Young NCB Member Heather reports on Young people and bus travel workshop

On the 27th of July I attended a bus travel work shop in London, with other young people and professionals within the travel industry, to represent the YNCB.

There were four main aims for the day improving young peoples: engagement in transport decision making, bus service availability, bus costs and safety and attitudes to public transport.

We firstly had a breifing from young people (UKYP) on the research they had carried out to come to find the areas they wanted to tackle. We then split into four mixed groups to tackle each area seperately to attempt to come up with solutions to each of the problems.

After about an hour we came back together to discuss the solutions and after lunch split off into the different groups of people (Young people, transport operators, central Government & local transport authorities). Within those groups we had to decide how we could plausably move forward with the solutions.

I feel many things came from this and everyone came up with good ideas, Including: Transport operators saying they will work with young people to get their input and train their drivers to be more friendly. The young poeple had the idea of putting together an online info site on how to contact people to get help on anything to do with the bus services; from how to complain to finding out the bus time tables. We felt this would make it more accessible for young people and UKYP have said they will advertise it in the media.

There were many other solutions that came up. Overall, I think it was really productive day & feel that things have and will be moving forward.