Stagecoach has in recent years been a fan of the Optare Solo minibus. Stagecoach is ahead of Arriva in ordering most of this type. After that comes a plethora of smaller concerns, who largely have taken delivery via Mistral in the days of its cosy relationship with Optare, one that not every small operator welcomed.
Stagecoach’s recently announced a staggering and recession-busting £71mil order for over 400 buses. No other operator (and certainly not First) is prepared to commit so much. Of the 404 buses ordered, 200 are double decks, 115 single decks, 43 midi buses, and 45 coaches. Oh, and a solitary Optare Solo minibus. This means Optare gets an order for 11 vehicles in all, 10 of which are Versas. Given the Souter tie up with ADL, it’s perhaps unsurprisingly that ADL/Plaxton gets the lion’s share, at 393.
But why the sharply reduced order for Solos? Why the sudden switch away from minibuses? It’s a moot point as to what constitutes a mini- or a midi-bus but I’m using Stagecoach’s own definition (which refers to the E200 as a midibus and the Solo as a minibus).
Are we seeing the end of the minibus revolution that started in Exeter in 1985 with Gen 1 so-called bread vans? This morphed into the the Mini Pointer Dart in 1989 and later into the SLF Solo in 2000. With free travel capacity becoming an issue, operators like Go North East, for example, have already declared that they wish to replace their minibuses with larger vehicles; new deliveries designed to see off older, larger buses have instead brought forward a withdrawal in minibuses. The 12m bus is also doing well and there’s even evidence of a renewed interest in provincial double decks.
While Stagecoach’s order is good news for the manufacturing sector, it’s not such good news for Optare whose Versa, though selling in reasonably strongly, and poorer selling Tempo could never match the Solo’s strength.
The Solo is an extremely flexible minibus, from 19 to some 33 seats, in two widths.
Stagecoach had also previously announced a recent order for Astromegas for its Oxford Tube.
Friday, 31 July 2009
Minibus Futures
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14 comments:
In view of your oft-stated views on the correct use of apostrophes, why is there one at the start of the second paragraph?
:-)
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2833905&l=5b636abc14&id=692056002
It's new English.
Anonymous said...
"In view of your oft-stated views on the correct use of apostrophes, why is there one at the start of the second paragraph?"
'Stagecoach' is singular - it is a (single) corporate body - so the use of the apostrophe looks correct to me.
The example quoted by A Cumbrian could also be correct - assuming it is an abbreviation of 'Tesco is open as usual'. The capitalisation in the photo is, however, incorrect.
As for the minibuses (or lack of them), surely the general trend towards achieving economies of scale wherever possible means that this is inevitable. In earlier eras, the usual (and often only) reason for using smaller than standard buses was physical constraints of the environment - roads, traffic, etc. The early 1980s 'minibus revolution' seemed to me to be a 'political' move, designed to increase an operator's presence in the market to deter any potential competitors. From my understanding of the cost structure of the industry, it must have made very little sense commercially, and the subsequent general trend towards larger vehicles was only to be expected.
Despite this being bad news for Optare, I think this is excellent news for the British Bus industry, and shows Stagecoach has avoided the retrenchment polices of at least one other of the "Big 5".
RC169: I think that the drivers of minibuses in the 1980s were also expected to take home smaller pay packets, to go with their smaller vehicles. Unemployment levels at the time probably helped get that through.
Have wages been restored to higher levels, as buses have returned to more normal sizes?
Forget the apostrophe, I want to know how I missed all the Mini Pointer Darts from 1989! ;)
"This morphed into the the Mini Pointer Dart in 1989 and later into the SLF Solo in 2000"
So you think that 'Stagecoach's recently announced a staggering and recession-busting £71 mil order.....' is grammatically correct?
Surely not.
Either 'Stagecoach has recently announced.....'
or, as you were perhaps attempting,
'Stagecoach's recently announced order....'
In this instance I thought that the apostrophe was correct - it has nothing to do with possession but is used here with contraction - 'Stagecoach has' being reduced to Stagecoach's. I must admit however that punctuation has never been my strongest point!
In respect of the recently announced order - it is certainly interesting to see such a dramatic fall in Solo orders by Stagecoach. As others have commented - bad news for Optare. It will be interesting to see if the exclusivity deal with Mistral will affect sales to the smaller operator market - if so this could mark difficult times for Optare
The deal with Mistal ended in May
http://s261370817.websitehome.co.uk/news_detail.php?ID=77&Index=1
and Optare has also recruited Mistral’s Rick Betton to run Optare Direct (vehicle financing and leasing)
http://www.busandcoach.com/newsstory.aspx?id=2502
I know I don’t usually but I feel I must come in on this.
First, that apostrophe.*
My use of the apostrophe is correct. It substitutes for the contraction “Stagecoach has…” and is quite acceptable IMHO in the environment of a blog; whereas it would be inappropriate, for example, in a written report.
The Tesco picture is a classic. Aside From The Use Of Capitals, the apostrophe is technically correct but too informal for the situation in which it finds itself.
Secondly, to concentrate on minibuses, it’s right that in most places, mini-bus drivers attracted mini-wages. This is one of the many “innovations” the minibus revolution delivered, rightly or wrongly. The labour market at the time was such that operators were regularly poaching staff from customer focused jobs such as from the retail sector. Minibus wages, however, were soon consolidated.
I would not accept that minibuses were political per se. Yes, they were defensive in a number of circumstances. Mainly, though, they were a means to alter the perception of the market and drive considerable increases in ridership through a totally different approach—to liveries, marketing material, standards of service, frequency, penetration. It made immense sense at the time but growth often on the scale seen could not be contained within a vehicle capable of just 16 seats. Add to this, as numbers plateaued rather than increased, operators began to look at their cost base, hence orders rolled in for the Dart from 1989. Midibuses have remained popular in many settings ever since.
I made an error about the MPD in 1989. I think it was 1991 when Plaxton started bodying the step entrance Dart.
B
* Yup, this is bad grammar as without a verb this isn’t a sentence.
shouldn't 'recently announced' have a hyphen?
Brylaine Travel of Boston have some 37-seat Optare Solos, deployed on InterConnect 5 between Spalding-Lincoln.
I'll accept that there was more than just the 'political' motivation for the introduction of minibuses in the early '80s, and also that the wages paid to the drivers were often lower. However, I still think that the economics of operation of that nature were unsustainable in the longer term.
For example if a half-hourly service with conventional buses was replaced by minibuses running every 10 minutes, then the operator would have needed three times as many drivers (or, at the very least, almost that many) as before. Therefore, all other things being equal, unless the minibus drivers were on pay levels little more than a third of that of the drivers of conventional buses, then, inevitably, the operating costs would have been higher. Somehow, I very much doubt that the differential in the wages was that great.
RC169’s views are similar to many a general manager at the time NBC was “forcing” minibuses onto its subsidiary operators. There were *plenty* of unbelievers. Beliefs quite often changed markedly when managers saw the evidence following the first successful minibus introductions in their companies. This was sharply increasing passenger volumes coupled with a reduced engineering overhead following new vehicles.
Of course, this could and did not last…
"The Solo is an extremely flexible minibus, from 19 to some 33 seats, in two widths"
This may well be so...but to operators more accustomed to running the ubiquitous Mercs, the increased depreciation, plus the vastly increased fuel consumption (9mpg instead of nearly 19mpg in my neck of the woods)may well act as something of a deterrent)...
Many operators may well be hanging on to see what else a desperately struggling manufacturing base can come up with...
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