Stepping In

It’s not unheard of. Local transport authority feels the pinch and selects services or journeys from which it wishes to withdraw. Operator decides to take on the risk commercially. Everyone’s happy. And with more & more LTAs contemplating budget savings, they will no doubt be hoping that operators will step in.

Operators who do this sort of thing don’t do so for nothing. There needs to be a reason and these can be:

• Commercial potential


• Revenue already or nearly covering costs—a modest fares increase may be enough


• Keep out competitor who might register commercially


• Keep free travel revenue, if significant


• Fitting in something marginally that otherwise leaves a gap in operation


• To garner goodwill


• Preventing the resultant gaps leaving a disjointed timetable


• To protect jobs.

Transdev Yellow Buses is doing just that on its 2B (Bournemouth-RBH-Kinson). Except that in this case, TYB’s stepping from 1815 on Sundays and 2000 on weekday evenings and only then over the supported section, between the Royal Bournemouth Hospital and Kinson. This is after Castlepoint shopping centre has largely shut. Revenue’s likely to be at its lowest.

Why? Altruism? It takes one bus and driver at these times.

“We have looked at this from a customer perspective and will be doing our utmost to keep the service going on weekday and Sunday evenings. However, the true test is whether passengers vote with their feet and use the services. We will keep a close check on numbers and review our involvement in late Spring.” What’s likely to change between now and then? Can it really expect more people to vote with their feet? If TYB decides to pull the service next year, the negative publicity falls on the operator, not council, and it undoes all the good publicity it now gets.

“In the meantime we are approaching local companies and organisations to see whether [any] will partner with us in order to ensure the long-term future of weekday and Sunday evening services.”

Now, here we have an interesting statement. This could mean the 2B but it also could be construed to mean other routes. It might imply such evening and Sunday evening services are marginal across the board which, of course, they mostly are, more so in Bournemouth's winter. My experience of trying to find partners to secure services results in enthusiasm in principle but absolutely nothing in practice. Even if a partner were to be found, the result is often fragile and short-lived. If the council doesn’t step in, no one else is likely to. We know that Bournemouth council places its priorities on maintaining weekday, daytime buses. There are mercifully few supported services in Bournemouth—much is commercial, a higher proportion of mileage than in many similarly sized towns.