20-23 Addenbrookes - Richard Armitage Transport Consultancy

i n t e g r a t i o n
Access to Addenbrooke’s
he bus is playing a key role in ensuring staff,
patients and visitors can get to a large
hospital campus. Richard Armitage took a
ride to Addenbrooke’s Hospital and met some of
the people who are benefitting from the
Cambridge bus renaissance.
A few years ago, Paul Cooper and Steve Telling
T
Alighting passengers are greeted by a large
map of Addenbrooke’s site.
bought Haverhill based Burtons from its founding
family. Today, it is an operating company within
Tellings Golden Miller Group plc and has over 100
vehicles in the fleet. Managing Director Paul
Cooper is clearly delighted with how the firm has
grown.
Wyn Hughes is Associate Director (Private
Finance Initiative) at Addenbrooke’s Hospital,
Cambridge. He started work there in 2001, moving
across from Cambridgeshire County Council. He
has the challenging task of ensuring the Hospital’s
Travel Plan works. If it were to fail, this Foundation
NHS Trust’s 67-acre site would seize up.
Both Paul and Wyn have a similar ‘can do’
approach, so it is not surprising they work well
together. They met me in Addenbrooke’s Hospital
canteen to talk about the Shuttle, a key
component of the Hospital’s Travel Plan.
But first, I had to get there. From the railway
station, it was just a short hop by bus to the city
centre. In Emmanuel Street I boarded a liveried
Stagecoach double decker to Trumpington Park
and Ride which lies on the southern edge of the
city. There I picked up the H1 Addenbrooke’s
Shuttle, which dropped me outside the Hospital’s
main entrance 11 minutes later, for the princely
sum of 90 pence. The fare drops to 60 pence if
you buy a carnet of 10 rides.
At Trumpington, as I walked towards the
Shuttle, a woman in a wheelchair was just being
pushed on board. She travelled seated in her
wheelchair, with her back to the ‘ironing board’ in
the wheelchair space. She and her companion
were very happy customers, telling me how, after
a tip-off from a friend, they had first tried out the
Shuttle a few months’ earlier. They have not taken
their car to Addenbrooke’s since. “Who in their
right mind would try to hunt for a parking space at
Addenbrooke’s, when they can travel like this
without the hassle?” This happened to be the first
time the woman had ridden on the bus in her
wheelchair. “The driver is wonderful and so
the Hospital, the driver stopped outside the
department, leapt out of his seat to lift the manual
ramp on to the pavement, and the patient and her
companion exited smoothly and cheerfully. By
now, I was beginning to wonder if Wyn and Paul
had arranged for all this to happen...
The Burtons driver turned out to be from
Estonia. In a previous life, he had plied the Baltic
on a 1,500 passenger ferry. He told me this was
where he had learnt about customer service. As
far as he was concerned, the switch to bus driving
in England was a big step up: regular hours, no
night-time working, better pay, with access to staff
internet and leisure facilities at Addenbrooke’s
thrown in.
When Wyn Hughes arrived at Addenbrooke’s,
Stagecoach was running a half-hourly extension
from Trumpington to the Hospital. In 2001
Stagecoach reviewed its entire network. The Trust
assisted by providing the company with the home
post codes of all of its staff. After the review, the
number of buses serving the Hospital leapt from
20 to 55 per hour.
Converting a car park area into a bus station at the hospital entrance reduce congestion and helped
Cambridgeshire County Council meet its public service agreement target on increasing bus use.
courteous,” she said, adding: “He drops me right
outside Oncology.” Sure enough, when we got to
Reproduced from Bus & Coach Buyer Issue 855
The Trust needed a better connection to
Trumpington and decided to tender for the link. It
i n t e g r a t i o n
Two satisfied customers: a patient and her companion arrive at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.
handled the tender process on its own, borrowing
from the paperwork used by various local
councils. There were five bidders, and Burtons
won. The
Addenbrooke’s
Shuttle commenced
service on 26 July
2004.
The Trust decided
to purchase two
new Optare Solos.
These are leased
from Automotive
Leasing, which
works with many
NHS Trusts
supplying them with
about 2,500
vehicles every year,
including cars, light
and heavy
Shuttle passengers alighting.
commercials, and
specialist ambulances. Wyn was personally
involved in the vehicles’ specification, and visited
Optare in Leeds. The two 9.2 metre Solos, which
seat up to 33 passengers and can carry up to 21
standing, have a four-camera CCTV system for
added security. The buses are also fitted with
transponders to lower entrance bollards in a key
bus-only lane alongside the main road into the
city. They have air suspension with kneeling facility,
all round disc brakes, an electric retarder, and are
Best Impressions. The result is a red and yellow
no subsidised food, and so on. Wyn is pondering
bus livery, both distinctive and modern. This is
whether to include driver training in the tender
carried through into an excellently designed and
specification, next time around.
very handy
Now, there are three permanent drivers who
credit card
have adopted the ethos of the service, and the
sized 12-panel
results speak for themselves. In one shift, it is
leaflet, which
possible for
manages to
the driver to
cram in the
travel up
Hospital
and down
information
the route 24
line, the
times, so
timetable, the
Paul is
time it takes to
acutely
get to the
aware he
Hospital, a
needs
map of the
special
Hospital site
people that
showing the
do not let
main
the tedium
locations, the
get to them.
route from
The
Trumpington Park and Ride site to the Hospital,
service
and the fares. Finally, the livery has been incorpocould not
Real time information on bus stop
rated into brand new bus stop flags, which had
be simpler. flag (being introduced this year).
just been erected the week of my visit.
It runs every
The Trust’s commitment to this service is
15 minutes, 0645 - 1945, Monday to Friday. Paul
£200,000 per year including the vehicle leases.
says it is currently on the limit of what can be
Patronage is now up to 2,200 single passenger
done with three shifts. If it was extended, for
journeys per week and it continues to rise. Fare
instance in the evening to assist visitors, it would
income is growing, so the hole in the Trust budget
be a very costly exercise.
is already being reduced.
From an operator’s point of view, Paul felt the
Paul and Wyn are quite
contract was unusual in several ways. There was a
candid
about the
teething
problems
they experienced
at the
start.
Initially,
Burtons
used
agency
drivers,
but the
service
quality
suffered.
In the
Cambridge
area, there
Shuttle buses use the city’s bus lanes and have transponders to
is
The Park and Ride sites are well specified with information boards.
effectively activate the entrance bollards to bus only roadways.
equipped with a heavy-duty Mercedes-Benz 900
no unemployment, and Stansted is
series engine driving through an Allison fully
busy hoovering up anyone with a PCV. But Paul
low cost of entry, because the vehicles are owned
automatic gearbox.
found his existing drivers simply do not feel the H1
by the Trust. It was also an unconventional source
For branding, the Trust turned to Ray Stenning’s
is a ‘proper’ bus service: there is no mess room,
of growth. But, perhaps more significantly, it was
Reproduced from Bus & Coach Buyer Issue 855
i n t e g r a t i o n
Above: In December 2005, an initiative using
what some have nicknamed “bus buddies” was
introduced on the Park and Ride buses. Called
Shop and Ride, it consists of branded wheeled
shopping trolleys, which can fit into the luggage
section of the buses. Passengers can use them
free of charge to help them carry their shopping
around town.
Each Park and Ride site has been issued with
ten trolleys, which customers can book out on a
first-come, first-served basis from the site coordinators. There is a £5 deposit, which is
refunded as soon as the trolley is returned.
refreshing that the client knew what they wanted.
1993, about 250 staff came to work by bus on a
Since the service commenced, there has been no
weekday; by 2002 this had risen to 750 staff; in
registration variation.
2004, this figure had nearly doubled, to 1,400
Today the H1 provides four out
of more than 60 buses serving
Addenbrooke’s every hour. When
Wyn arrived at the Hospital, there
were terrible queues in the
morning peak to get on site, with
the buses dropping passengers off
in a layby off the main roundabout
at the site entrance. So, a staff car
park was converted by
Cambridgeshire County Council
into a new bus station, using Local
Transport Plan funding. Not only
did this sort out the traffic
congestion, but it helped the
Council to meet its Public Service
Agreement target on increasing
bus use.
The Trust subsidises staff travel
on buses, in a partnership deal
with Stagecoach. As at other sites
elsewhere in the country,
Stagecoach matches the Trust’s
contribution of £1.50 per week, so
a Trust staff member gets £3 off a
Megarider weekly ticket. The Trust New bus stop flags carrying the shuttle branding have recently
is currently issuing vouchers at the been erected.
rate of 46,000 per year.
staff per weekday.
The result of all of this effort is significant. The
The Trust does a snapshot travel habits survey
proportion of staff travelling to work by bus has
of staff, patients and visitors every year. 2004 was
risen from 4% in 1993 to 23% in October 2003. In
Reproduced from Bus & Coach Buyer Issue 855
i n t e g r a t i o n
a significant milestone in the Travel Plan. For the
first time, staff who travel to work alone by car
were in a minority (about four in ten).
Wyn has caught the bug himself. For just £14
per week, he comes in from St Neots every day, in
45 minutes on a good day. The price would be
much higher without the Trust’s voucher, as the St
Neots end of the journey is technically in the
Bedford area as far as Stagecoach is concerned.
Wyn is quite clear that it is now simply not worth
driving to the site. From April 2006, there will be
another stick in place: parking for staff is rising
from £1 to £1.40 per day. Wyn is confident this
measure will make the bus voucher carrot all the
more tempting.
The costs of the Travel Plan are being funded
out of the net proceeds from parking income.
Staff can also get a 10% discount on train season
tickets that last three months or longer. Many take
out interest-free loans to purchase cycles and
motorcycles, with the Trust having an outstanding
loan book of £100,000 at any one time.
Carsharers can park in designated, reserved areas,
and use their staff ID smartcard to gain entry to
them. The smartcard also gives them the choice of
either pre-payment for parking or payroll
deduction from salary.
For now, Wyn Hughes and his colleagues have
much to be proud of. For the future, he is the first
to admit there is plenty more to do. Next stop, the
Cambridge Guided Busway.
By Richard Armitage
The Cambridge bus renaissance
Left: Stagecoach views Cambridge as one of its
major success stories. Passenger growth on its
Cambridge services between 2001 and 2004
was 45%. In the 12 months to November 2004,
the company’s fleet of 52 buses carried 5.5
million passengers (up from 3.8 million in
2001).
Part of the success is down to Cambridge
Park and Ride, a joint venture between the
County Council, the City Council and
Stagecoach. Besides Trumpington, there are
sites at Newmarket Road, Madingley Road,
Cowley Road, and Babraham Road. Between
them, they provide 4,803 parking spaces. In
2004, over 1.5 million fare paying passengers
used the service. The 2005 Christmas peak saw
the weekly average rise to over 45,000
passengers. Each Park and Ride has high quality
covered waiting facilities, toilets, and travel
information.
Reproduced from Bus & Coach Buyer Issue 855