On Wednesday, Plymothian Transit announced the remarkable and positive news that both Western Greyhound and First will together be investing in no fewer than five new ADL Enviro400 double decks for their respective Exeter-Okehampton services, which then bifurcate either to Newquay (Greyhound 510) or Bude (First X9).
Not only is this a significant step forward for the routes in question, the two Greyhound E400s are notable as its first ever low floor buses! Sort of. Late last month, with the purchase of Cornish demand responsive operator Corlink, Greyhound inherited three SLF mini-minis (plus two seven seaters). Does that count? Up till now, award winning Greyhound has never let the simple fact that it is perhaps the country’s only significant bus operator without a single low floor put it off. It relies heavily on Mercedes Vario minis.
Greyhound was first off the blocks in truncating routes ahead of the 50km EU divers hours debacle. Yet, interestingly, it’s prepared to invest in Newquay to Exeter, a route of some 90 miles. In length, the 510 is perhaps more of an express than local bus service. Western Greyhound has recently featured in The Sun, Daily Mail and on the BBC, as the national media has only in the last fortnight caught on to the hullabaloo surrounding EU drivers’ hours rules. The media are only a year late.
In typical Sun style, it branded the rules ‘barmy’. It’s a word The Sun likes a lot, usually in the same sentence as ‘Europe’ or ‘EU’. In fact, the story is one of six Sun featuring the word ‘Barmy’ in that very week.
‘Barmy’, though, is a word transport professionals might chose to call the rules, being costly and unnecessary. We’re seeing the chopping up of British bus routes, not least many of Greyhound’s. Again, there’s more on this again on Plymothian Transit.
The BBC was more circumspect, of course. It quoted an EU spokesbureaucrat, ‘The companies are forcing clients to get on and off again. We don't decide how long a route has to be; we just want to be sure the average working time is nine hours a day.’
Is there likely to be a derogation for British bus services? The political momentum’s building but its unlikely in the next couple of years, if at all. Which, from Western Greyhound’s perspective, is rather a shame. It had put so much in to building its business by joining routes together. At least the 510 remains intact and appears to justify considerable investment.
Friday, 11 April 2008
Barmy
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3 comments:
I have to plead guilty to having used the word 'barmy' myself on this site, this week, and it was in connection with the EU regs! But I don't read 'The Sun'!!
Seriously, it is difficult to find a better word to describe the situation. The situation described on Plymothan Transit, where passengers are forced to get off and rebook, even though the driver and vehicle do in fact operate the whole (>50km) journey is ridiculous from everyone's perspective. If it is legal, and I would presume that it must be, then it makes a complete nonsense of the 50km limit. Your quoted comment from the EU spokesbureaucrat only reinforces the ridiculousness - if the EU 'just' want to be sure the average working time is 9 hours a day, then the length of the route is surely irrelevant?
The EU and its members do manage to create some situations that one can really only describe as 'barmy'. Nothing to do with buses, but the EU has, over the last years, expended considerable time, effort and presumably money in an effort to regulate the monopolistic practices of Microsoft. If I want to pay my taxes online in Germany, then I can download software to enable me to do that, but, guess what? It only runs on PCs with Microsoft operating systems! Call it 'barmy' or 'shooting yourself in the foot' - it just doesn't make sense, and makes the respective governmental systems look stupid.
I cannot help but wonder if the British government has somehow 'enhanced' (or perhaps 'gold plated') the EU hours regulation in the British enactment of the legislation - nothing would surprise me. But the situation is obviously a complete farce.
It does all remind me of the time that Red & White got a mention on Esther Rantzen's show on the BBC - it was back in 1975. Does anybody else remember? It related to service 61 from Magor to Newport, where Newport Borough fares applied within the town (it wasn't a city then), and as NBT had a cheaper off-peak flat fare, passengers travelling from Magor could save money by paying twice, once to the boundary, and then the off-peak flat fare within Newport. The film of an MW drawing up to the stop, all of the passengers getting off, and forming a queue, then getting back on again, was memorable - especially when replayed but speeded up! The spokesman for R&W said that they didn't like the passengers doing that because it slowed the bus down!!!
Yes, rc169, I'm sure I DO remember an item on That's Life regarding passengers getting off and on the same bus, but only very vaguely, as I was quite young at the time. (Only really watching for the obligatory carrot-porn or suchlike, I expect.) In the light of the current controversy the thought has crossed my mind as to what the detail might have been about, so thanks for clearing that one up!
Glad to have been able to clear that up, Redrover. I think that the reason for the TV feature was that Newport BT were increasing or withdrawing their off-peak flat fare, so that the benefit of double booking was going to be much reduced. The lead-in went something like "..another great British tradition comes to an end on Monday..." - cue to the aforementioned film. Anyway, it had the desired effect, the 61 was known as the 'Esther Rantzen route' from then on, and special care was taken when the faretable was updated, to ensure that such anomalies were removed.
Getting back to the original theme, it occurred to me later that I had missed a point, in that the the comments of the EU spokesbureaucrat are actually irrelevant in the case of services which have been split to ensure that the route is less than 50 km. So it must be the domestic UK rules, or perhaps the interpretation of those rules, that is responsible. I cannot see why passengers should have to get off and back on again - I can think of other examples where a bus operating one service continues on a different route, and passengers can stay aboard. These are perhaps more often routes from town/city centres to large housing estates, which return to the centre via a different route, but surely the same principles could apply? I suppose these cases might involve only one registration, but I cannot see any reason not to offer through booking fares - indeed Western Greyhound's website says that they do, in some cases, and they also offer rover tickets valid on all services, so the quoted case seems quite ridiculous - or even barmy!
The EU's stance does not seem any more logical, even if it is not directly relevant in this case. One might ask why an international organisation needs to be involved with bus services operated entirely within one country at all. The 'product' is both produced and sold in one country - something less international is hard to imagine. Or is the Black Forest Tourist Board complaining that potential visitors to their part of the world will be tempted away to south west England because the bus fares are cheaper as the drivers can work longer hours?
Of course the issue with Microsoft (and corporate multinationals generally) that I mentioned earlier is one where international co-operation could be genuinely useful. But the EU, by its inability to ensure that it's member states act in co-ordination, clearly fails to act effectively, even if they do penalise Microsoft. So instead they meddle in the affairs of bus companies. I am inevitably reminded of Groucho Marx's comment about politics: "Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies."
Barmy.
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