Describe an improvement to local transport that you found useful.
A card about better buses, a new cycle lane, contactless ticketing or a reopened station. It works best when you compare the journey before and after.
The task card
Describe an improvement to local transport that you found useful.
You should say:
- what the improvement was
- where and when it was introduced
- how it changed your journey
and explain why it was useful to the wider community.
Now say it yourself
Record your own two minutes on this card and have it transcribed and marked against the Speaking criteria. Practising is free; the band estimate is part of Pro.
Record my answerHow long you have
- 1 minute
Preparation
The examiner hands you the card, paper and a pencil. Make notes — a few words per cue point, never sentences.
- 1–2 minutes
Your long turn
Speak until the examiner stops you at two minutes. Finishing early is the most common self-inflicted problem in Part 2.
- 1–2 questions
Rounding off
The examiner may ask one or two short follow-up questions, then moves straight into the Part 3 discussion on the same theme.
Part 2 takes three to four minutes in total. The whole Speaking test runs 11 to 14 minutes across three parts, and Part 3 that follows lasts four to five minutes.
How to approach this card
Name the improvement precisely and anchor it in time and place: 'the 42 bus now runs every ten minutes instead of every half hour, introduced about two years ago'. Vague answers about 'better transport' are hard to sustain, so commit to one change you have actually used.
The third bullet, 'how it changed your journey', invites a before-and-after structure. Describe the old journey briefly — the waiting, the changes between buses, the unreliable times — then the new one, and quantify where you can: twenty minutes saved, one change instead of two.
For the final bullet, step outside your own routine: shift workers, students, people who cannot drive. The common mistake is spending so long on your own commute that the community angle gets one sentence at the end, so plan your minute of preparation to give the last bullet proper time.
Ideas you can actually use
Three angles on this card. Pick the one closest to something real in your own life — invented material is what makes candidates hesitate at ninety seconds.
Improvements small enough to describe precisely
- A contactless or capped fare system that removed the need to plan tickets
- A live arrivals display, or an app that finally told the truth about delays
- A new route, a night service, or a bus lane that cut a journey by fifteen minutes
Quantify the effect
- Minutes saved per journey, multiplied across a week — that is the persuasive number
- A decision it changed: you sold the car, stopped taking taxis, started going out midweek
- Who it opened the city up for: shift workers, students, people who cannot drive
Honest limitations
- It works well on weekdays and collapses on Sundays
- It helped the centre and did nothing for the outer areas
- Conceding one weakness makes the whole answer sound like observation rather than praise
What your one minute of notes should look like
Not sentences — a few words per cue point. This is the level of detail sixty seconds actually buys you, and it is enough to speak from for two minutes.
- WHAT — daily fare cap on the card, all modes
- WHEN — brought in ~2 yrs ago
- USE — every day, no more counting journeys
- WHY USEFUL — stopped planning routes to save money; ~£25/mo
Model answer
Speak your own answer first. Examiners are trained to spot memorised speeches and mark them down — use this to study structure, pacing and naturalness, never to recite.
Show the model answer
I'm going to talk about the night bus route that was introduced in my city about two years ago — the N14, which runs along the main corridor from the centre out to the university district and the hospital. Before it existed, the last regular bus left at around eleven, which meant anyone finishing a late shift — nurses, kitchen staff, security guards — faced either an expensive taxi or a forty-minute walk. I found this out personally when I worked evening shifts at a restaurant during my studies; the walk home in winter was genuinely the worst part of the job. The improvement itself was simple: the same route, but running every forty minutes through the night. What made it work, I think, is that they put it on the corridor where the night workers actually are — past the hospital, the industrial kitchens, the halls of residence — rather than designing it for weekend partygoers, though they use it too. Why did I find it useful? Beyond my own shifts, it changed the maths of the whole evening economy for people without cars. And there's a fairness dimension I only appreciated later: daytime transport serves everyone, but night transport specifically serves the people doing the jobs nobody sees. When the service survived its trial year and became permanent, there was a genuine sense that, for once, something had been built for them.
Why this works: The answer grounds a public-policy topic in one personal detail (the winter walk home) which keeps it a story rather than an essay. It handles the 'why useful' bullet on two levels — personal and social — and the vocabulary ('the maths of the evening economy', 'a fairness dimension') is advanced but conversational.
Useful vocabulary for this topic
- rush hour
The busiest travel periods at the start and end of the working day.
- a direct route
A journey without changes; a strong, simple phrase.
- to run on time
Natural collocation for reliable services.
- a cycle lane
The marked part of a road reserved for bicycles.
- contactless payment
Paying by card or phone without cash; useful for ticketing improvements.
- to cut journey times
Standard collocation for making trips faster.
The same phrases in a full sentence
A phrase list is only useful if you know how the words sit around it. Say each of these aloud once before you attempt the card.
- to cut the journey time
- “It cut the journey time from about fifty minutes to just over half an hour.”
- public transport network
- “The whole public transport network suddenly felt like one system rather than four.”
- at peak times
- “At peak times it is still standing room only, which they have not solved.”
- it has taken cars off the road
- “You can see it has taken cars off the road — the traffic at eight is noticeably lighter.”
Part 3 discussion
After your long turn the examiner moves into a four to five minute discussion on the same theme, working from two related discussion topics with about three questions each. The first stays close to your own experience; the second widens out. Answer with reasons and examples, not one-line replies.
Getting around
Example questions
- 1How do most people travel to work in your country?
- 2What makes people choose public transport over driving?
- 3How important is it for public transport to be affordable?
Transport policy
Example questions
- 1Should city centres be closed to private cars?
- 2Who should pay for improvements to public transport?
- 3Do you agree that better transport makes a city fairer?
More on how this family of cards is discussed: Places. Model answers for Part 3: Part 3 questions and answers.