SATA
Scottish Accessible Transport Alliance
_______________________________
Charity No SC027600

Full Meeting of Members 
November 7th 2013
Camelon Sensory Impairment Centre

1.	Chairman's welcome 

Present:  Douglas Gilroy, John Ballantine, Terry Barlow, Gill Bedwell, Amanda Burt, Ian Cuthbertson, John Finlay, Mike Harrison, John McDonald, Pat McGuigan, Jim McKay, John Moore, Rod Murchison, Alan Rees, Jim Ritchie, Terry Robinson.

Emma Taylor, Glasgow 2014 (Speaker) and Frances Simpson (Note Taker). 

2.	Apologies for absence:

Fiona Anderson, Chris Clarke, Paul Cross, Kate Cross, Derek Dewar, Brian Masson, Stan Flett, Jan Goodall, Karl Vanters, John MacDonald, Jim Mackay, Pauline Nolan, Patrick Nyamurundira, Margaret Gilroy, Arthur Cowie, Lilian Lawson, Ann Young, Muriel Williams.

3.	 Minutes of the previous meeting

Approved: Alan Rees
Seconded: Pat McGuigan

4.	 Matters Arising

None.

5.	Speaker Emma Taylor, Glasgow 2014

Emma is responsible for accessible transport for the event and started in August. Emma gave an overview of where we are and where we are going next.  She has a bus background and worked with the transport services during the Olympics. Very committed to customer service.

Emma is in the process of getting ticketing information and so she now knows who is coming and where from and where they are going.  She can contact people directly and ask them what she can do for them and plan properly for the movement of people to events and around the city.  

She expects most spectators to arrive by public transport. There will be some blue badge provision for people who drive and this will be as close as possible to the pedestrian area but security and safety may mean that in some cases there may be a need to shuttle people from parking to the venue.  Not a one size fits all strategy.  

There will be shuttle services from nearest stations – Damarnock and Partick mainly and they will promote 2 core stations from where they will run on demand rather than timetabled services. 

There will be a dedicated help point at each of these stations and Scotrail will provide additional staff and there will be more trains, more staff and more ramps. Trying to think about end to end journeys for people to make sure they have as smooth a journey as possible.

An Accessible Transport Strategy has been put together and will be published Mid-November. It is a high level strategy and does not touch on the detail of what will happen at each venue.  That level of detail will be produced by the end of this year at least for some of the venues.

Current Activity

There is a lot of activity on new bespoke services as well as thinking about the infrastructure to support the additional journeys being made.  This means working with current operators as the aim is to have people travelling together and having as smooth a journey from end to end as possible.  In some cases, this may mean redesigning some of the venues.

For unticketed venues, the company does not have responsibility for providing transport (e.g. Strathclyde Country Park).  This means the company are working with Scotrail and SPT to get services running earlier or later – and we need to think about the workforce that has to be moved around too. There may have to be alterations.

Promoting existing accessible transport for people to use is part of the strategy but one area of weakness is the subway and she is trying to address this.  As a minimum she aims to make sure that people know the facts and she will be promoting accessible rail services, low floor buses, and taxis. The company will also make use of accessible taxis as a critical part of the plan for some events.

There is a plan for a contact centre for accessible transport arrangements for people to ring in with queries and also to book in advance blue badge and shuttle services.  

A specific legacy for the company is to produce an accessible transport map for Glasgow.  This will cover the area out to the furthest venues but will not cover the whole of the greater Glasgow area.  Rail will be easier to capture than bus accessibility and so she is suggesting putting in bus corridors rather than bus routes. 

Questions and comments

Pat McGuigan mentioned the poor services at the moment in Glasgow and this sparked a discussion about SPT responsibilities.  He was also concerned that some of the initial proposals re improving infrastructure had since been dropped, although Emma disagreed with Pat’s understanding of the situation in some areas.

Douglas Gilroy agreed that considering a bus corridor with connecting points would be a sensible approach as this was an approach adopted in the Highlands in the past. Emma agreed that this would allow them to produce something that was more easily updated and not subject to lots of small changes to bus routes.

Hussein Patwa asked how the information about accessible transport was going to be communicated, and not just to those who have tickets.  In London the info strapline was ‘get ahead of the games’ – a full communications plan to let people know what was happening so that they could continue to get around the city on ordinary everyday business.  There will be a similar approach in Glasgow.  Emma will send out the messages on Glasgow 2014 web pages and also will send out accessible transport options to people with tickets.  There will be the phone line in the contact centre. Emma is expecting this to be tied up by February to allow people to book transport in advance.

Emma is working with Traveline on how to tailor the information people get depending on their needs: ie. Games people, people going to work, and people just travelling through.  It will be electronic information mainly.  There is a real challenge on the roads particularly as the road network is so congested in Glasgow. 

We had a discussion about how far demand will outstrip supply.  Emma knows who is coming and where they are going and so this should help that and Glasgow City Council will put their accessible fleet at their disposal. There may also be provisions to change arrangements temporarily if needed.   

Alan Rees asked about Park and Ride and Emma confirmed there will be having park and ride with low floor buses but there is still detail to work out. It will be strategic on the outskirts of Glasgow to catch people before they get to the city centre.

Hussein Patwa asked how people would interface with services once they have been delivered to the venue and these details are still being worked but the aim is that someone will take people on every leg of the journey. For those venues outside of Glasgow the same principles will apply but the company will work with local providers in each area to make appropriate plans.

Final information about arrangements will be available in January. As most info is going to be electronic Emma will check what has happened re site accessibility and give us information about this.  

Many thanks to Emma for her very interesting presentation.

6.	 Mgt Committee Report

Mike gave a report.  

•	The committee looked at the finances and can report that we are healthy financially.
•	We also considered the sub groups and reviewed activity, membership and leadership.  Sub groups consider the issues arising around specific topics.  Air, Sea, Rail, Road, the Built Environment, Policy and Planning. We reappointed our convenors.  Douglas asked people to express an interest in the groups.
•	Meetings for next year:  12th February in Glasgow at SPT HQ with the topic of Glasgow My Bus; 14th May in Stirling at Dial a Journey with the topic SERCO Northlink.  Further meetings are the AGM on 17th September and the final meeting of the year on November 6th.  
•	Update on the Project. Brian is not present as he is presenting at a conference in Dumfries on our behalf.  This has now been working for 6 months and later the Executive will be looking in more detail at 6-monthly report.  We are beginning to see some strands and how we might take the project forward over the next 12 months.  We will need help from other SATA members.

7.	 Information Exchange

Pat – GCC closing the Dundas Street Taxi rank so there will only be one rank at the station.  Access Panel has put in their objection to this plan and it is open for consultation.  

John B – proposal to remove taxis from Waverley is still going on and is likely to be implemented June 2014.  Great deal of work being done to create new rank and install a passenger enquiry point at the station.  At the new Haymarket station there is no clear drop off point and this is being pursued.  

Terry Robinson – has been commissioned to write guides to Dalmarnock, and other stations including Haymarket.  

Mike Harrison – announced the launch of a video about the problems of getting about Edinburgh in a wheelchair, and this covered all sorts of issues including street furniture, and lack of dropped kerbs. 

Douglas – 3rd December is International Day of Disabled People and there is to be an event in house of Lords. The National Federation of the Blind produced a DVD– “How does a blind person cross the road?”

Alan Rees mentioned the guide on accessibility for Heriot Watt University some years ago titled 'Place to Place'.  It is on our web site but is in need of an update and so seeks comments from members on if we need to update and also to bring forward changes including change of web sites, addresses etc.   

8.	AOB

John Ballantine reminded people that DPTAC is about to advertise for new members and any information that John gets he will pass on to SATA.  Recruitment for MACS – 5 new people have been appointed including Hussein and Keith from SATA.  The people at the meeting gave very warm congratulations to Hussein.  Alan asked if the membership would be made public and Hussein is expecting there to be a press release but doesn’t know when this will be released.

Date of next meeting:  Wed 12th February in Glasgow, SPT, Consort House.  

Thanks to attendees.