Speeches by Aquarone.

“The conditions and the funding are there. Particularly in rural areas, the model does not work at the moment—we have spent a long time trying to find a way that does, but we cannot find one that is particularly affordable. Will there potentially be a mini-Switzerland equivalent for rural areas in the future, Conrad?”

“Minister, we spoke earlier about the measurement framework and timetables you are using for delivering these outcomes. We have since talked quite a bit about the different Government Departments that are clearly involved in delivering integrated strategy. I would say that there is probably more agency outside Transport…”

“You mentioned park-and-ride a couple of times, and my question is slightly broader than that. In the rural buses report, we wrote some recommendations around new models for local authorities to consider. Park the phrase “models”—it is new stuff, right? It is new infrastructure that is not a new road, a new railway line…”

“Latent and, indeed, unstated need.”

“We can ask one of our witnesses.”

“Thanks for indulging that.”

“Ben, anything beginning with T—other than ticketing and timetables—or any other letter that you would say is your big-ticket outcome success for the passenger?”

“Minister, when are you going to start to tell us what is in your dashboard and what the numbers are telling you, and what sort of timescales are we talking about for some of these outcomes to be achieved?”

“I am going to ask in a moment when we might see some of those measures reported and what the overall timescales for delivery are. First, Ben, could I ask you to attend to a particularly difficult aspect of measurement? If you take it for granted that survivorship bias means that only measuring current public transport …”

“That is all lovely, but are you going to tell local authorities that, if they are going to do that discovery exercise to work out what is going to work in these places, they have to survey people in a proper way, not just ask existing bus users whether they have any opinions, because that is not a representative sample…”

“Are the outcome frameworks at the end of a particular project?”

“Minister, the temptation is to think about joined-up journeys from an organisational point of view; I am interested in what it is going to be like from the citizens’ point of view. Can you tell us what some of the significant outcomes you described will be, and when we might start to see them?”

“It will come as no surprise to you that that is also what we are interested in finding out in the future.”

“You have to have the ideas in order to share the best practice.”

“Ticketing is great, but this is an integrated transport strategy, not the integrated ticketing strategy. Don’t get me wrong: we all see the huge benefit of simplified ticketing, but are there any other aspects of material difference where you, Conrad or Ben, feel you can say to someone, “In the future, this is what it …”

“What does that mean for me as a transport user?”

“These are ambitious outcomes: ticketing I do not have to worry about, and timetables I can trust. Ben, you made the point about making this a more attractive option. I asked you to answer on behalf of the passenger, and thank you for doing that, so let us now focus on the organisation. Just last month the permanent sec…”

“Minister, you have just addressed an important guiding principle of the measurement framework, which is that it is going to be aligned to the passenger experience.”

“That makes sense and fits what you said in response to my earlier question. I guess the question that is on my mind is, how will we know? How are you going to measure the extent to which people are making choices, other than just by passenger volumes, which of course is just too generic?”

“Absolutely nothing at all. I am sure it has completely bought into the wisdom of investment in integrated transport.”