More Twists than Oliver?

It ain’t easy being a start up operator and in truth it never has been. It’s more likely you’ll go the way of Charlie’s Cars* than Brian Souter. To become successful means finding a niche but searching for a new one is increasingly difficult—if you can find one at all. If there’s something that can reasonably be exploited, it probably already has been.

So it is, over one year on, that the latest changes proposed at Eastleigh’s Black Velvet Travel see another volte-face. Buses on the Fair Oak Flyer are now marking time and will end after last operation on 23 May 2009. This after only 132 days. News was given at a Velvet staff meeting about ten days ago. As was some other unpleasant information...

Ser 200 Fair Oak Flyer, direct to Fair Oak

The decision follows both a drop in fares and an increase in frequency on Solent Blue Line/Bluestar’s competitive service 2 on the Eastleigh-Fair Oak section. Free travel payments are apparently contributory. In truth, with 10 buses total an hour, the corridor seems to have become over bussed, with too many journeys carrying too few passengers. In spite of the direct Flyer route and Velvet’s noted customer service, frequency on an indirect but established route (service 2) is perhaps more important over such a relatively short distance.

Velvet's fairoakflyer.co.uk website used to transform from blue to purple

On the positive side, Velvet is man enough to accept when things don’t always go to plan. The company has a willingness to try new ideas and no one should ever knock them for having a go (when many in the industry are totally risk averse). There are, after all, plenty of examples of high stakes products brought to the general market that’ve failed. New Coca Cola. Polaroid. Apple III and Apple Lisa. Windows M.E. Why should the bus industry be any different?

One of four East Lancs Myllenium-bodied DAF SB220s at Vevlet

The interesting thing here, though, is that following the B/BeepBus fiasco, Velvet’s managing director Phil Stockley in discussing the Fair Oak Flyer has openly used challenging language in the media against his former employer SBL/Bluestar. Understandably, the press seems very interested in this sort of thing and when they realise the latest developments will no doubt portray this as a victory for the aggressive big boy (rather than what it is, SBL defending its market against a predatory operator).

If you look at Velvet’s turbulent history, you see somewhat mixed fortunes:

• 25 February 2008 sees Velvet service A start, initially at a half-hourly frequency, following SBL’s withdrawal. This is soon halved to hourly.


• 27 May 2008 and Velvet wins the Hampshire contract for the former X35 from Ringwood to Southampton.


• 8 September 2008 is when Velvet B takes to the road commercially, between Eastleigh & Southampton, where possible astutely avoiding SBL workings, partly replacing SBL’s B, providing a through service from Velmore Estate to Southampton and enabling crew changes to and from the Ringwoods.


• On the same date, SBL operates BeepBus B, mirroring Velvet by three minutes throughout, operating free of charge for the first week to circumnavigate the registration rules.


• 10 January 2009 sees the last operation of the Southampton-Ringwood services, together with the B, into which it connected.


• 12 January 2009 and Velvet commences its optimistic direct 15-minute Fair Oak Flyer between Eastleigh & Fair Oak. SBL cuts fares locally on the 2. Velvet also commences broadly hourly Eastleigh-Swaythling-Portswood-Southampton service 500; and evening services under contract on the E8 between Eastleigh & Boyatt Wood.


• 23 February 2009 and SBL cuts the through Eastleigh-Fair Oak-Southampton service on the 2 to every 20 minutes while increasing instead to every 10 minutes between Eastleigh & Fair Oak.


• 23 February 2009 also sees Velvet win a short-term tender to the end of August 2009 to operate the former SBL C1/2 between Eastleigh, Chandlers Ford, Hiltingbury/Valley Park.


• 18 April 2009 is the last day of the 500, lasting 97 days and its withdrawal is consequent upon not only disappointing loadings but mainly owing to winning the C1/2s earlier.


• 23 May 2009 and the Fair Oak Flyer is withdrawn.

So, the question is, what’s next for Velvet? Velvet certainly pays well compared to its neighbours but offers no staff pension scheme. Those who look on might wonder whether there is the prospect of long term employment for all drivers. This is especially so given reports that Velvet has asked its drivers to take a 10 per cent pay cut to sustain the company’s future.

Added to which, Velvet is vulnerable should the substantive tender for the C1/2 fall elsewhere. But there’s no doubt that Velvet might usefully concentrate on the tendered market more in future, as a lower cost operator. It might stand more of a chance of winning the battle on paper for a tender than commercially on the streets. Now that Go South Coast has largely straightened out SBL/Bluestar, will there be any such tenders available any time soon?

And, finally, what of SBL/Bluestar on the 2s? Will this go back to the pre-Flyer every 15 minutes between Eastleigh & Southampton, abandoning the shorts but concentrating on important Swaythling? Or would passengers find another destabilising change frustrating?

i Photos by Southdown PD3 and Southern England Bus Photographs (both used with permission)

* At dereg, Charlie’s Cars exploited a niche by initially operating a network focused on the Hampshire Centre (now Castlepoint) on Castle Lane West