I count things. Some things are important and fundamental (e.g. performance indicators such as cost indices, passenger trends). Others simply important but interesting and meritorious of attention (e.g. the number of visitors to this blog).
I was therefore quite interested to see what effect, if any, yesterday’s royal wedding had on Omnibuses, what with a bank holiday, the nation glued to its tellies, reasonable weather I think across the nation, street parties, bbqs and whatnot. How did Omnibuses perform?
I have therefore quickly compared visitors yesterday with the average footfall over each of the preceding 16 Fridays since the first in 2011 (Friday 7th January).
Yesterday’s patronage was the lowest of any of the aforesaid Fridays. Visitor numbers were actually 16 per cent below the average. Given yesterday’s distractions, I consider that quite good.
The next and most essential question is, how many were on the buses yesterday. The answer to that will become more evident early next week.
Saturday, 30 April 2011
Short Term Losses
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12 comments:
Hands up all those who were glued to the TV yesterday!
Ah, (he says, tongue firmly in cheek) is it because all those captains of the transport industry weren't sitting at their desks yesterday, in front of their computers?
@Anon 0935, tongue in cheek or not, I suspect you are absolutely right!
I went shopping yesterday lunchtime - a rare event for me! The shops were extremely quiet, and a brief conversation with the manager of a furniture store revealed that all the stores in her chain were reporting very little activity.
No info on bus patronage yet, apart from a couple of anecdotal reports along similar lines to the above, but a bit of a sigh of relief for us because we had fretted about running a Sunday service because many people seemed to believe it would just be an ordinary day, apart from a few people not at work.
It very definitely wasn't!
Phil Stockley said...
"....we had fretted about running a Sunday service because many people seemed to believe it would just be an ordinary day, apart from a few people not at work."
As an expat-Briton myself, I cannot imagine many Brits turning down the chance of a day off work. Once the day had been declared an official holiday, I should imagine that it would have been plain to any employer that the majority of employees would expect the day off.
Most people in the UK seem to think that there are more public holidays here in Germany, though in practice it varies from one province to another. If the holiday falls on a weekend (for example, tomorrow - May 1st - is a Sunday), then so be it. Monday is a normal working day, next year it will be different. I sometimes wonder if those who call for more holidays in the UK realise that!
What wedding? the wife was working.I read a book,after a drink at the club.No one got a day off for my wedding.
"As an expat-Briton myself, I cannot imagine many Brits turning down the chance of a day off work."
That misses the point. Retailers anticipated a "normal" shopping bank holiday and opened accordingly. Buses ran to feed those shops. But no one actually shopped!
Contrast between NCT & trentbarton yesterday, NCT ran a Saturday timetable trentbarton ran a Sunday one. NCT ran a funny "facebook Friday" promotion too, offering 5 days free travel by turning up at the travel centre with union jack colours & saying to the cashier "I do" lol. Was that an attempt to increase extra footfall on to the buses & into the travel centre lol?
"Ah, (he says, tongue firmly in cheek) is it because all those captains of the transport industry weren't sitting at their desks yesterday, in front of their computers?"
Yes, we're all old romantics at heart!!
Quite right too - it's a wonderful tonic to see two youngsters, clearly much in love, getting married amongst all the pomp and pageantry that only Britain can muster.
A lovely breath of fresh air amongst all the woes of today's world.
Thought you were going to post on how Wings got the guest-transport gig, when surely Ensignbus or LBC could have put some of their RTs to work - that would have looked dynamite.
I had an even quieter day on my Sunday contracted bus service than on Easter Sunday when the shops were closed. The hot weather has made this whole Easter/may Day period very odd compared with past years
Anonymous said...
'"As an expat-Briton myself, I cannot imagine many Brits turning down the chance of a day off work."
That misses the point.'
No - it's a different point. I was referring back to Phil Stockley's comment, in which he said "... many people seemed to believe it would just be an ordinary day, apart from a few people not at work." Note - 'ordinary day', not 'ordinary bank holiday'. The retailers that you are referring to clearly had a different idea of what was likely to happen - just equally wrong! One cannot help but wonder if they gave any thought to the level of media interest, and broadcasting time allocated to the wedding. The broadcasters would not have done that if they had only anticipated a few people watching or listening!
It appears that some parts of the bus industry, at least, got it right on this occasion!
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