CPT does an excellent job for its members. Well, I would say that wouldn’t I? I happen to believe that it is true, although we can always do better of course – and we will.
As you know, CPT membership is voluntary and much of the work we are engaged with is on-going and, consequently, often unnoticed. That is why I am continually pressing my colleagues to tell our members about all the good things we do. If we do not continue to promote ourselves to operators in and out of membership, we will cease to exist.
Which is, if you think about it, not unlike running a coach and bus business. Services and vehicle standards have improved tremendously over recent years as a result of a great deal of investment and hard work. But this has not happened overnight. If we are not careful, this may go unnoticed by our customers.
I was talking to the CEO of Transport Focus about this the other day. His organisation only looks at services from the consumer point of view and he was very surprised that we don’t shout more loudly about how good our services are.
As he said, we probably have one of the most accessible and modern fleets in Europe if not the World, with facilities such as USB ports and Wi-Fi commonplace on a growing number of vehicles. He described many of the coaches travelling across the UK each day as “luxurious” and thinks we have a lot to shout about.
We do have to maintain a balance however. Everybody knows the bus industry is going through a very challenging time for all the reasons we know about, many of which are outside our control.
It would be futile to pretend otherwise. The media at the moment is full of reports by CBT and LGA with horror stories of cuts to bus services – albeit supported services – up and down the country. It is important that this story is told and that politicians are aware of the problems we are facing. But we must be careful.
If you read a story of a restaurant in crisis you probably would not rush to go there. The same is true of any service, and that includes coaches and buses. Good news breeds good news, so it is the responsibility of all of us to promote what we do.
Last week I attended the launch of Catch the Bus Week which is a brilliant initiative. The Minister, Nusrat Ghani, hit the nail on the head. Do not just use the bus simply because it is the environmentally friendly thing to do. Use it because it is an all-round better and more comfortable experience than using the car.
As was said to me afterwards: “The industry is undoubtedly walking the walk, it probably now needs to do a little more of talking the talk.”
