Standing passengers on Boxing Day and breaking even on Christmas Day. Could the rest of us learn from Southern Vectis’ approach to Christmas bus services?
While elsewhere Christmas 2008/09 services were their usual patchwork affair across central southern England, as the table at the end shows, could 2009/10 be different? Has SVOC taken a lead?
SVOC is no stranger to Boxing Day buses. This time, though, it operated services commercially and was delighted at the response. So long as there are shops open and sales on, there’s probably more demand during daylight on Boxing Day than perhaps on an average Sunday. You need to select your routes arefully, though. Why let the opposition—car, taxi and where appropriate rail—seize the opportunity?
But Christmas Day was the real surprise. Where else in Britain will you find Christmas Day services, let alone commercial ones? Three SVOC routes, four duties—and 642 passengers. That’s an average of 80 passengers an hour or 20 per bus per hour. A disaster on any ordinary Thursday but Christmas Day is different. And just consider the goodwill.
We’ve decided to take a look at the possible implications of hristmas Day on the island. We’re not using full operational costing models because we can only approximate SVOC’s pay rates, fares structure, passenger profiles free travel reimbursements, current fuel prices, mileages and so on. These estimates do, however, give an indication of what SVOC might’ve achieved.
Revenue Estimates
642 passengers. Assume one third farepayerts, one third season tickets and one third free travellers and an average fare of £3 taking into account reimbursements.
£3 x 428 passengers = £1,284 + goodwill from season tciket holders + general goodwill from all passengers
Cost Estimates
Drivers : £10 per hr x 8 hrs x double time x 4 driver x an allowance for on-costs = £800
Engineering support: c. £300
Fuel: 4 buses x (45,000 p.a. / 305) / 10 mpg for a Dart x £0.55 per litre (exclusive of BSOG and VAT) = £147
Contribution to fixed/semi-variable costs: zero. Operation on Christmas Day is marginal compared with a 305-weekday operation
Total Estimated Costs: £800 + £300 + £147 = c. £1,247
(This makes no allowance for management time or publicity costs)
Conclusion
£1, 284 profit less £1,247 direct costs = break even (plus goodwill as mentioned above). Remember this was Christmas Day. As an experiment with minimal risk, it worked for SVOC. It won’t work everywhere and on all routes. But it might surprise you where it does. Fair play to SVOC for giving this a try. SVOC’s already planning Christmas Day services for 2009.
| Christmas 2008/09 | Christmas Day | Boxing Day | New Year's Eve | New Year's Day |
| Transdev Yellow Buses | No service | Saturday service but with finish at about 2000 | No service | |
| Wilts & Dorset | No service | No service | Saturday service including evenings but no Night Buses | No service |
| Solent Blue Line | No service | No service | Saturday service but last departures at or about 1930.Gap in service to Night Buses start | No service |
| Unilink brand | No service | No service | Saturday service with approx. 100 finish | No service |
| Southern Vectis | Three commercial routes | Five commercial routes | Normal service | Sunday service |
| Brighton & Hove | No service | Special services on about 15 routes | Saturday service with late finish at about 2200. All bar one night bus service operating normally | Sunday service |
| First Southampton | No service | No service | Saturday service but with finish at about 2000 | No service |
| First Portsmouth | No service | No service | Saturday service but with finish at about 2000 | Sunday service to 1900 |
| First Weymouth | No service | No service | Saturday service but with finish at about 2000 | No service |
| Stagecoach Winchester | No service | No service | Saturday service but with finish at about 2000 | No service |
| Stagecoach Portsmouth | No service | No service | Saturday service but with finish at about 2000 | Sunday service to 1900 |
2 comments:
The more or less complete lack of Christmas services in the UK has always baffled me. In my native Germany, the pattern is that on Christmas Eve (in German culture, the present-giving takes places on that night, usually between about 6pm and midnight) a Saturday service runs until the evening. In most major cities, this is nowadays followed by an all-night service running at least hourly, often half-hourly until midnight or so, over a core network covering all major routes. In virtually all cases this is an established night bus network that passengers will already be well familiar with.
Christmas Day sees a full Sunday service from at least 9am onwards, although the all-night services tend to run until then. Boxing Day (with no trading anywhere in the country) also has a full Sunday service with no alterations.
The financial side of the matter is of course different: there are virtually no pure commercial services at any time of the year, anyway.
This Christmas, I used public transport in more than one major German city on all three days - in fact, this is common for me. Christmas Eve loadings were excellent, with standing loads carried well into the evening. Christmas Day was less busy, but loadings were healthy enough to justify the level of service if you take into account goodwill. On Boxing Day, loadings were comparable to Sundays (on which shops are closed as well).
My observation from the last ten or so years suggests that every year, more and more people use Christmas services. There seem to be clear reasons for that: the social structure of the country is changing, with an increasing number of patchwork families now existing, whose members will want to visit each other for festive celebrations. Five different points of call are not uncommon over a period of two and a half days.
Running a full Sunday service to established patterns, or at least a service over an established night network, customers are able to travel without the burden of anxiety over different and unusual timetables. For most, Christmas is stressful enough as it is: a clear and established service pattern is the key to making Christmas services a viable choice.
The suggestion has been made on another forum that London could run their night bus network from Christmas Eve right through until Boxing Day, when normal Sunday services tend to operate.
This solution would provide a route network with which staff and passengers are familiar, and which also covers for the lack of tube and heavy rail services within the TfL area at these times.
Whether Christmas services in the smaller towns and cities could be justified I am not so sure - even the period from 27th to 31st December tends to be very quiet leading to some operators considering an enhanced Sunday level of service to be the most appropriate in this period.
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