Hotel California

For those who clearly remember what was happening 40 years ago—cuts, cuts and more cuts—a growing number of people within the industry are likening current times with the early- and mid-1970s. There’s a certain nervous abroad at the moment. That’s why I found the five-minute interview in the latest Coach & Bus Week of interest. It’s with one Ian Smith, commercial director at the UK Bus Awards.

Smith left the industry at the end of the 70s because “it was all about managing decline”. Indeed, it most certainly was. In 2000, he rejoined the bus industry. Smith says it’s rather like Hotel California (the Eagles song)—“you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave”.

In spite of the negative connotation of the song, very much applicable to today’s society & culture as it was at the very time Smith left the industry, Smith uses Hotel California in a positive way. That’s because the last ten years have been generally positive for the bus industry. Manging decline may predominate in some areas but that is rare. Currently, there might be much to be downhearted about but the industry’s been there before, more than once, and survived, often the healthier for it. We have visionary leaders, competent managers, hardworking & committed staff; and an underlying collective optimism that with cuts in free travel, BSOG, local transport authority spend and the Competition Commission, we might be shaken but can never be broken. Perhaps aside from the railway, the clergy and the BBC World Service, there is no other business that struggles to succeed so positively in the face of seemingly crushing difficulties.

Talking of Coach & Bus Week, since its newstand launch, it really has developed well. Subjectively, it’s now a short head above its weekly rival, routeONE. Don’t expect R1 to rest on its former laurel, though. Mind you, publication on a Wednesday can have its disadvantages. CBW could only speculate that Preston Bus was sold. A day later, routeONE as able to report the full story.