Lemon Update

The Big Lemon’s unorthodox approach to running bus services continues to ensure it features on this blog.

Its service 42 from Falmer to Brighton city centre's suspended till 29 September, pending the arrival back in town of Brighton’s student population. Such clients seem the bedrock of Lemon's service, which shows an evening bias.

In the meantime, Lemon’s launched its members’ club. Lemon wishes to attract 100 members who will each pay £100 upfront, by the end of July (to ensure a 56-day registration for September). Lemon acknowledges that it cannot afford to run daytime buses at a loss and therefore wishes to encourage subscribers to pay upfront to plan a service Lemon and its passengers can be confident about.

Lemon publishes that for every 100 passengers, that is for every £10,000 raised, it will be able to add a bus. £10,000 buys an hourly service from 0800-0400 the following morning. £20,000 buys a half-hourly service. £10,000 to safeguard a peak bus service seems pretty cheap, even for the older vehicles it wishes to operate, especially as Lemon recognises that farepayers aren't flocking to the service. Members get to travel free-of-charge and, if there's a profit, some share in it.

Is this approach innovative, unprofessional, desperate or outrageous? The bus industry doesn’t generally ask its passengers to guarantee a certain level of service upfront. This kind of arrangement is normally only reserved in the small print of tours and excursions, where there’s often a clause that enables a cancellation if insufficient passengers book.

We somehow can’t see the Big Five adopting this approach to bolster flagging services, no matter how much of a gimmick it may seem. And we can’t see passengers travelling with the Big Five supporting such an idea when, let’s be honest, they *perceive* their operator as making excess profits.

It’s therefore somewhat intriguing that passengers in Brighton continue to accept and even champion The Big Lemon and its different approaches, in spite of the hard work Brighton & Hove has put in to improve services, frequencies, image, and especially its environmental credentials. Perhaps it's something to do with supporting the underdog. Or perhaps mainstream operators might learn that community engagement and openness—two Lemon traits—can help business. Yet, we felt B&H was pretty good at this, too.