Senedd Cymru	Welsh Parliament
Pwyllgor yr Economi, Seilwaith a Sgiliau	Economy, Infrastructure and Skills Committee
Effeithiau COVID-19: Galwad Agored am dystiolaeth a phrofiadau	Impacts of COVID-19: Open Call for evidence and experiences
EIS(5) COV - 05
Ymateb gan: PTI Cymru Ltd (Traveline Cymru)	Response from: PTI Cymru Ltd (Traveline Cymru)

Please find below as requested, a brief summary of the impact of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdown in Wales on our business which includes PTI Cymru, Traveline Cymru and mytravelpass.

The main impact we have seen is a loss in commercial revenue from our transport related contact centre contracts following the ‘do not travel’ advice and the subsequent reduction in public transport usage during lockdown. Our commercial contracts and the work we do for mytravelpass off-set our grant funding, meaning we don’t need to rely as much on public funding. The main contracts affected are the administration we provide for the Welsh Government’s mytravelpass discounted travel scheme for 16-21 year olds in Wales, the customer service and lost property contracts we provide for TfW Rail Services and the customer service, booking and scheduling we provide for the Bwcabus scheme in Wales.

We have seen our commercial income drop by 65-70% in March and April (also May, but we are just working up these figures) and are likely to see this continue for some months to come as the industry remains operating at a low level and public confidence to use public transport remains low.

Unfortunately in March and April, the guidance for partially funded organisations such as ours was that we were unable to furlough staff and that we should continue to use our funding to deliver the service. However, as our commercial income had fallen this proved to be quite difficult and were considering cutting staff hours. We were then given the confirmation towards the end of April that organisations such as ours that receive both Welsh Government funding and commercial income, would be allowed to furlough staff. To that end, we have been able to furlough staff for May and June which will cover our loss of income. We will continue to do so for as long as we are able, carefully balancing the gradual build back up of the public transport industry, our commercial income and bringing people back from furlough to increase resource as needed.

Unfortunately, we were unable to recoup our losses for March & April and were not able to secure any funding through the first phase of the Economic Resilience Fund, so we have had to apply for a Government backed bounce back loan to maintain adequate cash flow. Whilst this is a Government backed loan which is interest free for 12 months, we will obviously still need to repay it.

It is likely to be a difficult few months ahead of having to carefully plan and resource, whilst utilising the furlough scheme for as long as we’re able. We will be carefully balancing the gradual build back up of the public transport industry, our commercial income and bringing people back from furlough to increase resource as needed.