• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

Can we have a look at the methodology?

• Question by: Valerie Shawcross
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

Thank you very much, Mayor. That is very helpful. I am sure we can now work to prompt Southwark to submit for Borough Spending Plan support. Can I just call into question, perhaps, the general methodology that is used by councils, and to some extent TfL, about assessing where resources should be applied for accidents? There does seem to be this methodology which looks at accidents after they have happened, and yet the Health and Safety Executive's whole modern approach is about pre-emptive risk assessments, looking for the features and the characteristics of a place where an accident may happen...

• Question by: Lynne Featherstone
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

Returning to quality and service and bus driver behaviour, that is the single biggest issue that comes in my post box in terms of buses. The Liberal Democrats did a survey across London, presented to Peter Hendy (Managing Director of Surface Transport, TfL); 86% of people responded with severe problems experienced in terms of poor driver behaviour. Full marks to Metroline and Arriva for the work they are doing on training and for the BTEC, but I want to know how quickly that will be expanded to existing drivers. What can you do on discipline, because after the training if...

• Question by: Roger Evans
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

Can the Commissioner give us an update, please, on the availability of Pay Before You Board machines in the central zone? When these were first introduced, a lot of them were going out of action due to tampering. What have you done to solve that, and what is the failure rate now?

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

Within the contracts that you are renegotiating as they come up you presumably are putting in things for the drivers? You are presumably watching this and encouraging companies to have good practice towards their employees?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

We totally agree with the Mayor that the expansion of the bus service has been one of the achievements of the GLA, but can he just say something briefly about his response to the "Transport in Outer London" scrutiny, which Meg Hillier carried out, which pointed out the need for better quality bus services in outer London. What can Londoners in outer London expect from you medium to long-term about improvements in their bus services?

• Question by: Jennette Arnold OBE
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

The other area that I want to explore with you both is: we received notice of the Peckham bus garage collecting a top industry prize and it is my understanding that there was a TfL award to the Peckham garage for top prize for its service. So we have here an example of excellent service. What I would like to say is can you give us an understanding of how they are learning all the excellent practice from this garage? How is that going to be spread across London, particularly to outer London? The second part of that is we...

• Question by: Jenny Jones
• Meeting date: 14 January 2004

Clearly, being a bus driver is a tough job and we still have a shortage, I gather, of bus drivers. There is still a shortage of people who are prepared to do that job.