By: Director of Kent Highway Services
To: Maidstone Joint Transportation Board
Subject: Results from the Highway Tracker Survey 2010
Classification: Unrestricted
Summary: Inform Joint Transportation Boards of the key results of the 2010 Resident, County Member, District Member and Parish/Town Council Highway Tracker Survey. The full survey report is over 100 pages long and available on the KCC website
Introduction
- Satisfaction surveys, to gauge perception of the highway service have been carried out since 1987. The 2010 survey was carried out between November 2010 and January 2011 (fieldwork was affected by the severe winter weather) and sought views from residents, County Members, Parish/Town Councils and District Members.
- The survey is conducted by an independent market research company called BMG and a summary of the results are presented in this report. This information will be used by the Director and Senior Management team to identify actions to help improve service delivery.
3. A total of 1,207 face to face interviews were carried out on a representative sample of Kent residents with approximately 100 interviews in each of the twelve Districts, reflecting the age, gender and economic status. This sample size gives a +/- 2.8% accuracy for results at a County level and +/- 10% accuracy at a District level.
4. In addition to residents views the same survey questions were asked of all County and District Members and Parish/Town Councils. A total of 41 County Members responded (a response rate of 49%), 190 District Members replied (a response rate of 33%) whilst for Parish/Town Councils a total of 134 completed the survey (a response rate of 44%)
5. The questionnaire comprised around 25 questions, ranging from satisfaction with the condition of roads, pavements, streetlights and local bus and train service through to views on congestion and safety cameras.
6. Results are reported by 'Net-Satisfaction'. This is a figure calculated by subtracting the % of people who are dis-satisfied with the service from the % who are satisfied. This gives a truer picture of the service and a balance between those happy, those un-happy and those who are not sure.
The 2010 survey results
7. The independent market research company BMG identified three key findings;
a) Residents are less satisfied with the condition of roads than last year (Figure 1), particularly country lanes (Figure 2). The accumulative effects of successive poor winters have hit road perceptions but this is the same across the national arena. Satisfaction with streetlighting has improved and pavements show a slight drop but the clear priority for residents is road maintenance. Views of County Members and Parish/Town Councils are generally continuing to improve, and this is now matched with improvement amongst District Members.
b) There is a need to engage, inform and liaise with the community more. For example the work of the Customer Liaison Teams over the last two years as the contact point for County Members and Parishes has helped increase year on year satisfaction with the highway service. Although there is still much to be done, better information, easier reporting of faults and delivering services when promised is the key to improve satisfaction.
c) Public transport (mainly serving unprofitable rural routes, the punctuality of service, and the cost) is an increasing concern, and negatively impacts on any attempts to address congestion. The recent rerouting of some train services in the past 12 months has detrimentally affected journey times to London from certain parts of the county. Whilst public transport is in the hands of the private sector, KCC does have a planning role, and the provision of more extensive, integrated, public transport services (including park & ride) does seem necessary.
8. Some examples of the results included in the full report are set out in Appendix 1. Figures 1 to 4 set out resident satisfaction results with roads, pavements and streetlights. Figures 5 -7 show the results from District Members.
Further Information
9. The tracker survey report is very large and contains much more detailed information along with an executive summary of the issues identified from the results by BMG. A full copy of the report will be available on the KCC website.
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Background Documents: None |
Other Useful Information: None.
Author Contact Details
David Thomas, Business Performance Manager, Kent Highway Services
* david.thomas@kent.gov.uk (
01622 696863
Appendix 1
Results from the Highway Tracker Survey 2009
Figure 1 -Residents - Satisfaction with the condition of roads in the local area – year-on-year comparison
Figure 2 –Residents - Satisfaction with specific types of road in the local area, year-on-year comparison (showing biggest fall in Country lanes)
Figure 3 - Residents - Satisfaction with the condition of pavements in the local area – year-on-year comparison
Figure 4 - Residents - overall satisfaction with the condition of street lighting in the local area – year-on-year comparison
Figure 5 – District Members - overall satisfaction with the condition of roads in the local area – year-on-year comparison
Figure 6 – District Members - overall satisfaction with the condition of pavements in the local area – year-on-year comparison
Figure 7 – District Members - overall satisfaction with the condition of streetlights in the local area – year-on-year comparison
