Not all seems to be well in Newport, Wales. The suspension of Newport Transport’s relatively new managing director last week and his resignation on Friday brings with it an air of uncertainty. Everyone’s being tight lipped as to the reasons why. So, what’s going on?
For one thing, there’s been a bus war with Cardiff Bus, on its joint 30 Cardiff-Newport service. It apparently started when Cardiff Bus refused to honour Newport Bus’ Passport smartcard and has escalated since, as Newport Bus will not accept the Cardiff Bus equivalent. Cardiff Bus might have cited a lack of notice and the bringing of a new product to market in an unready state.
Newport Bus is reported to have wheeled out extra resources to duplicate Cardiff Bus service 30 journeys, on the strength that Passport passengers would otherwise be disadvantaged. Cardiff Bus did not retaliate.
And all this was on top of the launch of the X30 direct limited stop Cardiff-Newport service, operated standalone by Newport Bus. Was this another unilateral action on Newport Bus’ behalf? Or did Cardiff Bus judge revenue potential to be poor? Yet, Newport Bus has recently increased its service from every 30 to every 20 minutes.
Another issue is that Newport Bus wanted to cancel an order for half a dozen MAN/Wrightbus Meridian single decks but Wrightbus refused to play, as the vehicles were all but built. Discussions appear ongoing and the latest seems to indicate that the vehicles will now be sold, with Newport Bus making up any losses.
On the plus side, Newport Bus has been applauded for its March 2010 onwards marketing campaign called “You’ll be surprised who you might see…”. Though there’ve been critics about the adoption of the parallel starker green and white livery & logo relaunch, the activity tries to emulate the sort of success achieved by Brighton & Hove’s “I’m on the bus”, of course using local Newport people instead. A lack of web updates is compounded by an offline site pending a major overhaul.
What’s quite telling is an announcement by Cardiff Bus late last week that from next week the impasse on the 30 regarding Cardiff Bus’ and Newport Bus’ smartcards is now resolved. Each will honour the other’s. It seems peace is about to break out again along South Wales’ M4 corridor.
Monday, 13 December 2010
Newport City Trauma
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7 comments:
One for Mr Souter's, seemingly bulging, cheque book?
Doubt it, unless the coalition government has abolished all the mergers and competition authorities which dislike Stagecoach so much!
So Mr Blyth has gone? Oh well that will be another leaving party he won't be invited to!
A change of M.D. has brought about a change for the better for Newport Transport,
Besides "common sense" being applied to the smartcard "race" initiated by Newport, they are also re-instating routes past the railway station, dropped four years ago due to road works and never reinstated.
I find Stagecoach's involvement in South Wales a little odd.
They have the monopoly of the valleys and run enough services into Cardiff and Newport to be the 2nd biggest bus provider in both. Yet they haven't been able to command regions as First have been able to in Swansea and West Wales.
There are a number of local companies in competition with Stagecoach in the valleys, though they all accept the cross-operator Network Rider tickets. First have tended to force their way through and demolish any opposition. I rate Stagecoach's operation a million miles better than First.
Though it would never happen, I reckon Stagecoach should invade Bridgend, giving it routes into Cardiff from the west, through Ely and Canton, the only major areas of the capital where it currently doesn't operate. That would give Stagecoach a huge Cardiff operation and a much larger platform.
Bridgend is a town that tends to look towards Cardiff and the valleys, rather than west to Port Talbot, Neath and Swansea, and if Stagecoach held Bridgend, it would have benefits to its other operations in the area. Certainly First's reputation in Bridgend seems not to be that high.
Duplication on the Cardiff service has now ceased and the much delayed MAN single deckers have now been received and are being prepared for service.
Re Eric 14th Dec. Where do you find Stagecoach to be competing directly with other operators in the valleys? The only example I can think of is with Veolia on the Aberdare - Cardiff route (and that's only happened recently on the Aberdare - Pontypridd route). Also by saying there is competition in the valleys directly contradicts the statement in your first paragraph which claims Stagecoach have a monopoly in the valleys!
Conversely, First in their respective area have just put up with competition. For example the Neath commercial routes started by 2 Travel, now operated by the new South Wales Transport Co and doing a roaring trade evidently as their vehicles are newer than First's! The only competition First have seen off is the couple of services Veolia inherited from Hawkes Coaches (but seeing as Veolia rarely know what they're doing, that was no surprise).
It wouldn't make sense for Stagecoach to storm Bridgend as it would be a lot of effort for not much gain. Stagecoach's style in this area is to purchase 'bolt-on' operations to bolster what they already operate. To me it would make more sense for them to take over the faltering eastern operations of Veolia. I think they'd do a good job if they took over Cardiff or Newport too, but that would probably turn into another Preston saga.
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