Mine’s a Pint

In the age of lean head office & garage management and of a new breed of younger bus professionals, only pockets of the infamous Long Liquid Lunches remain and then these tend to be diluted, if you’ll pardon the pun. The LLL was something of a trademark of the pre-privatisation state sector, one that lingered into the deregulated era though, with exceptions, the municipal segment tended to be more abstemious.

These days, most bus professionals need to find other avenues to quench their thirst. One is the top-brass visits to manufacturers. Of these, Wrightbus is the most prized. Because of the location, this has to include a flight and usually an overnight. Wright’s will pick you up at the airport so, for those who want to imbibe, there’s the opportunity of a pre-flight snifter or two, as a prelude to drinkies later at the hotel bar.

And then there are conferences. These days, they barely hide the fact, with references to things like “networking drinks”.

The forthcoming two-day Landor Conference on bus rapid transit is no exception. Staged at Clare College Cambridge, it’s clearly riding on the back of the Cambridgeshire busway, with a study visit. One of the supporting sponsors is BAM Nuttall who, no doubt, will be able to contribute to the session entitled “The CGB: whys, wherefores & lessons” (my emphasis). The sheer brass neck of it.

I see that Reading Transport’s James Freeman has a slot entitled “Quality you can afford”. But the two most interesting sessions are “Much of the US looks like this” (focusing on BRT in low density American suburbia) and “The payback: evidence on land & property value changes”.

There’ll no doubt be plenty of takers. Even so, in spite of the confirmatory “Who should attend” section that reassuringly includes, well, almost everyone, even housewives (well, not quite), plus the well marketed pull of the busway itself, I’m not sure I can justify two days away plus £474 for the privilege, no matter my dehydration. Is this really of the highest relevance to a deregulated bus industry?

To commiserate, I guess I’ll just have to slake my thirst by persuading my colleagues down to the pub instead, this lunchtime. Shouldn’t be too difficult to do. It is Friday, after all.