Christmas, Fares & Boxing Day

My late mother was the most organised person I have ever known. She completed her Christmas shopping by the end of the July sales (perhaps not such a good strategy these days, in the light of autumnal & last minute bargains). She had all her cards written, addressed and stamped the day after Christmas stamps went on sale. They’d be dispatched to ensure arrival on 1st December or, for commonwealth destinations, as soon as the sale of Christmas stamps would allow.

Not everyone is so organised but shops and stores of course are. They’ve been selling Christmas fayre and decorations since mid-September and rely heavily on this early income; and even discounting for early purchases, in some cases.

What better time, then, for operators to market bus services for Christmas, nice and early. Here, Arriva leads the pack. Under its “kiss stress goodbye this Christmas”, it’s promoting a stress-busting service that offers passengers an alternative to the hassles of travelling by car at this busy period. If you’ve ever queued at Christmas to leave Bournemouth’s Castlepoint shopping ‘experience’, you’ll’ve regretted not using the bus (though obviously not Arriva’s). At its worst, it can take an hour or more clear the area by car.

It’s designed to appeal to casual and first time customers, many of whom will know how driving can spoil a shopping trip. Arriva refers to to the usual advantages of travel by bus and even introduces the spectre of what it calls “mean-spirited traffic wardens” though, in reality, this species is the industry’s friend.

What the campaign cannot easily do is offer fares incentives. Such offers might including family deals that could cement the decision to use a bus. This is a notoriously difficult and dangerous area for an operator, one that can lead to a reduction in revenue rather than otherwise. Fares promotions linked to late night shopping might be the least risky.

What Arriva *is* doing is offering discounts on its m-ticketing, introduced everywhere last week. This is thought to be the largest m-ticketing scheme in the world. Registrants can pay for day and season tickets by mobile but discounts of 10 per cent are available only for four-weekly tickets.

Taken to its logical extreme, if you want to avoid the driving & parking stress *and* the crowds, online shopping’s the way to go. Can’t see that appealing to Arriva.

Meanwhile, this year, Christmas services themselves could get a little confusing in some parts of the country. Boxing Day falls on a Saturday and the official bank holiday is Monday. Southern Vectis, seemingly ahead of the game over the actual season, plans to extend last year’s Christmas Day services into the evening. The following Saturday-Sunday-Monday will *all* operate to a uniform Sunday service which, as you might expect, is pretty comprehensive.

The Benefits of Bendies

The gradual scrapping of London’s bendy buses is becoming less & less remarkable and newsworthy. So why is it that the media continue to bang on about it so much?

This time last week, the third route, no. 38, saw the last of its Citaro bendies, converted the day after to standard TfL double deck operation. Whether you think replacing 47 articulated Mercedes Citaros with 68 double deck VDL or ADLs makes sense depends upon your viewpoint. If that’s what Londoners really want and they can pay for it, so be it. And pay they will. Media estimates put the additional cost of replacing all three London bendy routes to date at £3.3mil p.a. That’s not counting the cost of any extra emissions.

In theory, there’s a lot going for the bendy bus:

• Most seats are accessible


• Passengers travel on the same level as the driver, reducing anti-social behaviour associated with upper decks


• Artics can soak up peak loads efficiently


• Passengers need not climb to the upper deck to find most seating. Bendies typically seat 49-56 on one level. TfL double decks seat 22-26 down stairs


• There’s more space for buggies and wheelchairs


• Passengers are not throttled between the entrance & staircase and can move around easier


• There are more opportunities to get out in an emergency


• The buses are nominally as manoeuvrable as or more so than a 12m rigid


• They are successfully in operation in congested European cities that are no less constrained when compared to England
  

It’s understandable, in spite of these positive points, that operators have reservations. There are bus station and other infrastructural implications concerning bendies. There are garage and maintenance space issues to consider. They take roadspace. And then there is the threat of fares evasion where Oysters don’t exist, something that cannot easily be solved, even with one-way gates at the rear doors. And dare we mention passenger and the public’s perceptions, not always good, something demonstrated more perhaps in York than anywhere, following the introduction of the FTR Streetcar. There appear particular hang-ups regarding cyclists, although Mayor Johnson has had to concede there’ve been no deaths as first believed.

London’s decisions to abandon (all but one of?) its artic routes leaves a surfeit of bendies that may yet prove useful elsewhere. Interest to date hasn’t been especially strong but if the rumours circulating are true as to where some might emerge, there are some more surprises ahead, at least at the demonstration stage. In spite of the benefits, we still can’t see artics taking off outside London, even if double decks remain in long-term provincial decline. Or, rather, it would take a brave person to forecast the popularity of the bendy, even at its early 21st century peak.

TfL 38 runs to a remarkable timetable. Buses operate at 2-minute intervals at peak (every minute from Hackney Central 0659-0713 except 0707); from 0848 every three minutes; then 3-4 minutes off-peak. Evening buses are 10-12 per hour.

On the Agendum—an end to deregulation

Tomorrow, the West Yorkshire integrated transport authority discusses quality contracts. It’s clear WYITA is keen to adopt the powers under the Local Transport Act 2008 that afford a greater opportunity for QCs. WYITA feels that in spite of operator and Metro PTE investment, bus patronage is still declining, even while the economy was growing. Result: fares increases above inflation and withdrawals. WYITA therefore talks of “dramatic interventions” to achieve a number of goals. These include increased passenger confidence, improved customer service, integration, and support for the wider social policy agenda. And they must be value for money.

Other ITAs are considering similar opportunities. South Yorkshire and Nexus have already undertaken dummy tendering. Are we therefore seeing an end to deregulation in our city regions?

Well, yes. In spite of Yorkshire media hype, WYITA’s view is nevertheless measured. WYITA considers the risks, not least a possible change of government that might put paid to QCs before they even start. WYITA’s timescales ensure that there are no significant costs ratcheted up till the governmental position is known.

WYITA also states that if it can achieve its goals within partnerships, this will continue to be pursued in parallel.

WYITA is also being upfront when it states that it may need to make difficult and unpopular decisions on service levels and fares in the future, to meet budget targets.

And there’s the rub. While WYITA talks of London & European city-style bus networks, this takes funding whereas, at the moment and in spite of its flaws, much is operated commercially. Proper funding squares the circle whatever the regime in force—and this needs to be sustainable. Will it be? And can WYITA give any long-term guarantee that a QC will be any better than the current market mix of commercial and tendered mileage? If there *is* long-term sustainable funding then it might actually be in operators’ interests to drop their opposition to QCs as the benefits might outweigh the disadvantages.

Better Off?

Will Plymouth Citybus be better off under Go Ahead ownership?

There are strong reasons why it might be, although Plymouth will lose the social dividend that comes with municipally-owned operations.

1. There will be safeguards and promises of investment & innovation that generally come with the securing of preferred bidder status. Promises are all part of the mix and post-Bournemouth privatisation Go Ahead will be well aware of them.


2. Go Ahead (and rival Stagecoach for that matter) has a good reputation at innovation and marketing.


3. As a distinct advantage, Go Ahead runs things locally. This will perhaps offer a face-saving option to those locals who point-blank oppose any sale. It should hone local brand awareness.


4. Go Ahead’s bus businesses are market-driven and successfully and that includes in competitive situations (e.g. Oxford, Bournemouth) and where there is a monopoly (e.g. Brighton, Isle of Wight). All the above have seen consistent and impressive increases in ridership.


5. Go Ahead has much experience in traditional coaching and its potential acquisition of Citybus is most likely to protect Plymouth Citycoach, once doomed as unprofitable but also much respected locally.
   

May these are reasons why the unions seem to have moved from anger towards acceptance (as reported on Plymouthian Transit). So much for the positives. Let’s consider some realities.

1. Go Ahead’s had to square up to poor performance across its Go South Coast subsidiaries and that’s been painful at both Wilts & Dorset and what is effectively now a W&D outpost, Bluestar. In spite of some bitterness, Bluestar is fixed—ser 1 even won this year’s UK Bus Awards marketing award. You sense that there’s more work to do at W&D.
   
   It’s not been entirely pain-free at Southern Vectis. Recent concessionary travel-related trimming has proven unpopular but, even so, services are still stronger than or at least as strong as before SVOC rebranded recently.


2. It’s true that there’ve been innovations. After its introduction, Morebus won a prestigious national marketing award though anyone could’ve made money at the expense the former municipally-owned Yellow Buses. But W&D has backtracked not only on some core services but also from some of its more frivolous excesses in Bournemouth (remember the Orange Circle?).


3. Go Ahead subsidiaries aren’t actually as locally managed as we all like to think but compared to the Three, including Stagecoach, at Go Ahead there’s less head office “interference”. We should be under no illusions as to the fact that Go Ahead is a quoted PLC and, as such, will never entertain its subsidiary businesses announcing UDI.
   

Let’s not forget that Citybus already operates a good fleet and at good frequencies. It’s prepared to operate commercially some evening work (the social dividend). Citybus sits more comfortably with Warrington & Lothian than with the likes of Islwyn and Eastbourne. You might argue that it doesn’t need a Go Ahead helping hand.

But what’s now changed is First Devon & Cornwall’s new competition. First’s move deliberately tries to safeguard its position in what has now become an uncertain marketplace. First had little choice as, post-Preston (and at the time post-Eastbourne), buying Citybus was not an option—and this in spite of First’s previous overtures to the council. But First’s move effectively means that without a sale, Citybus may now struggle.

*Not* selling could therefore be more disastrous for Citybus than selling.

i Plymothian Transit is covering the Citybus sale

Eastleigh Progress

Our Mystery Contributor follows up yesterday’s Phil Stockley Velvet interview...

After nine months of conflict between Go Ahead’s Bluestar & Phil Stockley’s Velvet, bus services in Eastleigh have settled down to what appears to be a stable level.

Velvet now reaches as far as Winchester, having taken over E2 from Stagecoach. Notice the poppy on the nearside mirror. Photo: Stephen Hooper (used with permission)

Velvet’s competitive Fair Oak Flyer was withdrawn in May, with Bluestar’s shorts on the 2 between Eastleigh and Fair Oak withdrawn just 3 weeks later. The 2 has regressed to a poorly regulated operation, with regular bunching of the six vehicles that operate the 20-minute headway that remains, albeit not helped by roadworks along its route.

The Eastleigh area saw virtually no changes at the start of the new academic year, apart from the addition of extra journeys from the town by Bluestar-operated UniLink, basically extra garage extensions of its core U1 service, which generally starts a mile from the town at Southampton Airport Parkway station.

The tendered C group of routes from Eastleigh to the affluent Chandlers Ford, Hiltingbury & Valley Park areas have from 1st November 2009 been awarded to Velvet on a contract worth £224,000 per annum, till May 2011. Velvet has been running there on a short-term contract since February, when Bluestar opted to withdraw commercially and it has to be said that this contract was vital to Velvet’s commercial well being. Without the C, Velvet would have had only its commercial service A requiring two buses and its commercial four-bus Barton Peveril College commitment. The three-bus C contract therefore gives Velvet volume, as it includes evening and Sunday services—and takes Velvet into Winchester for the first time, replacing Stagecoach on five-times-a-day Sunday service E2. Stockley has revamped the C to give better frequencies to the busiest locations on the route, while still serving all the lesser used stops at least hourly.

To many, the biggest sign of the ceasing of hostilities, however, was on the occasion of the one-day cricket international at the Rose Bowl in September. Go South Coast provide park & ride to events at this venue. Unable to staff the services themselves (Southern Vectis was striking the next day), they hired drivers from Velvet to staff GSC vehicles. That would never have happened even six months ago.

Omnibuses meets Phil Stockley

A graduate in transport management, Phil Stockley joined Southern Vectis in 1995 as a management trainee. Leaving in 1998 while traffic manager, Stockley moved to Stagecoach West, later West & Wales, as a director. Following a short stint at Stagecoach Devon, he moved back to Southern Vectis in 2004 to run Solent Blue Line and later under Go Ahead was responsible for operations at SBL & SVOC. Stockley left GSC in 2007 and after a short period running projects for First, set up Velvet, Eastleigh, in late 2007.

In Part One below, Phil looks at Velvet, customer focus, social media, Best Impressions, concessionary fares and artics. Later in the week, Phil talks candidly about Go South Coast… i Phil also has his own blog

OB: What have you learnt in your first year or so running your own business and what would you now do differently as a result?

PS: The learning curve is so steep it’s nearly vertical! The list of things I would do differently is way too long to repeat here, but I also think we got many more things right than wrong. We set up a functioning six-vehicle bus business from absolutely nothing in three months. At the time it seemed glacially slow but in hindsight it seems like warp speed! My advice to anyone contemplating the same would be to work out carefully how much cash you need, then double it; carefully work out how much time you need, then double it; be prepared for the fact that everyone apart from your closest friends will let you down somewhere along the way, but it is the most exciting journey you will ever take!

OB: What were your main challenges in setting up Velvet?

PS: Again the list is huge, but the sheer practical grind of raising cash, finding premises, getting an o-licence, finding vehicles and getting those vehicles on the road was far harder than we ever imagined. The main problem is that as a new company you struggle to get credit for anything, so things that more established operators take for granted become a huge challenge. One example—fuel: it took a while to persuade anyone to give us fuel cards, so for the first few months, we were having to meet every single bus that needed fuel and loading up our credit cards. We were maxing out our cards every few days so I was forever sending money to the credit card company! Things like that, you don’t even think of before you start—or if you do you have no idea how much of a chore they will be!

OB: Your customer focus is reported as excellent. Why do you think so many in the bus industry fall short of this ideal, at the last hurdle?

PS: I am delighted that we have this reputation, because it is customer service that caused us to start Velvet and it is customer service that makes me excited about coming to work every day. The problem is that many operators don’t even get near the final hurdle.

Along with all aspects of brand management, customer service is not a bolt-on extra, it has to be designed into the process from the very beginning, and it mostly revolves around the people you select to work for you and the way you harness their talents. Small teams, short rotas (ideally fixed duties), schedules that are realistic, ticket products that are easy to understand and sell—these are just a few examples of things that are pre-requisites in my view, not optional extras.

OB: The commercial world’s a harsh one and Velvet has seen a number of what appears as U-turns. Are these mistakes or do you feel that you need to take risks to succeed?

PS: Firstly, we are certainly not perfect and as I have hinted at already, if we had our time again then yes there are some things we might have done differently. Equally, there are some things we could not have foreseen, the unprecedented four-month closure of Eastleigh’s main arterial road from the south being the most obvious. If we hadn’t done what we did, when we did, who’s to say we would still be here now? The most successful companies have only got where they are by having good ideas, and when you try new things you have to accept that not everything will work out as planned. And when that happens, my view is it is much better to face up to that and make the changes you need to make, rather than fiddling while Rome burns!

OB: You have a reputation for being optimistic. Is there room for such optimism in the commercial bus world?

PS: I couldn’t be anything else, and believe it is only because of this that I have had the great pleasure to be involved in a good many highly successful projects, and work with some brilliant people, in my first eighteen years in the industry. But of course there have to be checks and balances and my good fortune now is to be surrounded by a fantastic team of people whose diverse views and experiences all play a big part in helping us make the right decisions.

Of course, the world needs optimists, but it needs accountants as well!

OB: After Best Impressions designed your Velvet livery, they were warned off by fellow Stenning users, Go South Coast. Was this fair?

PS: Were they warned off? I’m not sure I buy that. My opinion is that Ray Stenning is unparalleled within the industry for his ability to marry design expertise with an intuitive understanding of how customers and potential customers interact with transport systems. He does first class work for Go South Coast and we respect that they are a big customer for him. I have no doubt that he will work with us again some time in the future.

OB: What role does social media have in the bus industry?

PS: Traditional advertising has lost its appeal. The range of media is far too great and the ability to capture people’s attention is too limited. Moreover, our customers and potential customers resent being “talked at” and have ideas and opinions that can usefully influence how we develop our product. Social networking gives us the opportunity to capture this knowledge in the context of an informal conversation, during which we can also take the opportunity to share ideas about how our products can help them go about their lives. In the end, people know that we are a business and we are trying to sell them things, but as long as it’s genuinely a two-way process and we can have a laugh and make some friends along the way, I don’t think people mind that.

My view is we are only just seeing the tip of the iceberg of what social media can achieve but that is all the more reason to embrace the potential rather than sitting back waiting to see what happens next.

OB: What was Stagecoach like to work for?

PS: Fantastic. I don’t have a bad word to say. It is an inspirational organisation full of great people.

OB: Do concessionary fares help or hinder?

PS: I do not begrudge people for one moment for taking advantage of the fantastic facility that is available to them. But I had the good fortune to be working in Wales when free travel started there and saw how a healthy reimbursement rate could be used to kickstart commercial network improvements, logically resulting in a virtuous circle that ultimately decreases the financial burden of tendered services. I like the principle that public money follows the user and how he/she uses the system rather than being used to prop up an artificial network that may or may not meet people’s needs, and for this reason I deeply regret that England did not learn from Wales!

OB: I hear there are a good few articulated buses going cheap. Any room in Eastleigh?

PS: OK I admit it—I love articulated buses!!! They are so much more modern, stylish and classy than double deckers. If I had an excuse to run them I would take all of Boris’s cast-offs tomorrow, but the first and most obvious difficulty is that if you parked one in the workshop we use, the other end would block the entire industrial estate! So for practical reasons, sadly not!

OB: Where do you see yourself in 5, 10 or 15 years’ time?

PS: Continuing to develop Velvet, trying to find innovative ways to develop the public transport network based on first class customer service, looking for the common ground where good commercial instincts can combine to best effect with the political and social priorities of our local authority partners, and having lots of fun doing so.

OB: Where do you see the bus industry in 30 years’ time?

PS: Smaller but more perfectly formed. My vision is of a frequent, simple network of high quality links (not just buses but hopefully more innovative modes too) within towns and cities, surrounded by a ring of park & rides and main line routes radiating into the surrounding rural areas, providing modal choice and social inclusion where there is the critical mass to support the required levels of quality.

I believe that the quality of local transport provision to be much better overall, but that may be at the expense of quantity.

OB: What one thing could the (central or local) government do to make it easier for you to operate more successfully?

PS: Sort out concessionary fares, then leave the industry alone for a bit!

i Phil has his own blog

Photo credit: Stephen Hooper

Forward Planning/Challenge

Unless the government announces it is re-nationalising the entire bus industry, we publish tomorrow a fairly candid interview with one of the bus industry’s well-known managers. You may recall last week that we spoke to Jenni Wilkinson at Transdev Yellow Buses. If you work in the bus industry (at whatever level) and feel we could meet for a chat and interview for publication here, get in touch by email.
Thanks once again to those people who commented upon the blog posts on Birmingham’s Outer Circle 11C, who corrected spelling errors and who answered the brief survey. The survey consensus was that you would welcome occasional posts like those on the 11C. I have to say that the majority did not vote. Whether they were ambivalent or against, I am not sure.
I asked for ideas for routes that might feature in any future occasional posts and was truly impressed at the vast array of suggestions. I would never have thought of some of them. Most, nearly all, were long end-to-end inter-urban or rural services and getting on & off to sample the local area may pose a problem in terms of time. To those who suggested routes, thanks.
Do any of you wish to take the challenge forward yourselves, along the same lines as (or an improvement upon) the 11C? If yes, get in touch by email.