Item 4 (a)

8th June 2018

FIRST – Briefing note – North East Glasgow

Successes:

 Huge investment in new fleet over next year starting in September. State of the art vehicles with Euro VI engines to comply with future LEZs.  Cashless technology rolled out across entire network meaning mTicketing, Contactless payments and new state of the art ticket machines are live on every vehicle.  First Glasgow have already reached 500,000 contactless transactions and seen huge growth on the use of digital ticketing thanks to our mTicket app on our buses meaning dwell times at bus stops are reducing too.  The Glasgow Airport Express service has been shortlisted for Best Bus Service at the Scottish Transport Awards in June 2018.  First Glasgow are working closely with to find best possible way to implement the LEZs in the city by 2022. Compliance will be achieved through a combination of new fleet investment and exhaust retrofits.  55% of fleet is fitted with free WIFI with this number set to increase from September with introduction of new vehicles.

Current Challenges

 Congestion remains the number one cause of delays in and around the city. The issue is the single biggest factor that effects run times and is something we have absolutely no control over.  Run speeds around the city are getting slower with average speeds of around just 8mph in some parts of the city due to congestion. Just a 10% increase in these speeds would increase patronage by the same number.

 LEZs implementation will likely mean the alterations of some routes, but First Glasgow have made proposals that would simplify some journeys through city centre thus making services more attractive to customers and reduce emissions.

North East Glasgow

Underlying challenges:

 Considerable demographic changes in the area, many of the densely-populated housing estates that helped support bus services have been replaced with low density, often sometimes high car owning privately built estates. E.g – Red Road Flats, Sighthill, , , etc etc.  Reductions in concession funding, in an area with higher than average concession card holders, this can significantly impact the viability of individual services.  Movement from bus to rail due to heavily subsidised fares and services. This can undermine a whole service also impacting passengers who are not close to a rail station.  Ever increasing congestion.

Recent changes

As a result of the factors above, the north-east network as a whole is generally in decline, even where services are still relatively well used, the trend is not positive.

 Service 10 Auchinairn – – City – Silverburn replaced in the north by new service 87 between Auchinairn and Buchanan Bus Station to improve reliability.  57/57A Reduced from 10 buses per hour to 8 buses per hour to reflect reduced demand, partly because of Red Road Flats demolition.

We still operate a comprehensive service on most main corridors but it is certainly the case that over many years, several services have had to be withdrawn or reduced as a result of the demographic changes and falling demand highlighted above.

We used to receive direct support of over £30 million per annum to help operate socially necessary services, this responsibility now falls on SPT but the budget is only around £6 million.