First Devon & Cornwall is recruiting new drivers in Plymouth in what is believed to enable it to mount a significant combative attack on Plymouth Citybus. This comes amidst the Citybus sale process.
In what industry watchers may see as a Chester-style pre-emptive attack, it appears First may be attempting either to devalue Citybus or dissuade potential bidders. First will however point to its legitimate right to operate commercial services; and defend its position against what might be an unfriendly Citybus purchaser.
Four First services as accepted by the traffic commissioner start on 11 October and are from the city centre to St Budeaux, Derriford and Crownhill areas and to the east of the city. This at a time when First is cutting back on the Plymouth 11 in the evenings and significantly, again, in Cornwall. Plus, of course, pretty much nationally.
Post-Chester, could this sort of activity now become the norm in future municipal sales? It didn’t happen in Eastbourne but it has subsequently emerged that it might’ve. It transpires that Stagecoach had been negotiating with Cavendish Renown for at least one month before the Eastbourne Transport deal was struck. Was this an insurance in case matters didn’t turn out as Stagecoach expected? And we shouldn’t forget this also happened in Bournemouth, too, though the effect on the eventual sale price was limited in both latter cases.
Meanwhile, 150 miles further east, when locals first saw the now withdrawn First Hampshire & Dorset advertisements for coach drivers, many immediately jumped to the conclusion that there was to be some sort of reborn regional south coast express.
We, on the other hand, knew different but were sworn to secrecy. If that sounds supercilious, we didn’t get it all right. We knew it was to be non-stop Greyhound services from London to Portsmouth (hourly) or Southampton (less frequently). All we could do was hint that this was a Greyhound venture, as we did on 10 August by suggesting there were “rumours afoot about Hampshire”.
What was a very closely guarded secret, though, was that Greyhound UK was not, as we all thought, such a budget operator. Even though its 11 Scania Irizar PBs will be 05- and 55-reg, they have been refurbished & repainted by Plaxton and have only 41 new leather seats, which gives a generous seat pitch by any standards, especially for those using laptops via individual power sockets with free wi-fi. They all feature climate control. It’s as well that the Scanias are far more exciting and modern than their Stateside counterparts. The nightmare vision of fluted aluminium Greyhound trim as once popular in America did not turn into reality.
Greyhound UK will be good for the profile of the coaching sector. UK coaching desperately needs a higher recognition. Greyhound has really got the UK and international media thinking, including newspapers national and regional. And we thought August was a slow news month. Or perhaps *because* it’s a slow news month, it has become quite a talking point and guarantees the brand a good initial reception. They will probably stand out more than the plain white of National Express (16 departures from Southampton to Greyhound’s 10) and the once-a-day Megabus services. Expect the brand to roll out elsewhere, in 2010. Why else would First Group appoint a Greyhound UK managing director and why else chose someone of Alex Warner’s pedigree? It can only mean expansion.
First & the media have pushed the American iconic nature of Greyhound. The English public won’t see the tarnished side of America’s Greyhound Lines, a service subject to some readjustment since First took it on but also much investment. Greyhound has progressively become the American carrier of the less wealthy and the migrant worker. Greyhound UK appears pitched at more upmarket user, especially motorists, though to suggest Greyhound isn’t after rail, Megabus or NatEx passengers might be a little disingenuous.
We do wonder whether belting along the M3 is quite as romantic or poetic as some of the long distance American routes.
Thursday, 20 August 2009
And they say August is a Slow News Month…
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13 comments:
It will be interesting to see if First can make Greyhound UK live up to the hype, especially with the somewhat shabby nature of most of the group's operations along the south coast!
The Greyhound may have landed but it has yet to tell me. Having registered on their site for developments I have not had any communication from them. However, having gone to greyhounduk.com it is a simply laid out site with a certain touch of class.
The front page displays the 'from' prices of £1.00 + booking fee. It is only after you actually try to make a booking you discover that they will add 50p. Surely a bit of transparency would not go amiss here, particularly as it is the same booking fee as Megabus. National Express do not, as yet, have a fee as long as you print your own ticket.
They have brought across the rewards idea from the US and so, on my fifth roundtrip from Portsmouth to London I will get one leg free. It appears that if I have carefully bought legs at £1.00 I shall still be able to travel on a leg priced at £4.30 (the next fare up) for nothing, but I will have to wait and see how it actually works out. The Ts & Cs are in friendly english but do seem to contradict themselves on occasion.
Presumably, having lost so many National Express contracts, they have coaches available. Portsmouth is a good place to start as the competing rail is not a fast journey and so it is more direct competition with NatEx. There aren't too many of these routes available so it will be interesting to see what the next route will be. Presumably, at least at the beginning, it will be from a First base.
Apart from occasional forays, such as British Coachways, and the particular exception of Oxford, there has not been much by way of service coaching competition despite a quarter of a century or so of deregulation. It seems almost bizarre that, in some cases, both National Express and Megabus vehicles operate out of the same depot.
The development of the internet and the use of revenue control software has enabled the growth of Megabus and also the way in which National Express now sells itself. Having had £1.00 Nat Ex Funfares these went up to £5.00 but it will be a simple matter, if not a pleasing financial result, to put them back down again.
As Omnibuses has pointed out Greyhound will need to present a rather soft image of Greyhound, based on its perceived place in American folklore, if it wishes to develop the brand as a serious alternative to National Express.
This is possibly unfortunate timing to start the 'creaming off' Greyhound operation. First concentrating on coaches to compete, rather than local services underlines the lack of sensible competition on the road. Indeed, the article cites another such operation planned for Plymouth.
So at a time when there is an investigation into potential market failure, one of the largest companies starts to offer increased frequencies, cheap fares etc. At the same time in areas where it has no competition, prices are increased above inflation, while services are reduced. Commentators might wonder how you can travel London to Portsmouth in an air conditioned leather seat with plenty of leg room for less than the price of most standard single bus fares where if you get a seat you might be knee deep in strewn Metros.
Using just the word Greyhound keeps the door open for it to easily become National Greyhound or Greyhound Express perhaps,or have First given up trying to buy Natex Group ??
Metroman..you have obviously never come across yield management fare systems before..Ryanair and the like use it !
Seems First need to fix their North American Greyhound service first:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2009/08/20/greyhound-cold-fine.html
I've booked my first return to London at £1 each way - Anon2 is correct that it will cost me more to get 4 miles to the stop than the trip to London. Looking forward to an enjoyable trip with plenty of space to spread out !!!
Once again you're hot with the news, but who are you? I'm sure we mere readers have been told but who is the industry stalwart behind the Omnibuses front? On a separate note may I commend you for your correct use of the singular when referring to operators. There are still too many lazy writers, in the national press, on the Manchester buses blog, and in many other places, who will insist on writing 'First are', and National Express are'. These are singular organisations and the correct use of English is 'First is' and National Express is'. Lazy writing is just another example of how standards are falling. Oh well, off to find a Metrobus.
Sloppy journalism indeed. I picked up the "news" on the Sky News web page (yes, I know, what did I expect?) to be greeted with "Iconic American Greyhound buses will travel on UK roads".
Of course, the UK versions are anything but American buses (and certainly not British), but Joe Public could be forgiven for thinking that the old aluminum sided beasts would be see pounding the M3
To be fair, First has improved the US brand of Greyhound tremendously (I cannot comment on the Canadian business). Those previously mentioned beasts will shortly be a thing of the past, if not already.
I love American "coaches" and would rather travel on a "built like a brick outhouse" Prevost than an Irizar. Just my opinion.
I am aware of yield management and how this affects fares. Indeed this has been a tremendous growth area on the railways, mirroring the success of low quality/cost airlines. Now that times are hard on the railway, those same advance fares are used as a source of complaint, normally along the lines of I cannot book 2 years in advance for a particular train, so it costs £3k for a single. To the bystander, it does appear that these tickets are becoming harder to find, but that might be a reflaction on their popularity.
The point that I was trying to make, badly it would seem, is that there is the launch of a higher quality (potentially) lower fare operation to attack existing operators at the same time that operators are under invstigation for not engaging in such activities in the local bus market.
Indeed the local market cannot use yield management due to the large number of passengers who do not meet the full cost of their fares, even before issues of booking etc arise.
Another area that worries me is the introduction of another American 'icon'. Just because it is American, it does not necessarily equate to good. This was tried previously with the American yellow school buses.
Reading about Greyhound, they are now equated with travel for the poorest from shabby stations at low speed. This does not appear to be the market that First are aiming for here.
Looks like Stagecoach are gearing up already for competition. A press release today (Friday 21.08.09) states among other things:
"Due to growing demand, the company today launched a brand new cross country service between Cardiff and Newcastle, via Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. The new route will ensure passengers are better connected through the megabus.com network than ever before.
Stagecoach has invested almost £4 million in a fleet of new vehicles to provide improved capacity and comfort on megabus.com journeys from London to Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool and Cheltenham, as well as on cross country journeys between Portsmouth, Southampton, Winchester, Oxford, Coventry, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.
The new state-of-the-art vehicles include 11 Plaxton Volvo inter-urban coaches and four Van Hool Astromega double deck coaches.
In response to passenger demand, frequency is also being increased on the following megabus.com routes:
* Leeds-London
* Cardiff-London
* Portsmouth-Leeds
Within the new timetable, megabus.com has also committed to run services on Christmas Day and New Year's Day when passengers will be able to travel between London and Newcastle, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Coventry, Cardiff, Newport, Bristol, Swindon and Reading."
Can't see this lasting too long. Like most things that First touch, it's a good idea in theory but in practice most of their ideas usually fall down not much later.
How long before poor maintenance standards rear their head and tatty coaches appear - any spare Bristol VRs still available?
A trip time of 1 hour 59 minutes, even in the off peak, seems very unlikely...
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