Transdev on the Scene

Read on for an offer for Omnibuses Blog readers from Passenger Transport magazine

It’s five years since Blazefield sold to Transdev, raising Transdev operations in England at a stroke from minnow to mid-sized. There, aside from Blackburn Transport, Transdev has stuck, in spite of great promise that the French undertaking might acquire more English operators. But those operators selling began to command higher prices as the number of them reduced and those willing to pay didn’t.

When compared to the Big Five, Blazefield’s size belied its influence. Its reputation was always good, in spite (or perhaps because) of its continually changing portfolio. From humble beginnings exactly 20 years ago as the rump of AJS Holdings, Blazefield enhanced its reputation when 10 years ago it began the process of turning Stagecoach’s former Ribble east Lancashire operations from malady to prosperity. Stagecoach has accomplished perhaps more than any other big UK player but only under Blazefield’s control was the fractured east Lancashire business tamed.

Blazefield’s key managers Giles Fearnley and Stuart Wilde remained for a while at the Blazefield helm. In spite of flutters, Transdev has nevertheless managed well as the two began to pull away, in 2008. To a degree, at any rate.

Indeed, Transdev has built on the Blazefield reputation by giving each of its operators a marketing and branding boost. While not everyone is totally enamoured with Blackburn Transport’s urban “Spot On” metamorphosis, some difficult decisions and its policy of reverting in part to elderly step entrance stock, its Lancashire United and Harrogate & District reincarnations are praiseworthy.

There’s more to life than a new livery on a new bus, though, and Transdev has generally struggled to maintain the pace set by Blazefield’s pre-takeover management. Blackburn council agreed to sell its municipal arm’s length operator five years ago, though the process was somewhat uncertain, complex, problematic elongated. It ended up at Lancashire United. There are those who blamed the sale for subsequent difficult decisions but in truth, the municipal would’ve had to face the music whatever happened.

After semi-retirement and chairing the CPT, the adroit Fearnley is back in the mainstream. Hurrah for that. Wilde, equally statesmanlike, remains a protagonist with the UK Bus Awards and as a director will form one of the building blocks of the new fortnightly journal Passenger Transport, due early March. Hurrah for that, too.

Passenger Transport indeed launches next month, on 4th March. It’s offering Omnibuses Blog readers the opportunity to get a free sample copy provided that they register by email before 1st March 2011 at subs@passengertransport.co.uk. That’s today and tomorrow, folks. I guess industry managers may well get their own sample copies in any case. I’m rather banking on this fact so I can see my own...

Bus images and additional information by Omnibuses' Northern Correspondent