This web site begins the process of community monitoring of public service delivery and public service failure in the transport sector of the North East of England. On the 28th and 29th June, 2001, a workshop was organised at the Riverside Centre, North Shields to discuss 'transport and social exclusion' at which community groups, transport operators, transport authorities and local decision makers were present. The purpose was to build a network of connections inside the North East which can better tackle transport and social exclusion issues not least because the expertise and experience of the community is present. A web site has been developed at Moor Park Community Centre which begins the process of placing the transport circumstances of low income communities on public record. On the 16th and 17th October, 2001 the Lemington Community Centre developed its own web site to directly monitor public transport provision within its area.

Transport difficulties and transport solutions in the North East: grass roots input

At the 28th/29th June Workshop on Transport and Social Exclusion, many community groups and public transport users talked to the transport difficulties experienced in the local environment. Solutions were also offered. These issues are identified here to begin the process of transparent user feedback to transport authorities.

• Designing transport to meet the needs of the disabled:The direction of escalators is changed regularly at the Green Market in Newcastle. This is done for maintenance reasons. However, no signing is available to indicate these directional changes and this presents problems for the visually impaired. The solution would be to sign the present direction.
• Profitability, poor public transport services and social participation: Residents from a number or north east communities identified problems posed by overlengthy routings, restricted timetables and unreliability of public transport services for social participation. Attention was drawn to the consequences of poor public transport provision for employment, for education, for life long learning and for the enjoyment of an adequate social life. Transport operators present at the meeting, Go Northeast, Arriva and Stagecoach, indicated that profitability considerations worked against the provision of a privatised 'public' transport service meeting the transport needs of many local communities for full social participation. Discussion focused on the prospects of developing forms of community transport and demand responsive public transport. Both the head of the Newcastle Passenger Transport Authority, Danny Marshall, and a North Tyneside Councillor with expertise in Transport issues, Muriel Green, identified community transport arrangements as a way forward. A representative of Age Concern drew attention to the possibility of using community taxis to provide alternatives to empty buses travelling on schedules which do not meet the needs of local communities.
• Community monitoring of the transport environment - the Newcastlehubs pilot:At the workshop Geoff Walker of the Newcastlehubs project http://www.newcastlehubs.com provided an outline of the way in which resources already available in the community in Newcastle could be harnessed to the community monitoring of transport. In September the Newcastlehubs project will monitor public transport provision in a district of Newcastle for two days : information technology will be used to record, archive and display the information in real time on the world wide web. The Newcastlehubs project has placed information technology in the hands of those who had historically low levels of literacy and numeracy and found that information technology can be effective in these circumstances in promoting communication.

Transport resources and advocacy in the North East

• North Tyneside Coalition of Disabled People web page
• North Tyneside Pensioners Association
• Toolkit: How to make a complaint about a public service

Community project funding in the North East

• North east regional office - community fund

This web site is an interim arrangement developed to facilitate grass roots involvement in the community monitoring of public transport services. It is facilitated by Margaret Grieco, Professor of Transport and Society, Napier University, Edinburgh.

Contact: Margaret Grieco,
Professor of Transport and Society,
Transport Research Institute, Napier University,
66 Spylaw Road, Edinburgh, EH10 5BR
e-mail at m.grieco@napier.ac.uk