Passenger Contact

There are times when I travel by bus as a passenger, to get from A to B. Always alert, I will pick up on any concerns or issues. I will intervene, for example, if passengers are having a moan by explaining who I am and trying to put matters right. If the bus isn’t one of mine, I pass on anything serious.

Then there are other times when I try to sample the bus for no other reason than to meet customers/passengers. This is always valuable and often quite revealing.

During the summer, I met with an older gentleman who had a list of minor gripes. He stated he was aware that disabled people with only one arm could drive a specially adapted car. Was it true that we employed a driver with one arm and that we had made appropriate changes to one of our buses?

In my mind, I recalled a story I’d been told some years earlier of a former northern municipal operator that’d either adapted a bus for one of its drivers or retained an older, life-expired one well after its “sell by date” because it better suited a particular driver. This, apparently, was upon the insistence of the union. To me, the story sounded a little like an urban myth because what happened when the driver was on spare or when he had to make a crew change or when the special bus was off the road. But we can all look back at times when unions made occasional off-the-wall demands.

Back to my passenger. Well, I should’ve seen it coming. When I said “no” we had no one-armed drivers, he immediately asked why did we countenance drivers driving with one hand on the wheel, then. An interesting point. The gent went on to say that during the June hot weather he’d even witnessed a driver eating an ice cream while at the wheel. He could give no date or time.

What was even more worrying was what I saw immediately I got off the bus. Coming towards me was a single deck with a driver with one hand on the wheel and the other limply on the cash tray. We were between stops and all I could do at the time was give the driver one of those Paddington Bear hard stares in the hope that he would remember it latter…

Prediction

It looks a bit like how I might imagine parts of the Competition Commission’s market inquiry to be, when they’ve concluded and eventually published in 2012. Except it’s a report by the Local Government Association out this month.

The report’s front page features that old chestnut, the Routemaster, the image that the industry just can’t shake off. In fact, there are two of them. Within, there’s even a picture of a Metrobus Mk 2. Nothing cutting edge and perhaps they are trying to make a point. At least the third and final image of is a SLF, albeit a W-reg ALX400.

The LGA report points to out of control subsidies accounting for 60 per cent of turnover, plus no local control of the service itself… yet passenger growth is static. What to do?

“Any attempt to control increases in spending on bus subsidy must go hand-in hand with system change” is one very interesting sentence. Let’s remember the underlying reason behind that mid-1980s “system change” from regulation to deregulation. At the time, controlling subsidy was the very motive for the Transport Act 1985. And rather successful it was, too, at the time. So, do we have a case of what comes around goes around?



It’s rather difficult to dismiss the logic in the report. If you accept that free travel is a subsidy (actually, it isn’t), then by rolling all the various financial assistance that make up the 60 per cent of turnover into one and giving local control under an agreement may seem sensible. At least that way, we’d have no fear of BSOG payments per passenger that might threaten rural networks.

People ask the question, why are bus services such emotive subjects in the local media when compared, say, to the railway or to other service industries. One answer is that trains operate on a closed, regulated system and are strategic not local in nature. Buses are the very fabric of an area, a natural monopoly and there’s a more intimate relationship between the bus service and its local people.

But the main answer is that even after 24 years of deregulation & privatisation, the bus service is still viewed as a public asset. There’s been a link between local control and operations ever since municipalities bought out the trams. Concessionary travel started as a way of ensuring trams (and later motor buses) filled off-peak capacity, while givig a guaranteed income. Some rural bus routes were subsidised as long ago as 1968, whole networks from 1974 and most people even today still believe their bus service is local transport authority driven. Little wonder, then, that the report calls for increasing control wrested from operators and given to local people trough their LTAs.

i LGA report

Final Visit

Since the council’s sale announcement, Omnibuses’ Northern Corespondent has periodically reported from Chester. NC makes one last visit to see the fruits of the Blacon Pointer, stable successor to the Arriva/First battle royal

It’s impossible during one visit to say whether there are more people travelling on the Chester-Blacon 1/1A/15 services. I would strongly suspect there are. But it was immediately obvious that there are many more people on each bus. Significantly more.

Of course, that’s not surprising as there are now fewer buses. The Arriva/First Blacon Pointer quality partnership has resulted in a reduction in mileage on what is Chester’s killer route. A sensible frequency of a bus every 10 minutes in each direction plus inter-availability of tickets seems to have brought with it many merits: cost savings, face savings, and fuller buses.

And fuller buses send an self-affirming message to passengers that the service upon which they travel is valued by them and this in itself leads to a virtuous upward spiral.

Arriva’s refreshed its three-year-old investment in new buses with new livery repaints and a more modern “Chester City Bus” sub-brand, dispensing with the stylised rearward Roman soldier.

And alongside Arriva’s investment, First has significantly upped its game. First brings to the party a fleet of 09-reg Volvo B7RLE/Wrightbus Eclipses with leather seats and double buggy bays. These are late of the X64 Leeds-York service, a year long once competitive though failed push against Transdev Yorkshire Coastliner. Withdrawn in August 2010, the X64 forced Transdev to up its game still further and reduce its fares.

But, unlike in a truly competitive environment or where an operator has sole rights on a route, First can’t reasonably exploit its leather seat advantage in a quality partnership of two operators. In any case, is leather the right fabric for a short city-to-suburb service? Would they be better placed on, for example, the other First 1, the Chester-Liverpool? This, of course, may also find itself the subject of a partnership.

Publicity trumpets what seems like a good deal for the travelling public. In truth, it’s noting more than the public expects, anyway, viewing the bus service as a public asset and all that. Given that everyone wins—council, operators, public, Blacon residents seeing fewer buses drifting round—in recessionary times, could this sort of arrangement be the future for so-called warring bus operators?

Livery

The routeONE trade mag is again running its livery competition. This year sees 304 entries, 171 of which are coaches, 69 minibuses and 64 buses. There’s a bit of a crossover between the three categories as, for example, some of the entrants might look like double deck buses but they are actually used on school or private hire contracts as “coaches” (and some appear to have coach seats). Likewise, it’s sometimes difficult to categorise a “minibus” when legally such vehicles carry between nine and 16 passengers. Whatever.

We’ve mentioned before trends especially in coach livery design (e.g. over a quarter of all entrants, especially coaches & minibuses, are either dealer stock white or based thereon). But it’s on bus liveries I want to focus.

Where a large group has entered, they’ve chosen one-off, special liveries. There are simply no standard liveries from the Big Three: no Arriva inter-urban, no First Barbie and no Stagecoach standard Beachball. Yet, these particular three make up considerable numbers of PSVs on the road.

What does this say? That these liveries are so ordinary and everyday that we don’t really notice them any more? That they blend into the streetscape? That they are now lacking in imagination? That they are so universal as not to connect with the local population & environment they service? Surely if no other liveries were submitted these should be.

Take Arriva. It has two entrants. One is an ex-London Arriva Midlands Citaro bendy bus for its UNIlinx service that parodies Arriva’s interurban livery but in apple green rather than aqua. As such, it stands out as rather fresh, though its widespread adoption of livery might seem a little ordinary. And there’ an open top Bristol VR of Arriva Buses Wales, largely in Arriva pre-inter-urban but substituting yellow for creamy Cotswold.

The sole Stagecoach entry is its North Devon Wave service 21 livery, a two-tone blue variation of its standard beachball design.

East Yorkshire’s conservative yet smart livery is not represented. Instead, EYMS chooses its non-standard X55 Petuaria Express. Even Southern Vectis has chosen to submit its Island Breezers open top blue & orange rather than standard fleet livery of modern greens.

London’s small Sullivan Buses is about as “standard” is it gets, the sole representative of the capital’s extensive red bus fleet. Even here, Sullivan chooses white relief around both deck windows, somewhat reminiscent of the early part of the century when white seemed popular (e.g. Transdev London). Western Greyhound shows off a vehicle in standard green, Nottingham’s Your Bus, Warrington’s and Delaine Buses are all similarly presented in their usual colours. Together, these represent but a handful of designs.

Lessons in English

Yesterday, yet another appearance on Radio 4 ahead of his BBC TV 4 series by Michael Wood, this time during the populist Saturday Live. Here, among a segment on a woman’s find of 32 Quaker bodies buried beneath her home, Wood talks of saving pointers to the past. In Wood’s own village, for example, they’re leaving a time capsule to let future generations know who we were.

Inside, it includes “even the bus timetables and the wheelie bin timetables”.

The use of the adverb “even” is interesting, in this context. It speaks of the totally mundane, unlikely, that which is taken for granted, or possibly the last thing that people might consider. But a bus timetable is at least as important when telling the future of our past as dropping into the capsule a Dinky model of the Ford Focus (reportedly our best selling car), the local newspaper, a Tesco Direct catalogue and a Lady Ga Ga’s musical bum (sorry, music album).

Generally, bus timetables aren’t intended as collectible ephemera. They aren’t designed to last more than six months. Their time passes quickly. Yet, they could easily be a snapshot of a particular time. But, could a future age determine something of life in 2010 simply from a bus timetable? In 50 years’ time, might people conclude that the bus service was more important to the community that it really was?

Better yet to include a free travel bus pass and a scholar’s season ticket along with the timetable, for these are two segments of the population who use the bus most.

Moving on, here’s another interesting adverb. You spend 10 minutes with a potential passenger on a difficult bus journey, from A to C via B. The connection’s awkward and complicated. The passenger needs to travel earlier than they’d really like to and arrives later than they need. The fares seem high. At the end of your help, they are unsure about the journey and say, “thank you, anyway”. It’s the “anyway” that gives them away, that you’ve been waisting their time and yours, though they are too polite to say so straight out.

Generations

It’s said that family businesses do well—coaching or otherwise—if they get to the fourth generation.

• The founding generation works hard and only sees real rewards towards the end of their tenure.


• The second generation sees how hard the first has worked in establishing, nurturing and developing the business, also working hard to build an even better one.


• The third generation hasn’t the benefit of watching first hand the original struggles and either treads water or lives off the fat of the business. Added to which there’s the possibility of realising assets in the form of a take-over. And, with the fall off in the numbers of family firms, many blame the relentless increase in regulations and red tape.

Following A levels, Delaine Buses Ltd of Bourne, Lincolnshire, sees an 18-year-old family member join the company. She is the sixth generation to do so. This is quite a remarkable continuity. The Delaine (as I think it used to be known) has a reputation for growing its own from school rather than relying on the voguish hiring of graduates and incomers. That it is such a respected and well known independent within the bus industry proves its resilience.

The Delaine has often bought East Lancs products, as in this 2006 Olympus on display at Euro Bus Expo 2006

There is an excellent summary of The Delaine’s history on its website. This 1930 historic throwback caught my eye:

“Following the introduction of regulation a licence to continue to operate excursions from Peterborough was refused by the Traffic Commissioner [plural,actually] on the ground that the dead mileage from Bourne was too great.”

The Delaine can trace its history to 1890, 120 years ago. As such, it must be one of the oldest independents in the industry. It services and flourished under both regulation and deregulation. I have endeavoured to find out whether it is, indeed, the oldest. It isn’t.

The furthest back I can go is to the operator by the name of Caelloi Motors of Pwllheli, Wales, dating back to 1851, about to celebrate 160 years, and in the same family. Whereas The Delaine is famous for its array of double decks on stage carriage and local bus work, Caelloi is rightly known for its top-flight fleet of executive coaches. In the early years of this century, it was an early investor in relatively short tri-axles, on the basis that axle weight limits would shortly change. The last of these have only recently departed, in favour of cheaper to run standard layouts. Caelloi also runs bus services.

70s

The 70-seat single deck school bus is dead. Long live the 70-seater.

The days of the UK derogation that allows the manufacture and use of high capacity 3+2 seated single deck school bus look numbered. And just when some local education authorities are investing in such vehicles (via contractors or their own fleets) as a way of dealing with elderly, unloved double decks.

The only people that seem to like double decks are the older pupils on them, who tend to sit upstairs. Parents mistrust them and schools hate them. All this, owing to the behavioural problems associated with the upper deck rear.

Over short distances, there can be no more efficient means of moving 74 pupils. They are relatively quick to load and unload. They offer generous seat pitches in an uncramped environment. Yet, they remain unpopular (and it isn’t really hard to see why).

The alternatives? More standard single decks or high capacity ones. Both solutions stretch LEA budgets and school bus bays. Now, it seems, the 70-seater high capacity single deck is dead in the water.

All except one. That’s the Fast Europe Scoler. The problem with standard 70 seaters is the ability to evacuate quickly and smoothly. Fast’s is the only one on the market with two service entrances, thereby overcoming the EU’s perceived weakness in clearing 70 seaters quickly.

It’s unsure how many LEAs will be able to afford brand new, as the age of public sector austerity kicks in next month. May be the balance will continue in favour of the double deck. Or may be more manufacturers will design their vehicles with a central passenger exit. One downside is that a mid-placed well with its steep steps from a high floor could be a problem area should students should miss their footing.

21 Years In

Remember Trevor Smallwood? He was the man who was *not* chief executive of First Bus/Group. Smallwood was, in fact, in charge of Badgerline Holdings, the first home-grown, post-privatisation supergroup-in-the-making. Except, of course, Badgerline merged with Grampian Regional Transport in 1995. Badgerline came to the party with about four times the vehicles and a different outlook and purchasing policy compared to GRT.

Indeed, Smallwood and his team had been quick to take advantage of managers who became owners whose resultant loan repayments became something of a burden. Smallwood scooped a number of them before using the merger with GRT to bow out himself. The result? First Bus (as was) and its GRT chief, Moir Lockhead. And the rest, as they say, is history… and yet, it’s Sir Moir’s turn to hang up his hi-vis jacket (as would befit a First employee).

From the Leon Daniels blog, a view of an equally famous person alongside Sir Moir. He is the one on the left having graciously lent his umbrella

You don’t get to the top of the UK bus industry without making both friends and enemies in equal measure. Some say Lockhead is unnecessarily abrupt, single-minded and stubborn. Others paint Lockhead as someone of great business & personal skill (see, for example, Leon Daniels’s tribute). Few reading this blog will have anything other than strong views about Lockhead and First, one way or the other. For example:

• There will be antipathy towards the Barbie livery, evolving from a simple “F” alongside individual subsidiary liveries, to Barbie for SLFs only, to full Barbie throughout.


• There will be those who look to Stagecoach’s alternative policies and regret the strong cuts & fares stance adopted by First.


• And then there are those who feel First should sell on its poorer performing bus subsidiaries, to allow others to develop them.

What’s actually the case is that the City loves Lockhead, for they perceive First as a stable rock in the UK transport sector. Added to which, we should not forget Lockhead presides over the UK’s biggest bus *and* rail operator, a hard and lonely place, and even though Stagecoach’s Brian Souter may disagree, this fact alone places Lockhead at the pinnacle of our industry, something recognised by Transit’s Power 50 two years running. No doubt this year’s will see Souter ascending.

And what of Tim o’Toole, catapulted to his position of First deputy chief executive just three months ago under First Group’s succession plan? Too early to tell but there might, just might, be some movement regarding the bêtes noir mentioned above.

As for Lockhead, his 21 years at the helm of GRT, Frst Bus & First Group, history may yet consider him to be one of the all time industry greats, alongside Sir Fredrick Wood, H C Drayton, Sir J Frederick Heaton and Barry Doe.

Unprecedented

All I’d say is that, as an industry, we’d better get it right, spot on, first time. If we are going to push ourselves by inviting motorists to take free journeys by bus, the product needs to be 100 per cent. No fluffs. No problems. No maverick drivers. No unswept vehicles. No management excuses.

Stagecoach, National Express, Go Ahead, First, Arriva and a number of other operators have all joined forces under Greener Journeys, an initiative launched this week to promote environmental sustainability. To date, it’s an unprecedented promotion available by just about every operator with clout. Never before has the industry clubbed together like this. The idea is simple: free tickets to dump the car, use the bus, reduce the carbon. And, motorists might even get used to what this week has also been proven to be a stress free method of commuting (at least when compared to driving a car. Not sure whether that applies to being a car passenger).

To ensure that the industry isn’t on the back foot, it’s chosen to emphasise two important and linked facets. The industry:

• Isn’t coming over as anti-car. It’s not suggesting it should replace the car.


• Aims to go for what is achievable. The bus cannot offer a reasonable alternative for all journeys but it can for many of them.

So, the campaign is saying *sometimes* you can’t beat the bus but that isn’t the case all of the time. It refers to journeys that *can* rather than *are* or *will* be better by bus. In other words, it talks realistically about the art of the possible.

Not everyone will agree, of course. In terms of achieving targets, though, the campaign suggests a modest conversion of one trip a month to the bus will be sufficient to see a billion fewer car trips over three years. “Sometimes getting the bus makes more sense than getting behind the wheel—so why not give it a go?”

Though it’s possible to enter to win 100,000 free ten journey tickets seemingly anywhere you live (save for London), Greener Journeys has selected three pilot, demonstration towns. Interestingly, one is Milton Keynes, arguably built for the car, a town that scored bottom of the recent car dependency survey and one with a *relatively* low percentage (38%) of the population benefiting from defined, frequent bus services. This seems a particular challenge for Arriva and the scheme organisers.

I’m just reminded of what was probably a massive foot-shooting exercise during the 1982 rail strike when we could’ve converted many people to coaching but didn’t. Now, we can’t afford to get this wrong.

i Greener Journeys

TUPE Surfacing at South Coast

Surfacing at the top of First’s Marc Reddy’s in-tray is a piggy-in-the-middle situation that might see his Devonian & Cornish drivers striking over the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) regulations or TUPE.

More than that, if the situation gets to arbitration or the courts, it will like as not have implications for the whole operating industry, especially in London, where contracts change hands daily (well, often).

In losing National Express contract work, First’s drivers were expected to TUPE across to new operator Park’s of Hamilton. So far, it would seem Park’s has refused and, although this now appears a matter less for First, First may bear the brunt of the dispute if the resultant threat of strike action at First takes place.

12 months ago, when First’s North Devon contracts transferred to Hookways, drivers TUPEd without any aggravation.

About a fortnight ago, First confirmed its latest management restructures. We now see the full-on amalgamation of First Devon & Cornwall with First Hampshire & Dorset with an HQ at Southampton. This is under managing director Reddy, also one of Transit magazine’s top young managers (just?!) under 40. First Cornwall Devon Dorset Hampshire will officially be known as First South Coast. Shades of Go South Coast without Devon, perhaps. When this was but a temporary expedient, we commented that Reddy had the largest patch in the business.

First also merged its west of England operation with its South Wales business, now known as First West & Wales. Stagecoach did the self same thing, merging its Gloucestershire & Wiltshire business formerly known as Stagecoach West with south Wales, in 2002, as Stagecoach West & Wales. Here, though, Stagecoach demerged shortly after, preferring a more local management structure more in line with the emerging English & Welsh politics.

Somewhat along the Arriva model, FWW will see First Cymu’s Tony McNiff in charge, with Justin Davies, who used to occupy the Cymru seat but now in Bristol, appointed as area MD for the West portion.

With Arriva and increasingly First having settled for amalgamations with regional and area managing directors, is this something that Stagecoach, too, will be forced to look at? Stagecoach’s model sees more local delivery but there might now be savings to be had and this is surely something Stagecoach can ill afford to discount in the Age of Austerity.

If Anyone Can

The Daily Mail reports today on what many of us will already know: that commuting by bus is less stressful than doing it by car. Leaving the driving to someone else and being able to do other things on board including just relaxing all make for a less stressed life.

University of Sussex research shows that commuters who drive even face hidden mental health problems, as stress related congestion & delays add to long-term problems.

Coupled with the economic downturn why, then, aren’t motorists abandoning their cars, en masse?

“I am looking forward to exciting times ahead at Stagecoach and being able to promote its services at a time when, because of the county’s economic difficulties, more and more people are considering public transport as a reliable, cost effective and flexible travel option.”

So said Stagecoach Yorkshire’s latest managerial recruit, the new marketing manageress, who previously worked for First.

Well, her statement sounds a little better than,

“I’ll spend my working life trying to manage decline.”

In spite of the Sussex message, for Stagecoach Yorkshire, growth may be either at the expense of First or probably not at all. Perhaps that’s an unfair statement because Stagecoach, of course, doesn’t sit on its hands when it comes to marketing. But the reality is that the economic downturn isn’t having the automatic impact on bus service growth that people like First’s Moir Lockheed first predicted. Optimistic assessments proved, well, optimistic. We trust pStagecoach Yorkshire is the exception that proves the rule but there’s little evidence that the proportion of car-bound commuting has slowed, even with fewer jobs around. Indeed, commuting by car seems to have shown an increase, albeit almost imperceptibly. Our flexible economy means that jobs at out of centre locations and at times awkward for buses.

When things get tough, it’s almost as if the car is the last thing people will give up. We saw this in the 1970, 1980s and 1990s recessions and we appear to be seeing it again, even in the teeth of the current depressive downturn. If through economic difficulties you’ve decided to rid yourself of your car, that doesn’t mean you will automatically find your way onto the bus. You probably will make fewer journeys by any mode and these will be just essential ones.

Stagecoach Yorkshire’s new recruit will therefore have something of an uphill struggle. She will need to work hard to make a perceptible difference. People aren’t tripping over themselves to use the bus. Then again, re-read her statement carefully and you’ll notice that she is carefully saying that “more and more people are *considering* using public transport”, not that they actually are. We all must nevertheless wish her well in converting possibles to actuals. If anyone can, Stagecoach can.

Perhaps the industry has a new opportunity to refocus on the benefits of travelling by bus: stress reduction and improved health. Early marketers used motivating text in the bus timetables of the 1960s urging us to take the bus to avoid parking and other stresses. Did anyone believe that? Now, we have the evidence to back it up.

i Daily Mail item

A Rare Publicity Puff

The Daily Telegraph now features a Business Club video all about Arriva Buses. Shot in the north west, it’s pretty much designed for beginners or those in the City less familiar with either Arriva or the bus industry. So when the makers trumpet Arriva’s investment in vehicles with “low level” access, they forget to point out that there isn’t any other sort. It also mentions a fleet restocking of some 950 new vehicles as if that’s something spectacular. Yet, in a business reliant upon buses, there needs to be fleet renewal.

Entitled “Partners on a Journey”, the video concentrates in part on local transport authority partnerships in an uncertain financial world. Arriva points out that it has restructured its business to focus more on relationships with LTAs. There’s an element of realism in that both sides point out they have slightly different goals and objectives and relationships can be strained but not unresolveable. The backdrop is Chester, benefiting from one of England’s first statutory quality partnerships although this is not specifically mentioned.

Arriva stresses the need to get the basics of service delivery right, pointing to a 93 per cent satisfaction rate in a customer survey of 18,000 passengers. And this, for me, is the most poignant aspect of the video. Arriva is steadily but surely getting on with the job. It’s unusual to see the fanfare of a video such as this. Unlike Stagecoach, Arriva somehow seems less in-your-face but in a quietly confident manner has taken remarkable steps nonetheless.

When you consider that this is a video for the business community, the two startling omissions are the lack of the worlds Bahn and Deutsche.

i Business Club video on Arriva Buses

Beyond the North Circular

With its “external” spiral staircase, lockable rear open platform and asymmetric front, the scale mock up of the new Wrightbus “Routemaster 2” Sreetmaster went on display to London’s media this week.

That London’s journos found themselves so far from the capital, in Ballymena, Ireland is itself quite interesting. Then again, Wrightbus knows how to look after its guests in tastefully appointed nearby hotels with collection and return from the airport. My guess is the reporters, who feel a little nervous beyond the North Circular, may still have missed home. In the excitement, BBC London’s reporter Tom Edwards misspelt “Ballymena”.

Wth all its media attention, the mock up seems to be saying that in spite of public sector austerity the project’s here to stay. Not that many Streetmasters will venture beyond the North Circular. Or will they? Wrightbus front-man Mark Nodder was upbeat about the interest “from other cities” that would lead to multi-million pound orders. From other cities? This is deregulated Britain, isn’t it? Cites and regions no longer specify their own purchases, operators do. Unless he meant international cities, of course.

Having attempted—and thus far failed—to update the Omnibuses’ favicon, for one day only and to prove that Blogger will let me change it to *something* even if this isn’t my own, note the London Transport roundel c/o tfl.gov.uk in the address bar (we trust). You may need to refresh by hitting F5.

Risky Future

Some operators responded that things were rosier since last year but a few more felt that they were not. Two thirds of operators reported that the recession had an impact on their businesses. One operator felt that bargain basement holidays were holding up but expensive, top flight programmes and completely slowed. Understandably, operators seemed to do better where recession was having less of an impact.

This is a 65 word précis of the routeONE industry survey, published yesterday. Companies & firms large and small took part, but mainly from the coaching sector. So much for the past. What about future concerns, in order of importance?

1. Cost of fuel

Over the past two years, we’ve seen fuel costs rise sharply, fall and rise again. At 8 mpg or less, this has a big impact on anyone’s business, even those smaller operators whose bread and butter is school work, where fuel tends to be a smaller proportion of costs. Hedging on the wrong side hasn’t helped some bigger operators. Where operators are locked into work that sees little opportunity of compensatory increases, fuel costs are a huge risk.

2. Councils spending cuts

These will affect those small operators who’ve developed a niche in subsidised local service provision. The extent is still very much unknown. Those who content themselves with school work might feel that they are OK but expect local authorities to look at polices to reduce discretionary elements. Another huge risk.

3. Length of recession

There are obvious concerns that businesses in the doldrums can only recover when there’s sufficient growth. And it’s difficult to plan in the current climate. Those operators who have an undiversified base relying on local transport authorities’ contracts may feel a “double dip”, even if the wider economy does not. Look back to the early-mid 1970s and early 1980s and recessions are very uncertainty times.

4. Unfair competition

This is an interesting one, coming in fourth, ahead of such things as ease of getting finance, cost of vehicle replacements, LEZ, the competition commission inquiry, driver recruitment & retention, Euro VI, VOSA standards, free travel, labour costs and insurance costs. It’s a combination of others seemingly using the recession to under-price for work and the usual small coaching chestnut of unlicensed vehicles pinching trade.

How many of these concerns can an operator control? Very few, if any. In reading what operators view as the future, there’s a sense of the downcast. All that operators can do is review expenditure, price correctly, try to serve as many diverse markets as possible… and hold on tight.

Low Car Dependency

So there *is* justice, after all. A year after Nottingham council joined the famous P.T.E.G., it’s revealed as the English city with the lowest car dependency. Proof if any were needed as to the good works of the P.T.E.G. This on top of the highest levels of public transport use outside London.

Don’t be fooled by the tram for, in spite of a significant and growing contribution, Nottingham Express Transit offers only limited coverage and the government’s pending spending review will probably put paid to any extension. Seriously, Nottingham is a success story thanks principally to its bus service.

• Nottingham City Transport’s managed to turn itself around, offering frequency and vehicle quality, plus accessibility via its more local links.


• Since after privatisation when Trent Barton first flirted with rainbow routes, it has become something of a benchmark in public transport. How the whole industry marvelled and talked about the way then plain Trent broke free.


• Upstart Premiere could so easily have become an also-ran but has demonstrated its ability to develop alongside its main rival, offering an almost equal service. There’s also Veolia and Your Bus.

And Nottingham satisfaction with bus usage is high. Expect continued investment with the workplace parking levy that also sets Nottingham apart. It’s this type of initiative that will help to keep Nottingham ahead in the low car dependency stakes. Indeed, a critical element has been pro-public transport polices, including presumption in favour of the city centre rather than an automatic growth in out of town retail. Supporting a strong city centre is likely to make public transport an option for many and reduce the possibilities for car use.

Nottingham has achieved the accolade ahead of London, in spite of the capital’s funds. Third came Brighton, even if people there don’t always recognise how good it is. Timed with the arrival of new hybrid Enviro 400Hs, congestion charge-less Manchester managed fourth place.

Bottom placed were Peterborough and Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes can only go in one direction and it does have a bit of an excuse, being designed around car-born mobility. Expect a future Bus Oscars winner as MK tackles this problem.

What about Peterborough, though? Wasn’t that supposed to be one of the three model councils specifically funded to reverse the number of car journeys?

Something for Nothing

Though I’m starting to worry a little bit about Steve Warburton of TAS on account of his seemingly unhealthy interest in little black dresses : ) he uses the garment in his recent 2,197-word blog post and, 10 days later, Coach & Bus Week article, to illustrate some differences between the retail and bus industry sectors.

Warburton talks of pricing. Shops will gradually reduce the price of their little black dresses over a period of months till they’re all sold. In rail/express/air, the reverse is true. Plan ahead and yield management gives you a cheaper fare. Turn up on the day and you pay much more. These sectors use pricing to manage peak demand: peak rail fares and rail weekend savers rather than supersavers come to mind.

And what of the bus industry? The school peak swallows considerable resources yet its passengers expect a discounted fare.

Research a couple of years ago suggested that parents are willing to pay no more than £1 per day return for a sub-3-mile trip in a brand new yellow bus. £40-£70 per day is nothing like adequate to keep a peak vehicle on the road, let alone a new one. It’s likely to be three, four or even five times that amount, depending upon cost and seating capacity (from 40 to 70).

Here, the economics of the bus industry would suggest that, unlike selling black dresses, there needs to be government intervention. Indeed, is Warburton unwittingly suggesting that the bus industry is so that there should be re-regulation?

Twice now, the DfT has considered the economics of yellow school buses, the second following the so-called yellow school bus commission. Twice the DfT has rejected the economics behind it. Which leaves parents and indeed society in a bit of a quandary. The parental school run seems here to stay, in spite of the benefits to everyone else of getting peak cars off the road. And with more and more local transport authorities considering discretionary elements of their transport policy, this could easily be exacerbated.

i TAS Blog Little Black Dress

No Sitting

I’m grateful to a reader from Wales who sent this picture of a sign above inward facing seats on a step Dennis Dart operated by South Wales Transport. The sign reads:

“These seats are not to be use on local authority contracted school journeys (they are not fitted with seat belts)”.

The local transport authority in question insists that belts are available for all its qualifying pupils. That’s fair comment and within the LTA’s rights to do so. Normally, this would apply to coaches, where seat belts might these days be expected as the norm.

But, what about retrofitting on an M-reg Dennis Dart? Are the flooring and seat frames strong enough to withstand the pressures in the event of a crash? As far as I’m aware, VOSA makes no assessment but at test will tug at the belts and check for belt damage.

And what about at other times? Weekends, for example, when pupils become young people travelling into town. Or when the bus is on service carrying fare-paying pupils travelling to school who aren’t the responsibility of the LTA.

It highlights the point that there’s potentially a two-tier system. If you live in a large city, likelihood is you’ll travel to school on a commercial bus service as part of the network and may even need to stand, whether you qualify for free transport or not. On a closed school contract, you have your seat and your belt.

Wonder whether the pupils actually wear the belts...

John in Brighton—again

The second of a Double Go Aheader.

The cheek of it. Later this month, Brighton & Hove wishes to increase its fares by 10p. This is apparently the first rise in more than two years. Even so, it gives the cranks who read the web version of the Brighton Argus motive and opportunity to swing at B&H in its 75th anniversary year. Here, we respond, in Honest John direct style (as in the Saturday Telegraph motoring column), as we did regarding the B&H bendy saga.

It has to be said that there appear no plans to increase the cost of season-type tickets and buying online reduces the cost per trip even further. News of the increase also comes with an expanded central zone that will reduce single tickets for many by 20p.

“After the morning rush hour they could operate most routes using a 16 seater minibus until the evening rush hour”

Costs to operate mileage between peaks is marginal and buying a applicative fleet of 16 seaters for use solely off-peak would have a crippling effect on fares. And the minute you are left behind, you’ll write indignantly to the Argus.

“Cut the number of NEW buses purchased if you need to save money”

And introduce the unreliability, poorer quality and lower environmental standards of an inferior, older fleet? That would be good for passenger ridership growth.

“I got on a bus fairly recently with the intention of travelling half a mile or so. When I was told how much to hand over for the price of a single, I changed my mind and walked instead. What a rip off”

B&H fares are no less costly than settlements of similar size. They offer a premier service. They reflect the investment in Brighton. One-off transactions will tend to be highest when compared to day or weekly tickets.

“What about the costs of trying to run a high intensity service without the demand. Brighton's streets are overrun with hundreds of buses that are barely half full most of the day”

When you see a lightly loaded bus, consider that there might be other parts of the route or parts of the day when they are fuller.

“Money could be saved by cutting the Roger French publicity budget”

False economy. Even more necessary when a company needs to make unpalatable decisions.

“How about them lowering their profit margin, just like a lot of us have had to do with our stagnating incomes in the face of inflation”

Margins are too low as it is, to sustain the industry beyond the short-term.

“During the day [the buses] are far too frequent and almost empty”

Well, I’m sure B&H would reduce frequency if it felt it would gain anything. It may yet come to that but imagine the furore were this to be the case. And the resultant loss of revenue would force up fares further.

“Of an evening there are hardly any [buses]”

And far fewer passengers, too. But even evening frequencies are good, in Brighton.

“My daughter tells me bus prices in London are cheaper than in Brighton and Hove”

Your daughter is wrong.

“When buying monthly or three monthly tickets, it works out at a fair price. But for those who just want to use once or twice a week it is a rip off as it is, let alone once it gets raised”

The shop equivalent you buying big versus small, one-off purchases. Or as the Southern Vectis blog put it well, the difference between PAYG and a contract phone.

“Maybe they should reintroduce advertising on buses. I know they stopped the advertising as they wanted their buses to look clean and cool, but it comes at a cost of higher fares”

And advertise the bus services’ competitors, perhaps?

“London single bus ticket with Oyster card: £1.20”

London day bus ticket cap with an Oyster Card: £3.90. B&H day ticket purchased online: £3. And London’s bus service is highly subsidised, to boot.

“My mum has to spend £3.60 a day just to get to work in the middle of Brighton. She spends £18 solely on bus fares a week.”

More fool her. Tell your mum to buy a weekly ticket online at £13. Saves enough for a week’s worth of newspapers to read on the journey. Or she might try to spend £3.60 a day keeping a car on the road.

“I buy my saver tickets online for £3 each which I still think is expensive compared to other places I visit.”

No it isn’t.

“I have to pay £69 for a 3 monthly bus pass for my [child] to get to school, and there is no return bus service from his school so he has to get 2 buses back home and this is called a service!!”

Poor dear. I had to change buses both morning & afternoon. I got home after 1700. Had Neighbours been on TV then, I would’ve been most miffed. As it was, I made great friendships on the bus. It was a great social space.

“I too tried to pay for a £3.60 ticket with a tenner and was told to get off the bus as the driver didn't have the change.”

Perhaps you should move to towns with customer-unfocused no-change policies and exact fares boxes.

“This bus service stinks, is over-priced, and people won't stand for it.”

As they used to say in the 1970s, “Come the revolution…”. Translated, this might mean re-regulation with its inherent costs.

More Paint

After nearly six years [2004 post] of highly intensive service, Wilts & Dorset is part through its programme of refurbishing its Volvo B7REL/Wrightbus Eclipse Urban cross-Bournemouth More M1/M2 fleet.

W&D states that it’s spending £100,000 on the refurbish-that-isn't which, at a little over £3,000 per bus, isn’t actually much. There’s no need for expensive interior replacements. The main improvement is the More 2 livery, which sees a lighter and less sombre blue. The plainer red rear swoop looks a little 1990s when compared to the attractive original rear leaf effect but the new livery is more practical, even if the buses look a little ordinary, indeed stark by today’s standards. They remind me of the version of Hants & Dorset red without the white stripe relief. And More’s two frontal red “ears” look slightly odd.

i Picture of More 2 livery here. (Images below are of More 1 livery)

Not the best shot but it does demonstrate the fading left when old vinyls need replacing

There’s absolutely no doubt that outwardly the buses were beginning to look a little tired. Actually, some of them were battle scarred almost from day one. Since 2009, there was vinyl fading following route and frequency changes. The buses’ red had begun to fade. Some panels haven’t matched.

W&D has replaced the original Stenning rear advertising with simpler messages. Going are the remaining inspired “Looks like a bus, Works like a dream” (fading) vinyls, and their associated fluffy bunnies, penguins, dolphins and butterflies. And gone, too, are the single side messages “More style, more comfort, more choice” in favour of a number of simpler but larger messages different on each side, such as “Enjoy more”, “More frequent” and “Get out more”.

What about More M5/M6? This on-off-on More service between Poole & Canford Heath is barely recognised by W&D as part of the More brand. It never gets the media exposure of its more successful Poole-Bournemouth-Boscombe/Castlepoint sibling. He M5/M6 certainly isn’t mentioned on the Morebus website. Not that the microsite’s been updated since 2009. And the repaints don’t even refer to Morebus.com at all, not that I can see. It seems that Morebus.com has joined the discarded flotsam without any particular use, now bobbing unattached around the web.

Change Dates—2

I felt it wise to pull down today’s planned post because it was t0o compromising. Here’s a late substitution.

Talking of change dates as we were this week, in the days of pencils, rubbers, paper car graphs and hand-written duty boards, it was not unknown at a duty change to find two drivers vying for the same departure, while a bus elsewhere had no driver. Or, a driver would be faced with a choice of two buses for his next turn.

No scheduler is perfect. Major duty changes and all the attendant work leave new schedules open to problems. They’re often easily resolved or, if not, involve getting the spare driver to plug the gap. Mercifully, the public rarely see any such problems other than a departure running a couple of minutes late. It would never happen with computer scheduling, now would it.

The other issue about a significant batch of changes, when this relates to route revisions as well, is that drivers will often report they cannot keep to time. Some or all of the route is optimistic in its point to point journey time. The driver becomes progressively late, the passengers complain to him, he eventually bites their heads off, and the situation has deteriorated.

My take on this is if, after a major route revision, a driver is keeping to time on Day One, the timetable is too slack. If too slack, it will mean future passenger and driver frustration as he stops at each timing point to keep to time. Day One blues often turn rosy within a couple of days, when drivers settle down and all then seems to e well.

Carry on Coaching

Alex Warner, the managing director of Greyhound, must be getting quite fond of his show dogs. Out they trotted with him again, this time in Cardiff, Wales, at the recent launch that anticipates the new Greyhound Swansea-Cardiff service from 20th September 2010. And this hot on the heels of the expanded X30, from the east.

Meanwhile, with First’s press release, it gave the local south Wales media the opportunity to role out the now predictable puns about Greyhound. And Warner referred to reversing the "Carry On film Kenneth Williams type" of passenger image, a reference perhaps to NatEx

“New” it certainly isn’t, for there’s an existing First Shuttle 100 coach service between the two, that Greyhound will replace. Indeed, the current Shuttle 100 is perceptibly more frequent at peak, and Greyhound actually sees a modest diminution in service. Passengers in future will need to wait for an hourly peak departure pattern as opposed to one from 1415 ex-Swansea onwards at 45-minute intervals. New hourly’s memorable, though, but the service finishes earlier under Greyhound.

So, is this slight of hand? What better way of hiding the fact that there are fewer journeys. What Greyhound will do is give the service a stronger presence, differentiating it from the train and from National Express. NatEx has as many departures but Greyhound will be more visible in shuttling between the cities whereas passengers may perceive NatEx as carrying over longer distances, beyond Cardiff, including London. And guess who operates these? First!

And Greyhound will stand out when compared to the existing Shuttle, though don’t expect Scania PBs. No longer will the substantially white coaches blend in with everything else in Swansea that isn’t either the FTR Metro or the Orange uni-service. So, that’ll be three Swansea routes in other than in corporate Barbie or variant thereof. There’s a thought that might catch on. Or not.

Swansea-Cardiff is somewhat different to the existing Greyhound services that link the Solent, Portsmouth and Bournemouth with London. The distance is less than 50 miles, for one thing. The route is more limited stop than express. The focus isn’t on the capital (well, on *a* capital). And there remains the inclination to turn up & pay rather than book an online bargain that comes with Greyhound territory.

Greyhound also states that if this project takes off, it will consider the market between South Wales and the west of England. A sort of 21st century Express West (for those who remember it). Express West was equally transformational in the late 1970s, building upon the very ordinary Bristol Omnibus/Red & White 300/301s between Cardiff, Newport, Chepstow and Bristol, at the opening of the first Severn crossing in 1966.

And what about Greyhound from South Wales to London? That might be a step too far for First in antagonising NatEx.

Directory Enqurires

Though they may seem odd anniversaries numerically, it seems Barry Doe is celebrating 27 years since his first bus-rail guide and nine since his directory of bus timetables transferred to the web. Does this make Doe the country’s most consistent and longest standing purveyor of bus-related information?

Doe tells of his initial meetings back in 1983 with the National Bus Company that spawned hundreds of timetables through his letterbox and they’ve been arriving ever since. I wonder what the postmen of the Winton (Bournemouth) royal mail delivery office think.

His initial list of published timetables was specifically for the NBC whose executives had a grasp of neither their constituent subsidiaries’ publications nor their individual styles. You cannot imagine today’s big groups being so blasé or inconsistent. Different world, back then.

Doe advertised the widely available document a year later and the rest is history. Now on the web, it shows that there’s still some demand for people who want information on how to get a printed timetable or leaflets in their hand. This does seem slightly strange: if you’re online anyway, why not visit each operator’s web sites and print off timetable information, there and then. In other words, you can cut out the middleman, in this case, Doe.

But no, as of 0659 this morning, Doe’s site has seen 355,743 visitors. We’re not sure whether this spans the entire nine years (an average of 39,500 per annum) or not. We have previously commented Doe gets 1,000 visitors a week. This counts those arriving at Doe’s HTML landing page. It cannot count those accessing his PDFs, the remainder of the site. Not a fan of the sluggish way in which PDFs load, it doesn’t seem to perturb those who wish to visit Doe’s site.

We’ve also suggested that the site gets a Dreamweaver makeover. No sign of that yet. Perhaps its regular readers prefer function over form. And Doe could quite nicely add weblinks to make the site really useful. As Doe points out, the site’s links point only to home pages and not directly to the timetables themselves.

i Barry Doe site

Change Dates

Many a bus service changes in September. September’s a really good month to make those changes. Everything’s back to normal after the summer break and seasonal services, where relevant, have finished. There’s an expectancy about the month. May is another good month in which to make service revisions, aligned as it often is with a major uplift in summer traffic.

If the public has one gripe about bus service change dates, though, it’s that they come along too frequently. There’s a general perception of impermanency, perpetuated by timetables without an end date or various leaflets alongside each other in the rack, all with different start dates. This will no doubt form part of the evidence from local transport authorities to the Competition Commission’s current market testing of the bus industry. While operators need flexibility, especially in a competitive situation, multiple change dates are not in their best interests, either. LTAs have tried to tie operators down to specific change dates, say no more than six per annum, with varying degrees of success. In the public’s eyes, even six is probably seven too many.

There are periodic calls for the bus industry to align itself with rail change dates. At least here there are only two. In theory, a joint change date makes sense, as the public can have a clear understanding of when an operator will change a timetable. But this is just too limiting, both in terms of making positive changes that help bus passengers and in aligning supply with demand. While bus-rail interchange is clearly important, the too markets are somewhat different and will remain so. The regulated needs of rail with its complicating pathing are so very different from the deregulated needs of commercial bus operators.

The now slavish following of continental rail change dates by British rail has put paid to a co-ordinated bus/rail change date. While 23rd May 2010 is no bad day to revise bus services, it ignores Easter. The problem comes at the other end, when rail services change in mid-December. Commercially, such a move on the buses would be confusing and commercially suicidal, introducing uncertainty at the very time when buses are at their winter busiest. In fact, there appears little logic for a rail change at this time either, let alone one on the buses.

Doomsday

Anatomy of BSOG: BSOG reimburses about 57p per litre, or about 80 per cent of fuel duty (tax) It is somewhat bureaucratic in that it has to be claimed in retrospect In England, the industry received about £393mil, or about 9p per passenger journey Community transport operators may also claim BSOG, for certain journey types

If you’re working for a big group, the chances are you or someone you know is beavering away at revised budgets in the event of a reduction in Bus Service Operators’ Grant. There’s nothing official and while operators and the CPT lobby hard for BSOG’s continuation, prudent operators are already advanced in their contingency plans, should the axe fall.

We’ve survived other “doomsday” scenarios, of course. We got through:

• The withdrawal of New Bus Grant though this, alongside the uncertainties of the early years of deregulation, forced a near collapse in the manufacturing sector.


• Deregulation & privatisation (and have even eventually flourished), though this resulted in something of a management cull.


• Oil price increases and the resultant inflation of the 1970s, though even with the emerging network of the time there were plenty of cuts in staffing and routes.

This time around, the government’s decided it will leave free travel but hasn’t yet decided upon the course of action regarding BSOG. Operators are nonetheless planning for a cut in anything from 15 to 100 per cent in BSOG, with between 25 and 30 per cent each over four or three years being the favoured guestimates.

Transdev Yellow Buses received £1,114,000 in BSOG in the most recent claim year. TYB reports 13mil passenger journeys, so BSOG equates to about 9p per passenger journey. To compensate for BSOG’s withdrawal, TYB might be looking for an extra 12-15p per passenger, to account for elasticities, though 12p needs rounding. Even 5p increments are unpopular. Medium & long hop fares are currently £1.60 and £1.90 respectively

Should the inevitable happen, what will be the operators’ response?

• Fares increases, for sure. This will have a knock-on effect on free travel reimbursements but will penalise those who already see fares as being expensive.


• There will be back office savings, too. These will be the latest in a long line of them, but these won’t go anywhere near rebalancing the budget.


• Cuts in service will be inevitable.

Cuts and fares increases are a particularly toxic combination. Core, strategic routes might stand the reduction in BSOG. Marginal services cannot and, once again, these will come under the microscope: earlies, evenings, Sundays, even Saturday journeys. Whole garages might even find themselves under threat where current profitability is poor.

Local transport authorities will be hard pressed to absorb operators’ BSOG-related cuts because they, too, will be planning their own. This is equally inevitable but far less predictable. Each authority will set different priorities and percentage cuts. BSOG, on the other hand, would be uniform & across the board. The added complication for LTAs is that they need to consult and then give notice. Unlike the operating industry.

Should BSOG stay, it might even have been possible for operators to absorb some (but by no means all) of the proposed LTA cuts. The dilemma for local authorities is at one level quite simple but at another very complicated: in the austerity era, is it more beneficial to support today’s down registered journeys that have remained commercial since 1986 rather than those that have always been socially necessary? After all, the former are likely to carry more passengers.

Rewind

This time last week, a drunken passenger tried to rest control of an express double deck, with potentially fatal consequences. It resulted in a somewhat mute media reaction, perhaps because no one died in the toppling. Imagine what might’ve happened, though, had the Oxford Tube crash been more serious. This surely would’ve been the case had it not been 0200 on a bank holiday. At peak times, both the motorway and the 80-odd seater might’ve been full.

As it was, with every toppling, people will tend to build up a picture in their minds about double deck express coaches, their centres of gravity, their stability and their safety. Whether this will make a transient or lasting impression remains to be seen. Expect the parallel though slightly less frequent single deck-operated Oxford Espress to enjoy something of a short-term fillip, though.

Now, rewind to 2002. Evidence would point to a school child interfering with the driver’s steering wheel or controls that resulted in a double deck school bus leaving the road. It didn’t quite topple but the 12-year-old child in the nearside front upper deck seat died as he hit a tree. Ever since, Wales has been consumed by school bus safety. There’ve been calls to abandon double in favour of single decks with seemingly much progress, though we’re not aware this has happened everywhere.

These two incidents are far apart and would suggest that a passenger grabbing the wheel is remote. But they show a potential vulnerability with double decks. Neither vehicle was fitted with a driver assault screen. Such screens aim to prevent a physical attack but they also guard against a passenger lunging at the wheel. A great many urban buses have them and, coupled with their inherently lower road speeds, urban deckers might be presumed to be “safe”. That doesn’t stop schools or parents from calling for single decks instead, though.

We should be grateful that the media concentrated on the driver’s heroic efforts and the lunacy of the crazed passenger. For resting control away from the driver could so easily affect a single deck coach, with similar consequences if should leave the road and ascend a bank, as the Stagecoach Astromega did. Once a single deck loses its legs, the consequences are actually potentially more serious. The dynamics of a double deck mean it will *only* topple, whereas a single deck might fall & roll. With either design, someone not wearing a seat belt may end up first ejected and then crushed by the considerable weight of either vehicle type. Here, seat belts seemed to have saved the day and this surely must be a lesson for all who travel on coaches.

National Express has already taken an all-single-deck decision, following the M25/M4 toppling. It never really trumpeted this in the same way that The Oxford Bus Company’s Espress isn’t now, probably because no vehicle design is immune.

We’re some way off Stagecoach making such a decision, no doubt because of its investment in the Tube and on Megabus. But anxious Stagecoach executives returning to work after the summer last or this week will nevertheless have something on their minds. Meanwhile, if passengers abandon double decks in favour of cars, surely this will have a potentially higher road safety impact on everyone.

Thank you to everyone who’s commented on the Favicon post. I’m going to see what I can do today. I’ve added more on this as a comment on the original post.

Geeky Things to do with Bus Data—2

This is the concluding guest post a guest post by Kirsty Pitkin, late of First’s @bathcsc experiment. Here first post is here and her tribute site to the former Manvers Street bus station here

Twitter Mashups

Naturally, my favourite suggestions involved devising some system for bus users to tag/format their tweets so that their observations can be used to help “crowdsource” service operation information. These tweets could then be automatically displayed in a range of ways, including mashing up/combining with a bus route map at appropriate points so that users can see where other passengers have reported a problem via Twitter.

This may not be the most reliable way of obtaining operational information, but in the absence of an official Twitter feed like @bathcsc, this is the most easily achievable way of offering contextual information about delays. If officially encouraged (and monitored) it could also foster a greater sense of community between both passengers and the operator, even helping the operator to respond more effectively to unexpected problems on the route.

“If you can ski to your bus stop, the bus probably isn't coming”

The main lesson I learnt from @bathcsc experiment was that it is not just about the data or the information that you can provide. Customers need the human touch. It’s no good saying the bus is running 20 minutes late unless you say why. The “why” enables them to make their own judgement about whether to wait and get that bus, walk to a different stop and take an alternative route or make other travel plans.

It still feels that we are at the “Data Rules” stage with public transport, whilst experiments like @bathcsc increasingly show that Context is King. We need imaginative ways of using both data and local knowledge to keep people practically informed if we want them to view bus travel as a convenient mode of transport.

I am a social media geek at heart, so I would be really interested to hear about or even get involved with any experiments that look at ways of providing both information and context to customers via mobile/social media channels. I'm sure Busing will keep us posted! : )

Favicon

Having from 1st September 2010 made minor alterations to this site, I have tried in vain to re-establish our bespoke “Favicon”. A Favicon is the icon that appears in a browser’s address bar or across the browser’s tab. Ours used to be a reworked “Double N” in green and orange but for quite some time Blogger/Blogspot has replaced it with the hideously displeasing orange “B” motif.

No matter our attempts to change this, Blogger’s “B” seems to hold fast. Asking Omnibuses to look up someone else’s Favicon, however, banishes the “B” and inserts the other site's. Why, then, can’t we do the same with our own? Anyone expert enough to lend a hand?

Which Favicon can you see? It would be helpful if you could name your browser (e.g. Firefox, Safari, Chrome. Or if you're still using Internet Explorer).

1. The Blogger “B”

2 .The Omnibuses “Double N”

3. The Internet Explorer “e” symbol

4. Something else (if so, what)?

90 to 0 in 56 Days

The local media are calling it a “turf war”. As ever, in reality, there’s more to it. But it’s nevertheless a little bizarre.

It all centres upon the 30 stopping service between Cardiff & Newport in Wales which, apparently, is 90 years old this year and has been a joint service between Cardiff Corporation & Newport Transport since 1942. But not any longer, it appears. Sort of.

Whether it warrants it or not, Newport Transport’s share of the has oft been a double deck. Careful scrutiny of the destination display shows its Leyland is on that route. The Stagecoach to its rear reveals this is contemporary shot

Under the old regime, up to early August, the service required three buses from each operator, offering a combined 20-minute service. Now, Newport Transport’s gone its own way, by running on top of the Cardiff Bus journeys. This increases Newport’s tally to six. Then, add in the relative newcomer, the three-bus Newport Bus limited stop Newport-Cardiff X30, increased from two to three journeys per hour this summer. The sum total equates to nine Newport Transport buses to Cardiff Bus’ three.

The question is, could the market really bear a 20-minute stopping service when every 30 would seem more realistic. This on top of a Newport Transport-only 20-minute express. And don’t mention the train. This usually takes under 15 minutes and during the off peak charges remarkably reasonable fares.

The local media suggest that Cardiff Bus’ refusal to accept Newport’s newish Passport smartcards is at the heart of the “war” that began in early August. Given that Cardiff has not risen to the bait by maintaining its previous commitment, it seems a little harsh to blame Cardiff Bus. It isn’t Cardiff Bus that’s currently escalating matters. Yet, it was Cardiff’s “refusal” that apparently warranted Newport offering its own service journeys over-running Cardiff’s, to assist Passport-bearing passengers. Interestingly, both operators still accept each other’s paper tickets, even on the Newport over-running journeys (but this has never been the case on the Newport Transport-only X30).

The odd thing about all this is that Newport Transport’s website mentions neither their smartcard nor the changes to the 30. Instead, it refers to the 20-minute joint operation, as ever was. And it still has the old 30-minute X30, now every 20.

The view from Cardiff Bus on smartcards might be somewhat different. Cardiff is trying to bring out its own smartcard. Since both operators use Welsh Assembly sponsored Parkeon TGX150s, in time and with testing there should in theory be complete ITSO compatibility. Could it be that Newport Transport is acting unilaterally on this? A bit like the X30?

Finally, it’s quite rather remarkable that the Cardiff-Newport service was never run by traditional “country” operators from the Western Welsh group. Successor National Welsh did try an hourly extension to the Gloucester to Newport 73 to Cardiff in the late 1970s. This was soon abandoned owing to lack of passengers.

Case Study

Trent Barton’s caused something of a stir because of its plans to terminate its Mickleover to Derby service at Osnabruck Square rather than Derby’s new bus station. Indeed, intense media pressure seems to have forced something of a rethink.

Now, I’ve no idea exactly where Osnabruck Square is. I’m guessing, though, that it’s not in West Germany. But it’s the principle I’m getting at. For I have some sympathy with Trent Barton. And also with its passengers, even though most appear content with their buses terminating short. What we have here illustrates the balance needed in running a high frequency bus service.

The Derby to Mickleover service, left before upgrade, seen when Optare was in favour at Trent Barton. Note the destination refers to the city hospital. The service is the only one that offers a bus there from the bus station and this is partly why some passengers are unhappy with the proposal. Medical use nevertheless accounts, on average, for less than two per cent of patronage

It’s self-evident that if you run a bus service to a point other than where passengers want to go then you are committing commercial suicide. Trent Barton will have thought very carefully about its decision, as it knows a wrong move—in this case, terminating short—could destroy its margins.

Trent Barton cites roadworks and congestion as the reason behind terminating the Derby-Mickleovers short, within about half of a mile of the bus station, in fact. In spite of what the casual observer may thing, unpredictable roadworks affect punctuality and therefore irritate passengers. Perhaps punctuality is less of an issue on a service every 7½ minutes (as is the case here) but irritable passengers are likely to make the minimum number of trips possible.

Sloppy journalism may be the reason why in using this shot to cover the story the local media chose to blur the front of one of Trent Barton’s competitors

What does matter is the efficient scheduling of resources. This is the operator’s concern but it should be the passengers’, too. Efficiency means the best possible service at the lowest possible fares. As we are seeing all over England, and have for a while, congestion and unpredictable roadworks make services inefficient. The remedy is costly, in terms of either additional resources or decreases in ridership.

Were the route simply to take the allocated few minutes to run between Osnabruck Square and the bus station, no one would have a problem. But it doesn’t seem to. There are only three methods of treating the problem and the operator will need to weigh them up carefully. Trent Barton’s consulted, too, always a good thing, even though detractors fear Trent Barton hasn’t consulted widely enough.

1. Add in additional resources into the service.


2. Reduce the service using the same resources.


3. Terminating short of the bus station.

1. Additional Resources

It seems to me that Trent Barton operates its Derby-Mickleovers with PVR 8 (plus any branded and leather-seated spares). If congestion and roadworks are as bad as suggested, Trent Barton will need a ninth bus in the cycle. Plus more than one driver, to cover shifts, holidays, sickness, etc. If the service can easily absorb such costs (and how many can?), all well and good. But an investment of over £100,000 p.a. will take considerable time to justify itself. If you’re going to sink this sort of cash, it would be nice to see a return for it, some sort of increase in quality or frequency. Here, though, the investment’s somewhat dead.

2. Reduce the service

Rather than throw money at the service, in this case it’s possible to cut it. This means using the same number of buses and drivers as now, recognising the congestion at the city centre end, and making the scheduled journey time longer to account for it. Not only does this look poor on paper, of necessity it reduces the frequency, from every 7½ to every 10 minutes.

I am one of those who argue that attaining a 10-minute service is something of a “holy grail”. It’s the point at which passengers no longer realistically need a timetable. So, what’s the problem with cutting the service from eight to six buses an hour? For one thing, it’s a cut and cuts are always looked upon suspiciously. Journey time increases and poorer frequencies both have a direct impact on ridership.

The downturn may yet force a reduction from every 7/8 to every 10 minutes but till then it’s in no one’s interest to do this. The lay person might assume there’s little difference between the two but there is, enough to dent perceptions & make it that slightly less attractive. The penalty? Fewer passengers, for there’s an obvious direct correlation between service frequency and ridership. More people will decide to walk rather than hop a few stops. There will be those who use it as an excuse to pull out the car (yes, I know it’s irrational but it happens).

While every 10 minutes remains something of a “holy grail”, it’s only a holy grail if you operate at a lesser frequency and improve to every 10. Reducing from a higher to lower frequency has will not get you this grail affect.

3. Terminate Short

This is less convenient for passengers and will not work where this is on the margins of the city centre (as once proposed, for example, in Oxford). Its success will depend upon (a) whether the new terminus is within the heart of the city and (b) the number of people who wish to interchange with other services at the bus station. Interchange is an important element in travelling by bus but Trent Barton will know that it’s only part of the story.

No one lives in an ideal world. Congestion sees to that. Terminating short is something of a compromise. And it is here that Trent Barton has had to balance the alternatives. In the event, the media have driven Trent Barton to chose Option 1 when it had previously felt Option 3 was the best overall solution for the majority of its passengers. Whether Trent Barton will inject resources or let the Derby-Mickleovers run unpunctually remains to be seen. If the former, someone’s going to have to pay. If the latter, it seems 80 per cent of its Mickleover passengers will suffer.

For the time being, then, the service in question will continue to the bus station. No doubt, most passengers will alight beforehand as now, yet no one likes to see a loss of interchange, which is important to bus services. But many towns don’t actually have easy interchange points. Or sometimes, they have more than one with distance between them. And then there are people from Mickleover who might want to catch the train but will need to walk, whether from the bus station or Osnabruck Square...