NORTH EAST SCOTLAND TRANSPORT PARTNERSHIP – 16 February 2011

8 Information Bulletin

 Purpose of Report

The purpose of this report is to provide information and updates for the Board on a number of matters not requiring decision.

 Scottish Transport Awards entries

This year’s Scottish Transport Awards will be held earlier in the year, in June in Glasgow. This short turnaround from last year’s awards ceremony has meant that it has not been possible to plan and programme potential entries as early as normal, but nevertheless it was felt that some of the good work ongoing in the region was eligible for putting together good quality bids.

Nestrans has submitted an application under the categories of Partnership (Appendix 1) and Cycling (Appendix 2), as well as in Marketing in association with our Getabout partners (Appendix 3). A joint submission has also been submitted with First in Aberdeen in relation to the Real Time Bus website (Appendix 4).

 Response from Traffic Commissioner

Following the decision at the last Board meeting to write to the Traffic Commissioner expressing concern at the conclusions contained in her letter to First Aberdeen, particularly the criticism of Aberdeen City Council’s commitment to public transport, a response has now been received from Ms Aitken. She has declined to accept the offer of meeting with the Board and states that she cannot enter into discussion following a judgment on a hearing.

Aberdeen City Council’s Environment, Planning & Infrastructure Committee also considered her judgment and expressed concerns, emphasising that over £1 million has been invested in bus priorities and schemes and that the Council remains committed through LABOF and the Bus Punctuality Improvement Partnership to improving bus operations.

A copy of the Commissioner’s response is attached as Appendix 5 to this report.

 Real Time Bus Website

The real time bus website was launched in September 2010 (http://www.realtimebus.com/ ). Since its launch it has received very positive feedback from users. Figures supplied by ACIS in January 2010 support this with the numbers of people visiting the website increasing month by month since the launch. The graph below shows the number of hits to the website in the months from September to December 2010. A mechanism has now been set up to extract more detailed monitoring data and in the future it will be possible to identify how many of these are unique users.

8 Info Bulletin

40,000

35,000

30,000

25,000

20,000

15,000

Number of hits to website to hits of Number 10,000

5,000

- Sep-10 Oct-10 Nov-10 Dec-10

 City Car Parking Charges

Aberdeen City Council has approved proposals to increase parking charges in city car parks. The revised charges have been set to be competitive with privately operated car parks situated around the city centre and to introduce a more standardised approach and simplified tariff structure. Charges will increase to £1 for one hour and increments of £1 for each subsequent hour after that. Implementation of the revised charges should increase car parking income, enabling the City Council to invest in replacement pay and display machines.

 Balmedie – Tipperty

The Transport Minister has given the go ahead for the upgrade of the A90 Balmedie – Tipperty following consideration of the findings of the public inquiry. The report of the public inquiry included recommendations for a number of design changes in relation to new junctions for the Menie Estate, although these have been rejected by the Transport Minister in approving the original scheme. This announcement also includes an indication that construction of the scheme will be linked to construction of the AWPR.

 Scottish Marine Regions – Defining their Boundaries

The Marine (Scotland) Act introduces statutory marine planning for the first time in the Scottish marine area. The Act provides for a National Marine Plan and for the delegation of marine planning functions to a regional level. The Scottish Government’s intention is to delegate these functions to Marine Planning Partnerships which will be responsible for developing regional marine plans. The Scottish Government is currently consulting upon the creation of Scottish Marine Regions, including options for defining their boundaries. This is for information only as it is not felt that this consultation contains anything directly relevant to Nestrans. It is not therefore proposed to submit a response to this consultation.

 Car Club City Centre Parking Bays

On 9 November 2010 Aberdeen City Council’s Enterprise Planning and Infrastructure Committee approved recommendations for officers to carry out initial statutory consultations and public advertisement consultation to introduce car club parking bays in Aberdeen City Centre. Seventeen parking bays at eleven different locations in the city are proposed to facilitate the introduction of a car club scheme.

 Scottish Parliament Motion

On 26 January 2010, the Scottish Parliament debated a motion submitted by former Nestrans’ Chair Alison McInnes MSP.

The motion stated……”Parliament notes that, following the first ever liftshare week, membership of the UK-wide car-sharing network has now exceeded 400,000; further notes that car sharing, as well as bringing environmental benefits, can save participants money through shared travelling costs; congratulates liftshare on its recent success in the Contribution to the Community category at the Nectar Small Business Awards; considers outstanding the work of Getabout, a partnership between Nestrans, Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire councils, local universities and other organisations, in promoting better transport choices, including car sharing, in the north east, and believes that encouraging car sharing and other more sustainable transport options can play a key part in helping the transport sector to meet its share of Scotland's climate change reduction targets.”

The motion was proposed by Alison McInnes, MSP for North East Scotland and supported by a cross-party group including: Bill Kidd, Mike Pringle, Kenneth Gibson, Marlyn Glen, Nanette Milne, Robin Harper, Cathy Peattie, Sarah Boyack, Stuart McMillan, Hugh O'Donnell, Gil Paterson, Jim Hume, Liam McArthur, Robert Brown, Ross Finnie and Nicol Stephen.

A debate on the topic was taken in the Chamber on Wednesday, 26 January 2011 and included many complementary remarks about Nestrans, the Getabout partnership and the working on sustainable transport initiatives in the north east. The text of the discussion is available at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/Business/ORSearch/ReportView.aspx?r=6032&mode=pdf.

 High Speed Rail

Following the High Speed Rail announcement last Autumn about extending High Speed Rail to Manchester and Leeds, Nestrans followed that with a query to clarify the situation with regard to extending the line further to Scotland. That email and the response are shown below:

“Abigail,

Thank you for this.

The announcement makes no mention of the possibilities of an extension to Scotland other than reference to tying back into the East and West Coast main lines.

Can it therefore be assumed that HS2 are still working on item 11 in the Secretary of State's remit letter of 17 March 2010? I realise that this was of lower priority than the lines to Manchester and Leeds (Secretary of State's subsequent revised remit) and this may well be the reason why Scotland doesn't feature in the current announcement.

Thanks for your clarification.”

“Dear Mr Murray,

Thank you for your email

In the longer term, the core 'Y' network could also provide the foundations for a more extensive network of high speed lines encompassing other English regions and Scotland. The work carried out by HS2 Ltd indicates a potentially strong business case for lines extending to Glasgow and Edinburgh, but further work would be required to understand the costs and benefits of each link in more detail and to identify the optimum solutions and funding packages.

It is therefore too early to give a timescale as to if and when any high speed rail link to Scotland would be operational.

If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.”

 Nestrans Press Releases

20/12/10 80 Dyce Airlink Festive Timetable - indicating the continuation of the service over the holiday period http://www.nestrans.org.uk/news/news_detail.asp?news_id=323

22/12/10 Festive Newsletter 2010 – providing an annual update on the work of Nestrans and containing Christmas greetings http://www.nestrans.org.uk/news/news_detail.asp?news_id=324

07/01/11 Public Exhibition for Proposed A90 (S) Park & Ride – advertising the public exhibition and meeting in Portlethen held as part of the pre-planning application consultations on the Park & Ride proposal

“A public exhibition of proposals for a new Park & Ride site at Schoolhill near Portlethen will take place on Tuesday 25 January 2011 in Portlethen Academy from 4pm to 9pm. The event has been planned to coincide with a meeting of the Portlethen & District Community Council, at which a short presentation on the planned new facility will be given. The meeting is open to the public and starts at 7.00pm. The presentation will start at approximately 7.30pm. The exhibition will be set up in the café area in Portlethen Academy and the Community Council meeting will be held in the nearby school theatre.

This project is jointly supported by Nestrans, Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Councils. It is a committed project within the Regional Transport Strategy and proposed as a site within the Strategic Park & Ride / Park & Choose Strategy interventions in the Scottish Government's Strategic Transport Projects Review.”

 Getabout Events

There have been no Getabout events since the last Board meeting due to the winter season.

 Performance Indicators

Nestrans reports its performance against a number of agreed indicators on an annual basis. This year’s PIs are detailed in Appendix 6 of this report.

Over the year, the following is a summary of the key statistics:

 The Partnership office’s full complement of six full-time job equivalents have had fewer than 1.5% of days lost through sickness or other absence.  Of some 625 letters and other correspondence requiring a response, 98% were dealt with within the target of 10 working days (20 days for Freedom of Information requests).  81% of surface travel was undertaken by public transport.  Nestrans staff mode of travel to work indicates a good split between walking, cycling, public transport and driving.  Nestrans website has had over 9,000 visits in 2010.

Next year Nestrans will also be reporting on mileage saved by using video conferencing.

 Recommendation

It is recommended that Members note the contents of this report.

RD/7 February 2011