Community transport - making an impact in Greater Manchester
Welcome to the GMCTF web site.
Here, you can find out more about community transport in Greater Manchester and its impact, as well as the range of services it provides to Greater Manchester residents.
Community transport
Often referred to by its acronym – CT - community transport began over three decades ago.
CT operators are independent community-based not-for-profit organisations, controlled by the communities they serve.
They provide accessible, safe, affordable and professional transport services to local communities, often using minibuses, but also with vehicles both smaller (such as people carriers) and larger (such as coaches).
Community transport was fighting Social Exclusion in local communities over twenty years before the term entered popular parlance.
CT in Greater Manchester
Operators work away, mostly in the background, providing jobs and services for local people.
Not many people are aware of the real impact CT makes, both socially, economically and environmentally.
In the last financial year, CT operators in Greater Manchester:
- Had a combined turnover just short of £3.8 million
- Created or maintained over 140 jobs
- Provided 537,237 trips to Greater Manchester residents
- Covered over 2.8 million kilometres
- Trained over 500 drivers to nationally-accredited standards
- Provided over 80% of Local Link services under contract to GMPTE.
Greater Manchester Community Transport Forum
The Greater Manchester Community Transport Forum is the trade association for the CT sector in Greater Manchester.
As well as promoting high standards and representing & supporting our members, we work in close partnership with GMPTE to ensure CT contributes to delivering strategic transport objectives as part of an integrated county-wide transport system.
Find out more about CT in Greater Manchester by clicking on the links at the left hand side of the page.
Find your local community transport service.
GM CT Sector develops Quality Framework
After extensive development work and consultation with members, the Forum has developed a quality framework, which will demonstrate to stakeholders (such as GMITA, local authorities and health trusts) that the Greater Manchester CT sector is working to a set of clear and auditable standards.
The framework has been developed from the ground up in conjunction with operators, rather than imposed from above, and aims to:
- Support the development of a professional and accountable CT sector
- Encompass the good practice guidance from the Charity Commission publication ‘The Hallmarks of an Effective Charity’
- Incur a minimal extra administrative burden and not depend on any one particular software package
- Be appropriate to the legal and practical framework of the CT sector
- Will be provided at no cost to GMCTOF members
For more information, go to the Forum's Quality Framework page