What residents tell us
As well as using research and data, we talk regularly to customers, staff and other partners to make sure that we understand local needs and priorities.
Because we have a big role in delivering transport, we collect lots of information on what people think about this subject.
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Transport Focus does surveys on buses, trams and trains to see how happy passengers are with transport services. Since the pandemic, Transport Focus has done this more regularly. They record the gender, age and any disabilities of people answering the surveys. This helps us to see if there are specific problems for people with these protected characteristics.
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TfWM does an annual survey with Ring and Ride members, Metro/tram users and Swift ticketing customers. It has a ‘mystery shopper’ programme, where customers secretly review the service. ‘Bus Passenger Champions’ go out on the transport network to ask people’s views too. These all help us to measure how good the service is.
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We do ‘before and after’ surveys for all major new developments and projects. We also do product-testing with customers to make sure new products and services meet their needs.
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Our ‘Keep WM Moving!’ online community platform lets people talk to us and work with us on projects that they’re interested in. This helps us to understand how we can improve West Midlands transport and communicate better about it.
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We have started a telephone-based study to look at how satisfied users are with all types of transport. It will also get the views of people who don’t use public transport. By December 2020 we had done 2,000 surveys, and we plan to do many more.
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TfWM has done six public engagement surveys in the last year. We promoted an online survey on WMCA’s social media channels and email and got more than 14,000 responses. This is a huge help in telling us what people think about travel and transport in the West Midlands.
We talk to many people on other subjects too. The WMCA has a database of regional and local community and equality groups. We use this to consult as widely as possible, and to engage regularly with different groups on the things that matter most to them.
Our Young Combined Authority (YCA) is a broad group of young people aged 16 to 25, from across the West Midlands. It helps to guide the WMCA’s decisions, and to challenge them. A new ‘YCA Community’ helps us to have conversations with an even wider group of young people.
In summer 2020, the West Midlands Recovery Coordination Group set up a Citizens Panel of residents from across the region. This helped the Group to understand communities’ experiences during and after the pandemic, and their hopes and fears for the future. This led to the Community Recovery Roadmap mentioned earlier.
The WMCA’s Annual Workforce (Employment and Recruitment) Report contains data on the diversity of our staff. We also talk informally with our employees regularly, and more formally through surveys and feedback sessions, to find out how well we’re doing on equality and diversity.