Member of the Welsh Parliament highlights concerns over the performance of Transport for Wales

Sam Rowlands, Member of the Welsh Parliament for North Wales, wants to see more accountability from Transport for Wales.

Mr Rowlands, Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Transport was commenting during a debate on the Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure Committee Report, 'Report on Transport for Wales’ performance 2024-25'.

He said:

“As we know, public transport in Wales must work for the people of Wales. It must be reliable, accountable and transparent, but, as the committee's report highlighted, too often some of these areas can be missed, and I will focus my remarks on just two key areas that I believe the committee report brings to light.

“The first is around financial transparency and the second area is around service reliability. For me, these are two issues at the very heart of confidence, both in our public bodies, in terms of financial transparency, and confidence in our transport system from a reliability perspective.

“On the financial transparency, the committee has repeatedly called for Transport for Wales to publish its full budget alongside the Welsh Government's own draft budget. This is not a radical ask, it's basic public accountability, especially when we're talking about budgets of hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money.

“We heard from the chief executive of Transport for Wales, who admitted in his response to the committee that TfW still doesn't operate with a single consolidated budget. So, how can the public or this Senedd, as elected Members, properly scrutinise those spending decisions when there doesn't appear to be a clear, unified picture of how hundreds of millions of pounds of public funds are being used?

“The second point, the issue that affects passengers most directly—service reliability. The committee's report rightly points out that performance levels are still far below public expectations. We've all heard the complaints, and some of us may have had to experience these directly ourselves: delayed trains, overcrowding, cancelled services and a lack of consistent communication.

“This isn't just a nuisance for a few Senedd Members from time to time, but, for many people, it's the difference between them getting to work on time or not getting to work at all, impacting their livelihoods.

“The committee recommended that TfW implement better systems for monitoring and reporting on service delivery, and I strongly support that. We need to see clear targets, monthly performance dashboards and public reporting that actually means something to passengers. I would add that we also need to see real accountability when those services fall short. It shouldn't take media coverage or pressure from elected officials to get answers when things go wrong.”

Pictured - Sam Rowlands, Member of the Welsh Parliament for North Wales.