Data / FOI When will Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) publish Bus Safety Performance Data? An Open Letter to Mayor Andy Burnham from Lee Odams, RMT Vice

Document date

26-10-2023

By email and blogpost

Mr. Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester Combined Authority
Tootal Buildings
56 Oxford Street
Manchester M1 6EU
E: [email protected]

cc: Stephen Rhodes, Director of Bus, [email protected]; Martin Shier, Bus Network Performance Manager, [email protected]; Tom Kearney #LondonBusWatch, [email protected]

26 October 2023 ​

Dear Mayor Burnham,

RE: When will Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) publish Bus Safety Performance Data? ​

As a veteran Bus Driver and Vice Secretary of RMT’s Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Branch, I applaud your success in making Greater Manchester the first public bus operation to be brought under local council control using its powers granted under by the Bus Services Act 2017. As someone who has long campaigned on for improving Working Conditions for Bus Drivers and Bus Safety, I am encouraged by the ‘world class safety standards’ that TfGM's Bee Network promises ‘will be delivered across bus’ under your leadership.

Your historic achievement is obviously being closely watched (and applauded) by the UK Labour Party whose Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh recently told the Guardian: “Labour would offer all local areas the chance to franchise bus services, in a similar way to Transport for London, which would give them the power to set routes and fares and remove poor providers.”

However, imagine my surprise to read a recent Manchester Evening News headline “Shock after week of carnage on the buses as bosses share concern over 'unusually high number' of crashes” which described how two pedestrians had been killed in one week by Public Buses in Greater Manchester. In that same article, a quote from TfGM’s Director of Bus Stephen Rhodes (copied) caught my eye—

"We are concerned by the unusually high number of incidents involving buses over recent days, which is far above what we might normally see on any given week". ​

Your successful acquisition of “Transport for London” powers and the substance of Mr. Rhodes’s public statement have inspired me to post this Open Letter today.

Inspired by London Businessman and Bus Crash Survivor Tom Kearney’s keynote address to the 76th Annual RMT Union National Busworkers Conference (“Transparency, Accountability and Leadership can fix the UK’s Poor Bus Safety Culture”), on 3 May 2019 I sent this Freedom of Information Request to Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM):

"Since 2014, Transport for London (TfL) has published Bus Safety Incident Data on its website every quarter (https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and- reports/bus-safety-data). The data publishes shows injuries by Bus Route, Operator and Borough supported by a dataset containing all this information made available for public scrutiny.
Accordingly, I would like to make a Freedom of Information Request for Transport for Greater Manchester to provide me with a spreadsheet displaying the Bus Safety Incident Data for the period 1 January -30 March 2019 showing: ​

​

1. Date of Incident
2. Bus Route
3. Local Name of Operator

4. Operator Group Name (if applicable)

5. Bus Garage/Depot

6. Injury Description (Fatality, Serious/Minor Injury – Taken to Hospital, Minor, Treated at Scene)
7. Victim’s Sex

8. Victim’s Age

9. Incident Event Type (Collision, Fall, Assault, other)

10. Victim Category (Passenger, Pedestrian, Cyclists, 3rd Party Vehicle, Bus Driver, other)" ​

The disappointing response I received five days later from TfGM stated:

"We do not hold any recorded information in relation to your request.

Since bus deregulation in 1986, bus services in Greater Manchester are run by commercial services and they do not share this information with TfGM.

Bus services in London were never affected by deregulation. TfL runs a franchising system which allows them to collate and publish this data."
​

Since you now have the “TfL” powers and—at least as far as Greater Manchester's Bus Safety Performance is concerned—Mr. Rhodes obviously knows what a “normal” week looks like, when can the public expect to see the information I requested in May 2019 published at least every quarter on TfGM's Website?

I look forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely,


Lee Odams
Vice secretary Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Bus Branch and Secretary of RMT National Industrial Organising Conference of Busworkers

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Source: https://saferoxfordstreet.blogspot.com/2023/10/when-will-transport-for-greater.html
Auto-imported from Tom Kearney’s blog.