2024-01-20 06:00:00
Jean-Michel Soors, it’s almost a year since you took up your duties as general administrator of the TEC. During this past year, what has been your priority?
I first focused on our core mission, which is to provide reliable service. This came to fruition through our business plan which will be released, with this leitmotif of putting the customer and employees at the heart of our concerns.
The second priority was to work on supporting major projects like the Liège tram which was in a very delicate situation but we got out of the impasse. Go take a walk in the center of Liège now, it has a completely different face. This project has kept me busy for a long time but it is crucial for the TEC and for Liège mobility.
The third priority was to outline the future of the company. The momentum was there because we were in the process of establishing a new public service contract which will link us to the Walloon Region. It was an opportunity to provide the guidelines, the guidelines for the next five years.
You have developed a five-point action strategy. Among these areas, there is the customer experience. what do you mean?
The customer experience is an essential factor for us, in terms of the modal shift we want. To put things in context, we are following the government’s “FAST” vision – for fluidity, accessibility, safety, health and modal transfer – adopted in 2017 and which aims to go from 4% modal share to 10% at the horizon 2030. To achieve this result, several elements are necessary.
You first need a network that has an attractive commercial speed. We then need to work on network accessibility. It’s all well and good to have buses that have commercial speeds almost competitive with cars, if we don’t have access to public transport, it’s useless. Finally, there is intermodality. It’s over thinking that there is only the bus, only the train, only the bike. Today, we must be able to combine the different modes and work to simplify and smooth the transition from one mode of transport to another.
But then, what is customer experience?
This is the experience that the customer will live throughout their journey and our goal is for this experience to be optimal so that the customer tries the experience, repeats it and, ultimately, he adopts public transport. If he adopts it, we win.
So it’s creating a relationship of trust with the passenger?
It’s creating it, yes, but a relationship of trust can be proven. Beautiful theories, beautiful speeches, we don’t need them. We need pragmatism. The customer experience is available before, during and following the trip.
First, there must be the means, therefore an efficient network, and there must also be information in real time, it is essential to be in the moment. We have screens that are being developed at stations, inside vehicles. We are also working a lot on fare simplification and ticketing. Taking public transportation should be easy. If it’s simple, the customer experience will be easier.
Then, when the customer chooses to leave their car to take the bus, when they are at the stop, the bus must pass. This is the basis. To have this reliability, you need two elements: buses and staff. For buses, let’s not lie, we suffered from the concept of “everything by car” and little investment. We started to invest more in 2017, we rejuvenated the fleet, we made our vehicles more reliable. During this legislature, nearly a billion euros was invested. The other component is the staff and their presence. It is the attractiveness of the company that will play a role and the retention of staff. Before, when you started in a company, you ended your career there. Today, a slightly upset worker who has no ties to the company leaves. We must therefore be able to retain staff.
And I want to say that in the presence of staff, citizens also have a role to play, on two levels. One: do we want the drivers to be there? Let’s stop attacking them. Two: Do you want staff? Come work at TEC. We are a business of citizens for the benefit of citizens.
“The transport sector as a whole is responsible for 20% of greenhouse gas emissions, but a bus emits on average 3 to 4 times less CO2 emissions per passenger than a private car.” ©Jacques Duchateau
When we are a public service, we know how essential our relationship with customers is. Do you understand then that passengers complain when there are delays, disruptions on the lines?
Of course I understand that, how you can curse when you’re a motorist in a traffic jam, when there’s snow and you’re not moving forward, when there’s an accident, when there’s a diversion. People need to realize that a public service does not have a magic wand. We are also, like motorists, subject to traffic problems. We don’t fly above accidents, above deviations.
On the other hand, we try not to be satisfied with it. We try to free ourselves from all exogenous phenomena in respecting schedules. By developing our own sites, this will allow us to have more regularity in schedules. We instill this in politicians, in municipalities, that the development of clean sites such as traffic lanes reserved for buses, that prioritization via traffic lights in favor of buses, will make it possible to reduce delays. Thanks to these systems, whether it is 8 a.m., 3 p.m. following school or 5 p.m. during the evening rush hour, we will have the same regularity. Many countries have already understood this. Just look at what is happening in Switzerland, Germany, France, we see clean bus sites everywhere and we see buses passing by cars stuck in traffic jams. A motorist who will see a bus pass next to him once, then a second, on the third, he will be on the bus.
Among the major challenges of the future, there are climate issues and questions linked to sustainable development. How does the TEC fit into this vision of sustainability?
We are no longer in a climate concern, we are in a climate emergency. The transport sector as a whole is responsible for 20% of greenhouse gas emissions, but a bus emits on average 3 to 4 times less CO2 emissions per passenger than a private car. When we see this, we directly understand the role of public transport in this climate transition.
In terms of the fleet, since 2017, we began to acquire hybrid vehicles, which allowed us to reduce our CO2 emissions. We have a 2030 objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55%. We have 730 hybrid buses, that’s more than a third of our fleet. Today, we are going a step further by moving towards electrification. The first buses have been ordered and will arrive in Liège at the end of 2024, for entry into service at the beginning of 2025.
In 2025, these electric buses will then arrive in Walloon Brabant then will follow Charleroi and all the other depots, gradually between 2026 and 2030. Why this progression? Because we have to think regarding all the logistics around electrification: where to recharge? How? For how long? There are questions to be asked, and colossal ones for buses. There are infrastructures to be planned, travel times which will have to be reviewed. There are operational constraints that will have to be implemented. This is why we are talking regarding a spread by 2030. By this time, we have the ambition to have 400 electric buses.
In recent months, the TEC has launched several major recruitment campaigns. Are you still looking for staff? In particular functions?
In 2023, there was a need for 650 employees, including almost 500 drivers and we managed to recruit 600. It’s a great achievement, it’s almost 30% more recruitment than in 2022. In 2024, that will increase since we will need 800 employees over the year, including a little more than 500 bus drivers.
In the classic professions for which we are constantly recruiting, there are so-called shortage professions such as bus drivers, technicians and IT-related professions, but the TEC is 120 different professions, which represents an enormous amount. of opportunities.
The big advantage that TEC offers is to give meaning to work. Do you have an environmental streak? We are an actor in the climate transition. A technical fiber? We are the largest heavy goods vehicle garage in Wallonia. A social fiber? We are a weaver of social ties. An economic fiber? We are a catalyst for the economy because public transport helps relieve congestion in cities, streamlines traffic and allows the economy to flourish.
Whatever your inclination, come and work at TEC, there is an answer, a real meaning, a real motivation. This is why most of our workers are involved, committed, and deeply motivated. Why might certain professions be in shortage? Because we suffer from attractiveness, because of the bad image that we project of the TEC.
In 2024, 500 additional bus drivers will be needed. © Jacques Duchateau
So, you would say it’s good to work at TEC?
But of course. By dint of bashing, by dint of repeating that we should not come to work at the TEC, we do not apply and we create a shortage. It doesn’t explain the entire shortage but it certainly contributes to it. When I applied to the TEC, those around me said, “Do you realize? The TEC is inaction, it is driven by unions…”. So the more people told me things like that, the more I wanted to go see for myself. And when we get there, we realize that the reality is different from the bashing we are witnessing. It’s super important to change the paradigm. We have invested staff, we give meaning to the work.
Does the TEC offer real prospects for advancement within society?
Yes and we are keen to work on well-being at work to successfully retain staff. This involves schedules, an efficient work tool and a positive work environment. Yes, there are career development opportunities. As soon as we offer a position, we first open it internally before making an external call. Each time we open it internally, if people have the capacity and desire, we prioritize them and we provide the necessary training to make it happen.
At the TEC, we are no longer “pro diplomas”. We have people who started as bus drivers and who are now reaching higher positions. We must encourage this because it helps retain staff in the company.
Since the end of 2023, an anti-attack campaign has been broadcast. Is the phenomenon of violence once morest staff recurring? Do drivers or controllers feel threatened or mistreated?
Unfortunately, it’s more than a feeling, it’s a reality and, fortunately, it doesn’t concern everyone and it doesn’t happen all the time. But cases of assault have increased two and a half times since 2015. Assaults have increased worryingly.
The incivilities encountered include insults, threats, blows, projectiles thrown at buses. Who would accept this? This is absolutely intolerable. We have to fight once morest this. Most work stoppages today are a straw that breaks the camel’s back. The anti-attack campaign is intended to be provocative, to shock, to raise awareness and to say stop. Do you want the bus to be there? Stop attacking drivers.
Are staff particularly trained in the event of attacks, threats or insults?
During the CAP course, there is training on how to deal with aggression and on the behavior to try to adopt. Following this increase in attacks, we produced e-learning video capsules, filmed in Liège, by drivers, for drivers, with scenarios and ways to understand them. But all that remains theoretical. When you are confronted with an attack, the context means that it can be complicated to apply the theory but we help drivers to deal with certain situations.
We also try to act at the technical level because we know that what can be the origin of attacks is the absence of a transport ticket, late buses, crowded buses, so we are working to develop own sites, to increase bus capacity… There are elements that are put in place to prevent these attacks. In terms of the absence of a transport ticket, there is the possibility of purchasing it via the application and, soon, we will have the EMV which will allow payment on board the bus (Editor’s note: via a system of contactless payment).
All of these are measures that will help reduce the number of attacks, but people who want to show incivility will do so, so we have developed a partnership with the police who intervene very quickly on site. All our buses are also equipped with cameras. And, last point, we try each time to identify the author and when this is the case, he is systematically prosecuted because there is nothing worse than impunity. These attacks really concern us because they penalize the service, the customers and entire families.
In this new year, is there a particular challenge for the TEC network in the Verviers district?
There have already been a lot of changes until 2023. There was the Malmedy-Verviers-Plenesses express line, the E21 line. There was the E23 which runs Burg-Reuland-Saint-Vith-Bullange-Eupen, in addition to the famous 394 backbone. We also have the Eupen bushof (Editor’s note: the bus station), this has been going on for years. project had to come out. It is an essential platform for the mobility of Eupen and the surrounding area and which has finally seen the light of day since the inauguration took place in November 2023. In 2024, we will equip it with screens for passenger information in real time and, in addition, we have the TEC Space which has been installed there to be close to customers, with a more friendly, more appropriate space.
In 2024, in Verviers, we will move the Espace TEC to the station level (Editor’s note: for the moment, it is installed at Place Verte) for greater proximity and to promote intermodality. At the station, we are on a platform where the bus lines have a terminal, which is advantageous. We will be in a magnificent building to create a very friendly space for customers and drivers.
“Basically, 85% of the fleet in the Verviers-Eupen region will be hybrid in 2024.” ©Jacques Duchateau
In the Verviers region, the TEC has two depots: Stembert (Verviers) and Eupen. Are there any new developments in sight?
What was finalized in 2023 at the Stembert depot was the complete insulation of the workshop. At Eupen, we completely redone the guard room. These two points really improve the working environment.
In the years to come, we will arrive at the electrification of depots. Inevitably, they will undergo sometimes significant modifications.
Since the end of August 2023, hybrid buses have arrived on seven Verviers lines. Is the outcome positive?
We had 41 buses arriving from the end of August to the end of December 2023 and the results are very positive. We plan to have more in 2024 to reach a fleet of 59 buses. Basically, 85% of the fleet in the Verviers-Eupen region will be hybrid. The results are good and we will continue this towards the electrification of the fleet.
Soon we will only see these new generation vehicles then?
We still have a few orders for hybrid buses in progress, in fact we are only ordering hybrids. We no longer order thermal buses. From 2025, certain specifications have already been launched and others will be, we will only order electric buses, in line with the electrification of depots.
For the entire TEC group, we still have around a hundred hybrid buses which will be ordered and then we will switch to full electric.
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