assisted Transport Services

Paul Blackwell, General Manager, London Buses Limited

July 2015

So why do we need door to door transport ?

80%+ accessible

> 9000 accessible buses

> 22,000 accessible

197 accessible stations

Why door to door transport ?

• Accessible transport can’t be accessed

• Medical conditions

• Unseen disabilities

• Shopping

• Security

Door to Door transport in London[Assisted Transport / Social Needs Transport ]

• Local boroughs• Education services • Social services• Non statutory (eg to transport to lunch clubs or for local groups)

• Patient Transport Services (Commissioned by over 80 separate health trusts in London, with differing eligibility criteria)

• Access to Work (Commuter transport funded and facilitated by Department for Work and Pensions)

• Community Transport (24 groups in London, supporting wide range of users including local community centres/ scouts and individuals)

• Dial a Ride • Taxicard• Capital Call

What is Dial-a-Ride?• Door to door multi-occupancy London wide bus service

• Independent travel for those who cannot use mainstream transport for journeys that they wish to make

(excludes journeys made by other statutory provision)

• Operates Monday-Sunday 0600-0200 hours (incl. Xmas Day)• Focus on Local Journeys < 5 miles (maximises opportunities for all)

• Pre-booked (regular/advanced and next day) travel through central call centre “one call and done”

• Customer focused scheduling. (No entitlement limits as multi-occupancy operates on supply/demand but DaR schedule over 91% of all requests)

• Free to members

Dial a Ride in numbers• Members: c.48,000

• Trips:– 1.7m requests per annum (> 91% scheduled)– 1.3m completed trips per annum (+160k companions) (1 in 5 scheduled trips cancelled by passengers on day/eve of travel)

• Buses: 360

• Depots: 5 regional +4 sub depots

• Staff: 580 FTE (Drivers c 400 FTE)

• Contractors: 6 Community Transport (12%)

Taxi Consolidator (7%)

• Budget: £35m p.a.

Dial a Ride Fleet

Dial a Ride “Management Control Centre”

• Open 365 days a year, 0600-2400

• Bookings, scheduling & service control

• c.100k calls per month (also email and fax bookings)

• Call answer times (members’ lines)• Peak Target 180 secs (average 217)• Off Peak Target 60 secs (average 163)

• Call duration average 3 mins 30 secs

• Service Delivery 30 FTE• Reservations 60 FTE

Dial a Ride use of Taxi/PHV

• Why ?• DaR bus stuck/broken down• One direction (peak demand for DaR may mean bus only available in one direction at time requested)• Passenger cancellations

• Dial a Ride a licensed PHV operator

• Taxi Consolidator (City Fleet)• Black cab circuit (30%)• PHV c 30 Partners (70%)

• c 1500 trips per week• Work to same customer SLA as DaR• Fixed scale of tariffs with non performance credits

Assisted Transport Services –Taxicard

• London boroughs’ kerb to kerb accessible transport service

• 70k members• C 1.3 million Taxicard trips (stages)• Annual trip entitlement (c104 p.a.). • Members pay £2.50 of first £10.80 on meter then all additional costs• Managed by London Councils (LC) • Annual costs c £12m, 84 % funded by TfL

Assisted Transport Services – Capital Call

• Introduced 2003 where historically a shortage of black cabs for the Taxicard scheme

• Operates in Bexley, Ealing, Enfield, Haringey, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton and Southwark

• C. 1400 active members ( must be Taxicard members)

• £200 annual allowance

• Budget £0.4m p.a.

• Consulting on scheme closure

Travel mentoring

Supports disabled Londoners in using all forms of mainstream public transport

• 5 TfL Mentors and 28 London boroughs

• 9000 accompanied trips p.a.

• Multi- agency bus days 100 + each year

• MARS assessment and accreditation

Door to door transport in the future ……

• Social Needs Transport Review ( ongoing due to report in late 2015)

– looking at how well we meet our customers’ needs, – how well we work together, how we compare to other providers– how we might be affected by the many more older and disabled

people who will be living in London in the coming years. – changing society – expectations and demand– simplifying the customer offering

• Technology

– Trapeze upgrade– Telematics – Mobile Data Terminals