This has been another year of reward and recognition for Metro.
Once again we were ranked as one of the UK’s best companies to work for in Guardian’s Britain's Top Employers 2007. A 15th-place rating made Metro the highest placed public sector organisation on the list.
In May the My bus team won the ‘Working Together’ award at this year’s national ‘Public Servants of the Year Awards and subsequently received a letter of congratulations from the Prime Minister which said that the My bus project had ‘revolutionised’ school transport in West Yorkshire.
All of Metro’s work is customer focused and this was recognised in the form of two awards in 2006. In July our work to speed up the production of updated information for West Yorkshire’s 5,000 bus stops and shelters won the technology category of the National Transport Awards and in November we scooped the Customer Service Team of the Year Award at the National Bus Industry Awards in London.
And in February 2007, we achieved Approved Centre Status with the Institute of Customer Service (ICS) for our commitment to delivering first class customer service at all levels.We have also qualified as an ‘Age Positive Employer Champion’ for our commitment to tackling age discrimination and promoting age diversity in the workplace.
Another success for Metro this year was our role in drawing up a 25-Year Transport Vision for the Leeds City Region Development Plan, which was unveiled in November. The Vision is a £4.5bn package of congestion-fighting measures which includes plans for tram trains, further electrification of local rail routes, new and upgraded road links, rapid bus transit incorporating the latest technology, bus and rail-based park and ride, new transport interchanges and an extension of the money-saving MetroCard.
Our work for the future is to work with our partners, the City Region’s 11 councils, ministers and civil servants at the Department for Transport and transport operators to make the Vision a reality.
Kieran Preston
Director General
