Paul Lynch: At your service to promote CPT in the year ahead

It is a privilege to be the Confederation of Passenger Transport’s (CPT) President in its 50th year, and to have the chance to give my thoughts about current issues and events in this monthly column for routeone. 

I’ve spent the whole of my working life in this vital industry of ours, and I guess I’ve left it too late to do anything else! So, while I can’t quite claim the longevity of CPT, I’ve been around for a good while. Further, while I have become more experienced, it has been interesting to see what stays the same and what changes.  

One thing that, in my view, has improved in recent years is CPT itself: I’ve been involved with it for a long time around different regions and, while it has always had excellent people and completed vital work on behalf of our industry, I do think that its current structure, team, resource and effectiveness have improved to the point where being a member is now a no-brainer for operators, large and small.

I’m therefore happy to do my bit to help and promote CPT in the year ahead. Having said that, nothing is perfect or incapable of improvement, so I would be delighted to hear from members about any issues, concerns or suggestions that you have.

One event demonstrating what I mean about CPT’s vital work and contribution was the launch of the Delivering Zero-Emission Bus Services to Rural Areas report at the Houses of Parliament on 28 February.

The result of six months of hard work by our Rural Zero-Emission Bus Taskforce, the report shows the expertise we have at our disposal; is an excellent summary of the challenges faced by operators and local authorities in making progress on this agenda in the rural context; and offers a set of practical recommendations to deal with the challenges involved.

This work follows hot on the heels of the launch in January of our two manifestos for this election year — which, if you haven’t seen them yet, are worth reading as they’ll help you with your own lobbying and conversations with stakeholders.

Access All Areas sets out how the next UK government can help to unleash the full potential of coach, and Driving Britain Forward sets out  key measures required to unlock the huge economic, net-zero and social wellbeing potential of buses. 

As this is my first column, I would also like to thank those CPT members who have invited me to visit them: Although I have a busy day job, I certainly intend to get out and about so, if there’s something you want to share or show off, then I’d be delighted to come and see. 

I also have a few ideas of subjects to cover in this column in future, but this is another area where I’d be happy to hear suggestions or requests for topics you’d like me to write about. So let me have some feedback, so I know someone is still reading this far into the magazine!