Came across a whole page of competition oddities, yesterday, where passengers had outlined how crazy some of the bus industry practices seemed to them. The pressure group the Campaign for Better Transport (Transport 2000) claimed a victory in forcing through changes in competition law that could make many of them a thing of the past.
Take a look at the 20 or so accounts of local situations and you have to admit they don’t make much sense. We’d like to take issue, though, with one Ian Graham, regarding his view of competition in the south Dorset conurbation.
May be other readers can comment on their own particular local areas as to whether or not the campaign site is telling the truth, the whole truth, or just a part of it.
“In Bournemouth-Poole we have a ridiculous ‘bus wars’ situation. Two companies are competing with each other over the profitable routes, with absurd results”That’s resulted in a level of competition second only to the ‘quality competition’ in Oxford. It’s raised the bar, driven up standards and resulted in significant ridership increases. This isn’t operators chasing each other then leaving large gaps, but each offering something different. There’s never been more choice or more buses. The region’s premier operator and the other decent one both offer a frequent service at special offer fares (but which is which?). Nothing absurd about it.
“There are now frequent services, totally beyond what is required, over a few routes (some having up to 17 buses an hour each way, which were previously quite adequately served by a 15-minute service)”Facts, please. On the ‘traditional’ longstanding routes over the competitive sections (Poole-Bournemouth; and Bournemouth-Boscombe) rather than buses to this newfangled shopping mall Castlepoint, buses were always far more frequent that every 15 minutes, even before deregulation. And who’s to say that 22 buses per hour between Poole & Bournemouth’s “totally beyond what’s required”? If the market can bear such a frequency, that’s surely to everyone’s benefit.
“But at the same time, both companies have been cutting back elsewhere”True, Wilts & Dorset’s longer distance network’s become unstitched but that would’ve happened regardless. W&D’s concentrated on other non-competitive urban services and invested, though critics do see a tendency towards core, strategic services. Outside the urban heart of Poole-Bournemouth & Salisbury, it certainly has less of a robust network. Transdev Yellow Buses has nevertheless maintained a positive growth strategy. What both have done—to their and the public’s benefit—is simplify. The former Hants & Dorset used to operate five distinct direct routes twixt Bournemouth & Poole. Now, that’s down to 1½.
“Certainly in Bournemouth, there are now large areas of the town without evening or Sunday services”Really? Large areas?
I guess the flaw in the argument that Bournemouth is like Oxford is simply that Oxford is now showing some signs of collaborative working. Not so in Bournemouth. Not yet.
i Examples of disjointed services from the Campaign for Better Transport
6 comments:
The simple fact is that you would have found just as many examples of 'disjointed services' in the good old regulated environment pre-1986. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with competition, but in many cases would appear to arise from the realities of the complexity of operating some buses on short, urban services, while others are travelling to places further afield. And, yes, shock, horror, sometimes these buses were and are operated by different companies.
In Bournemouth in 1970 there were yellow buses and green buses, and even a few red ones, and I seem to recall the green ones sometimes had notices on the front stating that they were 'not on service' for users of the yellow ones! Those same green buses sometimes came to Southampton sporting those notices, which no doubt confused the locals there even more. I suppose we have to be thankful that there was no internet in those days, otherwise it would have been filled with comments about how stupid that situation was!
Or is it just that the only lesson we learn from history is that we never actually learn anything from history?
Some of those comments, I suspect, are a few years old, witness the reference to forthcoming all-England concessionary passes.
The whinge about Stagecoach in Portsmouth is odd - the services IMX are definitely anything but 'infrequent', they're less frequent evenings and Sundays... naturally but Stagecoach don't do Portsmouth town services (is that what the poster wanted?), they're all variations of services to/from Havant.
Most of the complaints don't seem to be so much about on street competition etc, more about (non)inter-availability of ticketing.... so nothing new there, then!!
your 'collaborative working' is my collusion: profit maximising integration.
Whether this is better for the passengers or not is another matter. Oxford's case is about being better for the city centre's shopping environment.
One quote:
"There are a number of problems with buses from Englefield Green, Surrey. The 41 goes from Slough to Staines via Englefield Green."
No... that's the 71
The gentleman of Portsmouth complaining about lack of interavailability of tickets between Stagecoach and First has obviously never heard of the multi operator Solent Travelcard valid in day and week form - just the kind of ticket made possible by the changes in competition legislation the CfBT campaigned for!
Have a look at Thirsk, North Yorks with services operated by Smiths and Procters: the irregular 146 & 151/2/5 are basically all parts of the same route, yet the timetables are so convoluted as to put people off. The council's summary timetable throws up the next problem: most of the route 70 buses are operated by Procters (ex Arriva), who don't have any ticket agreement with Smiths - even though Smiths operate the peak-hour buses to/from Northallerton!
The school services make little sense either - both the 840H and 841H exclusively serve villages whose only year-round public transport is a market day taxibus, yet only one allows fare-paying passengers. Yes the 841H serves a primary, but then so does the 853/4/6/7 ...
http://www.johnsmithandsons.net/30620/info.php?p=9&pno=0
http://www.northyorkstravel.info/pdf/Thirsk_Busby_Stoop.pdf
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