(a)

Plymouth currently had the following Park and Ride services; PR1for Milehouse and the George Interchange, PR2 for Coypool and PR3 from the George to Derriford Hospital and the University of St Mark and St John;

(b)

the strategic purpose of the Park and Ride is to help with traffic congestion into the city;

(c)

the Park and Rides run up to every 10 minutes;

(d)

the total costs for all sites in 2012/13, including maintenance and National Non-Domestic Rates (NNDR) was £178,447; this was partially offset by income for the Motorcycle Training School at Coypool, a departure charge paid by the bus operator and the NHS Trust contributions for the George Junction Park and Ride;

(e)

passengers currently paid on the bus; car parking was free;

(f)

First Devon and Cornwall staff the George and Coypool sites;

(g)

the decline in patronage of the PR1 service was not as significant as expected; patronage for the PR2 had slightly increased;

(h)

although the PR3 had grown in patronage, following the end of section 106 funding was likely to reduce to a 20  minute service;

(i)

officers had undertaken a summary of 26 other local authorities that run a Park and Ride service; this was contained at appendix a of the report;

(j)

the Park and Ride accepted concessionary passes; members were advised that in 2009 an amendment was introduced to The Travel Concessions (Eligible Services) (Amendment 2009) in which local authorities could consider if specific could be excluded from the concessionary travel scheme where an amenity element within the fare could be demonstrated;

(k)

the park and ride sites were also used for car-boot sales and charity events

(l)

car-pooling was encouraged at other Park and Ride sites across the country;

(m)

initially the Park and Ride service was subsidised by the Council however since the service went commercial in 2010, the Council was not involved in the setting of prices;

(n)

customers were encouraged to use Park and Ride buses at the Park and Ride sites however this was not enforced; it was understood that some people were parking at Milehouse Park and Ride and were using other bus services nearby;

(o)

several services had been withdrawn from the George Interchange since it was built;

(p)

it was not considered that revenue generating services such as car washing services would be viable at the Park and Ride sites as especially on weekdays there was not a lot of churn of users;

(q)

there was a proposal that cycle hire may be available at Coypool Park and Ride in the future;

(r)

wi-fi facilities were not available on Park and Ride buses; so far in Plymouth this had only been introduced on services that had longer journey times;

(s)

the capacity for the Park and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29.

(a)

the draft questionnaire was good however needed amending slightly;

(b)

there should be a question on the survey asking if passengers would still use the Park and Ride service if the concessionary entitlement was removed;

(c)

it was considered that the best time to undertake this survey would be for a three hour slot between 7.30am and 10.30am;

(d)

there were suggestions that, in order to make best use of the survey and save time, the survey could be left with passengers on the bus and collected by a Council Officer on departure; this was not considered feasible due to the amount of different stops on the journey back into the city centre;

(e)

the survey should ask where the passenger has come from; postcode to be included;

(f)

it was considered best use of time for members to undertake the survey on the same day at the three separate sites; officers would also be in attendance to help;

(g)

a question should be asked regarding the number of people car sharing at Park and Ride sites;

(h)

the survey would be better if it just covered two sides of A4; this would allow surveys to be completed quicker;

(i)

if the passenger was not a concessionary user then they didn’t need to answer question 10;

(j)

passengers should be asked why they liked the service and what they thought could be improved;

(k)

the Park and Ride sites were left open in the evenings; there were only height restrictions on the entrance and exits to the Coypool site;

(l)

the Council did not charge for parking at football matches at Milehouse or Speedway events at Coypool;

(m)

displacement used to happen more at Coypool into the B & Q car park;

(n)

at Coypool cars were now parking on the public highway outside of B & Q right up to the bend near the speedway; it was considered that a double yellow line near the bridge would alleviate this problem;

(o)

Councillors Murphy, Mrs Aspinall and Wheeler were able to do the survey on Tuesday 8 October 2013; further information would be emailed to them.