Launching Later Today…

Journey planners are useful. Punch in an origin and destination and even the most bus timetable-illiterate passenger can see at a glance how to make that journey. It’s quicker than thumbing through printed or web-based copy. It’s intuitive. It conquers one of the phobias people have about using buses—imperfect information. So why don’t operators have them on their websites? Not even Arriva, First or Stagecoach. Reason? Cost.

Well, that’s what we’ve been led to believe. Actually, it’s no lie, because the database & complexity of the algorithms supporting journey planners are complicated, expensive and hence best left to specialists, such as Traveline and TfL.

From this afternoon, you will find a new journey planner, top left, on the TYB website. Is this a first?

Things are about to change. Launching later today, at about noon in fact, is Transdev Yellow Buses’ own online journey planner. An operator with a journey planner: is this a first? We think it is (unless you know differently). Translink is an operator with a planner, but that’s slightly different: it acts as the Traveline of Northern Ireland, is government funded, and is a little like TfL.

If TYB’s isn’t the first, then it’s visually the neatest and outstrips Traveline South West’s for crispness. And, TYB’s will let you enter your journey details directly from the front page—unlike Travelivesw. Of course, Travelinesw rules for regional journeys, though there are too many quirks within for my liking, especially regarding the PDF output. In Travelinesw’s defence, it has to deal with the straightforward, the less than straightforward and the downright odd. While testing the TYB planner in comparison with Travelinesw, Traveline threw up the use of Monday only single journey Damory 324 on a journey from Bearwood (Poole borough) to Littledown.

Journey planner brought to you by the Base Creative Agency following substantial testing, the people responsible for TYB’s latest website plus its online payments

TYB’s planner is nevertheless a revelation. On the face of it, it works very much like any other—postcodes, prominent destinations, suburbs, centres, etc. Whereas each time it produces a single option (unlike Travelinesw’s multiples), an advanced search means you can tell the planner whether you want to minimise walking or maximise changing. You can therefore ask the planner to offer journeys with changes if that’s quicker; or you can reduce the changes if you don’t feel confident. There’s an option to start your journey later, if that’s actually quicker. The planner, however, doesn’t show walking times. But, when you select a date, it helpfully pulls up a month view calendar, rather than drop down dates as in Travelinesw. A matter of preference.

Another useful feature is that when you begin to type a destination, it will offer suggestions. This isn’t available at Travelinesw. Mind you, “Poole” as in the town centre presents itself half way down the list. “Gervis Place” comes up straightaway but visitors in particular will look for “Bournemouth”. “Bournemouth Town Centre” is third from bottom. No mention of “Bournemouth Square”, though, which is unfortunate, especially as the planner’s output refers to this as a destination. And what will visitors make of “Bournemouth Interchange (The Interchange)” and “Bournemouth Bus Station (Coach Station)”? These are but nit-pickings.

Slightly irksome, when you type in a postcode, you have to select it as a drop down. This seems superfluous.

There’s a mapping option for most (though not quite all) journeys. It plots your route on Google Maps, with the ability to zoom, slide and select the Street View Pin Man. The route pins give information and are clickable. Remember to select the “Close Map” option rather than be tempted to use your browser’s back button. The map option is clearly ahead of Travelinesw.

An interesting quirk is that the “bus” symbol that indicates you need to travel by bus (obviously!) is the Euro-symbol and hence is of a single deck frontal silhouette that is LHD. All joking aside, TYB’s journey planner is a powerful tool that will further the cause for getting people on the bus. It’s amazing that a smaller organisation has the wherewithal to produce such a powerful utensil where larger operators have thus far failed. Not surprisingly, TYB is keeping tight lipped as to the cost.

Does the TYB planner work? We test it on the Dorset Bus Blog

i Visit TYB’s homepage from 1200 to test the journey planner yourself

Optare Single Decks

“Optare Rumours” is a consistent search term bring people to the Omnibuses Blog, currently 85th in the year to date

Yes, a tip off from Optare to Preston Bus might’ve been enough to do it. I’m referring to a reason why Stagecoach no longer favours Optare’s Solo.

Comments under the post entitled “Surprise!” suggested that the former Preston Bus got to hear about forthcoming competition from Stagecoach via Optare. At the time, Preston Bus and Stagecoach were both Optare buyers and loose talk could’ve been enough to spoil the Stagecoach/Optare relationship. This need not *necessarily* be irreparable, though you could imagine that it is. An example: despite highly public & critical comments about its first Optare Tempos, for example, after a suitable interval, Trent Barton has nevertheless returned to buy more. At the time, this was something of a surprise, given Trent Barton’s history with the model.

One criticism of the Solo was that it was too small for Stagecoach’s needs. May be. Indeed, if the age of free travel is militating against minibuses, why then has Stagecoach bothered with any quantity of minibuses, by ordering 127 (plus 39 for London) ADL Enviro 200 Darts? They’re similarly lightweight and comparable in terms of seating capacity. One answer is manoeuvrability: long forward control Solos have equally long wheelbases. The E200 does not.

Enter the Versa. This seats more than the Solo but fewer than the Tempo. It overcomes the wheelbase issue, reducing it by over a metre. The first customer for Versa was… Stagecoach… but there’s no repeat order. Versas are doing better than Tempos. Indeed, once you overcome the unique frontal appearance and slightly unnerving interval rise above the front axle, the Solo-based Versa’s beginning to look like a sound buy. Largely based on the Solo

Tempos are not a huge seller yet there’s been some renewed interest in them recently. Over the summer and autumn of 2009, both Arriva and Transdev Yellow Buses bought them, both for the first time and, in Arriva’s case, here for the first time Tempos entered into Big Five service (other than buses bought for Arriva by the Welsh regional assembly).

TYB is now going for a repeat order, adding four, similarly kitted with leather and wood-effect flooring. Indeed, Optare trumpets its ability to deliver bespoke buses to operators’ exact requirements. Lest we think other manufacturers still live in the age of the highly standardised Leyland National, flexibility isn’t enough to demand a following. ADL and Wrightbus both offer similar levels of adaptability.

And then there are concerns over Optare’s reliability at delivery. This depends upon your viewpoint. Some swear by Optares, others do not. In truth, Optare buses are no less reliable than any other. Optare has recently strengthened its aftermarket care.

Just do not mention the Streetlite.

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.

One Man & His Dog

The other managerial news at Britain’s biggest transport operator is, of course, that Alex Warner is to leave First UK Bus. It’s widely held that his departure follows disenchantment with the direction in which First has recently taken Greyhound. Warner was managing director of Greyhound and it was he who as UK bus business director first suggested and developed the case for Greyhound.

Sometimes, First projects can become derailed and it may be that Warner could have been particularly disappointed with the Glasgow, Scotland-London former Night Flyer service, operating sans wi-fi, leather and generous seat pitches as you might see elsewhere. This still has potential for exploitation more fully, both day and night. It was soon after its launch that Warner resigned.

In spite of some full coaches at peak periods (e.g. weekends), diversion of some Greyhound departures to en route settlements would indicate that the business case for non-stop, swift end-to-end services has not always matched predicted performance. Greyhound has also been slow to develop at a time when express coach travel seems particularly suited to the tastes and requirements of recessionary England (and Scotland & Wales, too).

Warner was one of First Group’s most high profile protagonists, possibly second only to the former Moir Lockhead himself. Out Warner would trot, with Greyhound dogs in tow, at many a press launch activity. Or was it his dogs that would trot, with Warner in tow, dogs being dogs? Just look at the way he has to yank on the lead to keep Rover under control, above. Perhaps Warner will now have a coach named after him. After all, the Lockhead name recently appeared on a train, though the thing was over 30 years old.

New Broom?

In the first significant management restructure under Tim O’Toole, it’s very easy to be carried away by the appointment of Giles Fearnley to First UK Bus Plus*. Does this, for example, signal a significant change of direction? Will First allow Fearnley to use his considerable skills in business transformation? Why else would First appoint him?

Whatever this signifies, it’s a very positive move that no doubt will be welcomed across the whole industry. Fearnley replaces Mary Grant who, in turn, followed Nicola Shaw. Nicola left in the summer of 2010 as Mary arrived. Mary was head of both UK bus *and* rail, whereas Fearnley will take the bus mantle only. This split is another sensible move at Aberdeen HQ.

Fearnley is, of course, a bus industry anchorman whose business skill together with fellow Blazefield director Stuart Wilde set about changing the culture of under-performing former AJS Group companies at Blazefield between 1991 and 2006. Fearnley is also president of the CPT.

i More on this from Leon Daniels

* Managing Director Bus (UK, Ireland and Germany)

Sold to Rotala

If I had the money, I’m not entirely sure whether I’d buy Preston Bus for the best part of £3½mil. There are a number of reasons for this.

• It is, after all, purely an urban, short-route operator without the range or depth of services that can easily be developed for growth. Short distance city services are notoriously flat in terms of prospects.


• It doesn’t appear to rank with the Bournemouths of this world, where a thorough overhaul of a neglected and unco-ordinated network might bring immediate benefits.


• It never sparkled financially under former Preston Bus ownership and there were believed to be structural, financial problems, even before the Stagecoach bus war caused an outright collapse.

No change to the Preston Bus website this morning, in spite of the announcement yesterday.

Preston Bus is nevertheless an interesting recent purchase (by Rotala, announced yesterday, for £3.2mil, in case you’ve not heard). It’s one of a diminishing number of medium sized independents and it’s also very much in the spotlight post Competition Commission enforced sale.

Rotala, at least, seems upbeat about Preston Bus’ prospect. It cites the opportunities associated with a new city centre development and bus station. But am I alone in recalling that either the brakes have been applied to these, or that they’re smaller than initially conceived? A case of over-optimism for Rotala?

You can’t expect Rotala to sit on its hands, though, the more so since war torn Preston Bus lately returned an unhealthy loss of £132,000 on a turnover of £7¾mil. Plenty of scope there, then. Rotala appears to see Preston Bus as a bridgehead for further expansion on the north west. It might be that Rotala has aspirations for other independents, contracts or commercial competition. If the last of these, there might be retaliatory consequences, though Stagecoach in particular needs to beware. Things may yet settle into comfortable co-existence.

Still, I just wonder why Preston Bus didn’t get gobbled up by any of the big players, such as Arriva or Go Ahead, who declared as interested in operators like this, both of which conceivably have no major market dominance issues.

Lost Cause?

The day before yesterday, a reader left a comment on the post about fuel costs being an opportunity:

“The growth [in bus service passengers] won't come from rural areas, where there is little demand anyway. It will come (and is coming) from urban areas where the frequencies are good and the routes direct and well marketed.”

About five years ago, I recall talking to a senior local government employee admitting that there was nothing he could do about rural bus services. No matter the investment, it was impossible to see ridership increases. He felt that rural services were a lost cause. Although this at first sounded surprising, the reasons he gave were:

• In-migration from townies who could afford to commute (by car) and who were displacing the rural poor.
• Out migration of young people who use bus services till they reach adulthood then buy a car and often move away.
• Older people who could afford cars, thus maintaining their independence for longer.
• The freezer being able to be stocked with food that made weekly shopping unnecessary for the remainder of those living in rural areas.
• Changes in demand that mean people no longer get jobs or use services at their nearest town. They go elsewhere, off a bus route, through choice or necessity and therefore need a car.

Demand is therefore nothing other than residual. There was nothing the transport authority could do but let rural bus services wither on the vine.

It’s no more than you might expect from a commercial bus operator, faced with the reality of a declining rural demand. But is this a fair assessment?

Dirty Old Buses

“We all agree that if we are to maintain the high ground over the car, these ageing, dirty buses have to go, and they have to go quickly”

Easier said than done, of course.

Of late, the revised and refurbished Coach & Bus Week’s Open Platform has been somewhat stimulating. You don’t have to agree to enjoy. The current issue has a feature by a policy & research advisor at The P.T.E.G. (as it used to be called and is unfashionably known). She wants us to banish dirty old buses. She implies that the PTEs are leading the way.

Is this so? Maybe. But operators are actually doing more, on their own. Other than in the last couple of years, operators have been investing consistently in new stock that can hardly be classed as “dirty”. And, among others, Stagecoach continues to. We’re talking Euro III, IV and V with accoutrements such as soot traps. Operators take very seriously their environmental responsibilities and are only constrained by technology & costs.

The writer cites Merseytravel’s long-term relationship with electric traction and Nexus’s Quaylink, both of which ultimately failed to get beyond demonstration routes. Newcastle’s Quaylink lasted but five years. This was no reflection on the PTEs in question. It was that the technology wasn’t right. Merseytravel persists. It’s got staying power.

The current future in greener public transport rests more with hybrids. Of all the PTEs, GMPTE has taken most advantage of what’s on offer at the government. But, ultimately, it’s the DfT that is promulgating, supporting and financing such technology. That it’s now available to smaller operators, too, shows the pivotal rule the government is playing. It’s not just about PTEs.

Finally, the $64,000 question is, what’s wrong with old buses anyway? I don’t mean battered, smoke belching, life-expired wrecks that give the industry a bad name. The public perception seems to be that buses beyond five years old are past it. Not so. Buses typically have a 15-year write down period. The average age of our national fleet is a little over eight/nine years (and declining slightly, owing to fewer orders), which suggests that there are much older vehicles around. It’s part of the economics of bus operation that these vehicles live out their natural life. There should be no shame in operating this age of vehicle, alongside properly planned investment, provided they are well maintained and roadworthy. PTEs will know that the economics of bus operation rests upon such a healthily mixed fleet.

Silver Lining

The government cannot easily ease the pressure of high fuel prices in rural areas. It’s rather complicated. In urban England, last month and this, the rest of the country experienced the sharpest rise in fuel prices since the early 1970s, thanks to VAT, fuel duty and world crude. May be your average urban area hasn’t topped the rural cost of £1.45/litre but the rise has been noticeable and at £6 per gallon for diesel it’s now exceeded the summer 2008 peak.

Though the bus industry will have its own problems regarding fuel, compounded by eventual changes to BSOG, there are at least two linked benefits to the bus industry. And, fuel is unlikely to go down.

• A reduction in general traffic. Best not to over egg this one, as we know that motoring is inelastic. Nevertheless, there’s evidence to suggest that people are either driving fewer miles or thinking twice before doing so. Forecourt demand is said t be down by 13 per cent over the first nine months of 2010. No bad thing for the bus industry, no bad thing for the environment, and no bad thing for conserving crude stocks. It seems the market is doing what successive governments have always found difficult.


• A positive boost to the farebox. Single and return fares are often perceived as high but weekly and longer seasons represent good value. Those who have a bus service may increasingly be tempted out of their car, at least for some journeys. Add in the rising cost of city parking and you may have a swing.

Every cloud and all that. The industry now needs to capitalise on this silver lining. The AA increasingly talks of whether motoring will continue to be in reach of “most people”, owing to continued rises in fuel costs. Of course, as ever, the AA is a little melodramatic but there will come a point where those journeys available by bus will offer better value.

The AA bangs on about all sorts of equity issues. But a rebalancing of equity between the passengers and drivers seems no bad thing.

Surprise!

No surprises in Stagecoach’s 2011/12 mega bus order, last week, for more than 580 units. Or were there?

Every order has some ADL element, whether this is chassis, body or both. Remember, Brian Souter has an interest in ADL, post Transbus/Mayflower collapse. Added to which, in spite of recessionary times, Stagecoach has steadfastly invested in new buses as a way of growing its business. Souter wins both ways: increased profitability at both operator and manufacturer.

Provincial Orders	ADL E400	ADL E300	ADL E200	ADL Plaxton	Other	Total
ADL E400	40				0	40
ADL E400H	47				0	47
ADL E300		24			0	24
ADL E200			127		0	127
ADL E200H			17		0	17
Scania	91	50			0	141
Volvo				28	0	28
Others incl. integrals	0	0	0	0	0	0
	178	74	144	28		424

This time, though, there’s no Optare orders at all, continuing a worrying trend for the Leeds manufacturer that in recent years has seen the once popular Stagecoach Solo fall from grace. Stagecoach minibuses again are dominated by the ADL Enviro 200 Dart.

So as we say, no surprises. Except that Stagecoach has chosen Scania single as well as double decks. Scania deckers are no strangers to the Stagecoach fleet but single decks, to date, have hardly featured. And, gone is the MAN single deck chassis in 18.240 form (following predecessor 18.220) that feature currently. Might this have something to do with reliability, perhaps?

The other surprise (that isn’t really one) is the leasing of buses for London. When it reacquired East London, Stagecoach promised leased buses in future for the capital. This gives Stagecoach operational flexibility, though it will see the immediate break in traditional, easy cascading to the provinces.

The only other surprise was in Stagecoach’s arithmetic. Its press release clearly states it was to buy 360 new buses & coaches for the provinces. Adding up the constituent parts and the total is actually 424.

In addition to the provincial order, Stagecoach will lease 124 ADL E400s and 39 E200s in and for London.

40 Years and Counting

The picture accompanying Wednesday’s Independent article on savage rural bus service cuts said more than a thousand words. It was of a woman (stereotypically), stood by a bus stop on a single track country lane with nothing around her but green fields. Sadly, this wasn’t replicated on the online example or I’d reproduce it here.

Reading articles like this, you really get the feeling we’re back to the early 1970s. It was rural bus service cuts in the late 1960s that spawned that element of the 1968 Transport Act that gave local authorities powers to grant aid rural bus services. Handily, this came with 50 per cent match funding from the government. By 1970, most territorial operators were requesting such payments and 1971 was a pivotal year in terms of seeing buses as socially necessary, paid for by contributions from the public purse. Mind you, all rural operators were experiencing short shrift from councillors and the public. But councils could no more face the wholesale consequences of a reduction in bus services than they could closure of village primary schools. Councils stumped up.

Matters didn’t improve and legislation in 1972 gave local authorities powers from 1974 to subsidise entire networks. This recognised that urban networks were also fragile. Subsidy bills continued to increase till deregulation rebalanced the exercise. But even then, with a tapered grant available, rural services suffered relatively little. There may have eventually been a change of operator, some marginal cuts and loss of network ticketing but the early deregulation days didn’t generally produce the wholesale reductions in rural mileage expected by campaigners of the time.

Matters actually improved during the late 1990s and throughout the first decade of the 21st century. More (targeted) grants plus in some cases increases in local transport authority budgets has at worst seen a new stability and at best a slight increase in mileage, together with other improvements like new or newer SLFs and clockface timetables.

And so we come to 2011, 40 years on. The Independent warns “hundreds of bus services are to be scrapped” in seemingly a cull of 1970s proportions. But if that lone woman is anything to go by, perhaps we need to face reality and match supply with demand.

The problem comes for those left with no service. How do you provide something where there is such untenable, low demand?

The answer probably doesn’t lie with expensive, bookable demand responsive bus services (themselves the subject of cuts?) but perhaps taxis. At least with a taxi, if it isn’t required on one particular day, (presumably) no one pays out of the public purse. Is this a way of satisfying the perception that there is an alternative even its rarely used? That way, the lady in the Independent picture might be able to wait in the comfort of her own home rather than in a field.

Predictable, I Suppose

In a bid to square its budget circle, Hampshire council has announced 1,200 job losses. Though this is estimated to save £55mil, the pressure’s still on here and at local transport authorities across the land. Will they have the wherewithal to increase expenditure on bus services should operators make commercial deregistrations?

Though Southampton is only part of Hampshire for ceremonial purposes, the *city* council is facing a raft of withdrawals to be made by First Hampshire. Can it or will it react? But, does it need to?

Thus far, public reaction towards the changes has been bafflingly acidic. An excuse to bash First, in fact. It’s not as if the 30th January First proposals are significant, in a little over a week’s time. The paper’s headline is somewhat misleading, too. “First Hampshire to cut 100 bus services in Southampton”. This is actually 100 journeys… a week!

Most withdrawals affect later evening or early morning journeys, some only on Saturdays or Sundays. Yet, there’s been a furore. Looking at the before and after timetables, and the sort of changes First proposes seem nothing other than sensible. For example, the 1/1A (Woolston/Weston Estate) operates every half hour in the evenings at the moment. First proposes hourly after 2117. This may not be ideal but neither is it the end of the world as we know it.

As usual, campaigners fear for older people. Isn’t it interesting how they tend to assume the voice of other people in the community, as if older people cannot speak up for themselves. In reality, what older person is likely to want to travel on a Saturday morning at 0623 from Southampton city centre to St Denys or Bitterne? Or to Woolston after 2117 of an evening?

What’s really interesting is that Tim O’Toole implied that he was reversing the previous First cut-and-cut-gain approach made popular by First. But, personally, I don’t view these changes as going against the drift of this new philosophy. Frequencies are still maintained and the network retains its cohesion.

Bluestar was quick to reassure the world that it won’t be making any cuts. That as done the operator quite a good turn, in spite of its far thinner Southampton network. The earliest Bluestar operates to Bitterne on a Saturday morning, for example, is 0723.

Divorce or Marriage of Convenience?

The French competition authorities have recently approved the merger of Transdev and Veolia. This has followed a full 19 months’ gestation, from the merger’s July 2009 announcement. The result? It means there are four weeks to go till we see another structural change in the ownership of the British bus industry.

Transveolia: an image to keep up

February 22nd is the due date. So, what happens? The Transdev/Veolia merger comes with a condition that RATP gives up its 25 per cent stake in Transdev in exchange for the outright acquisition of the two former Transdev UK assets (and others, in Europe).

• RATP (RATP Dev, to be precise) therefore takes over Transdev Yellow Buses, Transdev London United and the NSL Services business formerly owned by NCP that transferred to London Sovereign.


• Transdev Blazefield and the rump of Transdev London Sovereign continue under the Transveolia combine.


• Indeed, Blazefield and Sovereign join Veolia’s other UK bus interests, in South Wales and elsewhere.

One wonders how this will pan out for the uncomfortable bedfellows now tucked up together in the Transveolia boudoir. After the divroce, is this something of a marriage of convenience? Leaving aside Sovereign that operates within the inflexible, controlled London market, Blazefield and Veolia are a very diverse mix. In the UK, who will lead and dominate? Transdev or Veolia? Will we see the individuality that is Blazefield subsumed under a sea of red? Or will this offer a second chance to poorly performing Veolia subsidiaries?

Till this moment, the ragbag of Veolia operators in the UK has been shrinking. In very recent times, its largest South Wales business has steadily contracted and there are perpetual reports that it may yet be up of sale. Veolia’s already sold its York operation and Nottingham’s in reverse and sold. Veolia’s reputation is hardly helped by a website that has the latest news dating to December 2009 and references to previously sold operations.

Indeed, analysts will probably look back at early Veolia and wonder whether it made the right investment decisions at the right time. Veolia’s (re-) entry (after Connex) into the UK market was certainly marked by a period of acquisitiveness. Perhaps Veolia was just too impatient. Had Veolia waited a wee while, who knows whether it might’ve partaken of later and more solid opportunities such Plymouth City Bus. After all, the usual pundits predicted a solid buying spree.

It was once possible to contemplate or speculate that Veolia might wish to take over Go Ahead, for example. With TYB passing to RATP Dev and no commonality any more between Transveolia & Go Ahead in London, in theory there are no competition authority issues. But it’s now felt that very little international cash is immediately available for expansion and this may quash Veolia’s UK aspirations.

Meanwhile, as if to set the scene for things to come, Transdev has recently made an interesting purchase of a large London taxi outfit. Previous bus industry forays into the taxi trade haven’t always proved to be well judged. But it seems that Transdev isn’t the only operator now vying for the paratransit market.

On Paternity Leave

Don’t get me wrong. I support paternity leave. I didn’t benefit from it with my children and I wish I had.

Yesterday, the government announced possible changes to paternity leave. These add to the revisions soon to come in, as agreed under the previous government. Both aim to share responsibility among both parents and this is no bad thing.

But it will nevertheless impact most upon industries with a male-dominated workforce. Depending upon the size of the form or company, where men are producing or building something, paternity leave changes may be enough to delay a deadline. But the bus industry is different. You can’t delay the means of production. You can’t resell a bus seat once the journey is complete. It has to go, then and there.

For whatever historic reason, men still dominate virtually every aspect of the bus industry. Many more men than women drive and work in engineering departments. Though changing, management is significantly male dominated, though administration can vary. Were a system to be adopted that genuinely shares parental responsibilities, where would this leave the bus industry in planning & arranging cover? Especially small and medium sized enterprises. And what additional costs might this entail? Whatever the outcome, any changes need to benefit both parents and employers and that is never going to be anything other than a difficult balancing act in a seven-day-a-week, 18-plus-hour industry run by men.

The Modern Age

If the truth be told, it reminded me a little of Barry, Wales’ operator Dave’s Coaches* whose infamous slogan was, “We will get you there… if we possibly can”, such was the image of the coach it portrayed. But this programme was nonetheless the sort of thing that makes paying the BBC for your TV licence worthwhile. In my opinion, it’s what the BBC does best. It included some historic footage. And it’s still available for the next few days, courtesy of iPlayer (here) and you should look at it. How often does the industry feature in documentaries on the Beeb? Especially the coach side of things.

BBC TV 4 aired The Modern Age of Coach Travel in Time Shift series last week. It charted the years since 1970. This coincided with the arrival of the National Bus Company and, from 1972, the all-white coach.

Though Quentin Wilson may have been a little off beam when he said that the NBC had “gobbled up” all the little companies, there will be plenty who still pine for the pre-corporate coach liveries and express individually of the time (Roger Davies in Classic Buses being one of them).

They’re all totally wrong, of course. National brought together a disparate, declining express market into a marketable form that grew the business, placed NBC and its territorial operators in a position to weather coach deregulation eight ears later, and moved National Express forward in the privatised world in which we live. We should thank NatEx’s founding fathers. Yes, an end of the golden age but this wasn’t the fault of the NBC. The mobility of the car and package holidays to Benidorm put paid to that.

The new, brash NBC white coaches were less romantic than the Greyhound Lines upon which the image was modelled. It would be difficult for anyone to think that NatEx scheduled expresses could ever capture the hearts of a generation, though did its predecessors, really? Well, the fabled 1400/1430/1500 Cheltenham interchange continued the allure throughout the 1970s.

The programme tells how smaller operators had apparently exploited the gaps left by NBC. This wasn’t inaccurate, as many NBC operators began showing a disinterest in general private hires and tours. The market was changing and shrinking. The heyday of the coach was waning fast. But, many small operators had a better reputation in this sphere than their nationalised, larger kin. “Clearly [the vehicles] were roadworthy… except for the time they broke down and that was the best you could say about them”. That’s not the private industry of the time I recognise, though clearly there were cowboys.

Coach dereg saw increased passengers but, at the time, the number of “very respectable, well dressed clientele” left. Dereg may have accelerated this notion but it was one that was steadily changing, in any case.

Some of the most interesting footage was at the launch of British Coachways, something almost now forgotten within the industry. Time Shift asserted that NatEx managed to see British Coachways off and this is very true. Dissent within the British Coachways ranks hardly helped, though.

Rapide launched in 1985 following the likes of Trathen’s and others. It took coaching up market, for a while

The programme also briefly considered the pioneering approach by the likes of Brian Souter though, ironically, his express operations lasted but a few years, Megabus excepted. Megabus was an example of the new down market shift, as the coach industry is now redefining itself, being reinforced by the age of austerity and the requirement by increasing people to travel as cheaply as possible. Greyhound has taken that mantle but improved quality to a level exceeding the 1985 launch of Rapide, though without the hostess like Elaine (a reference to the 1985 TV advertisement).

Away from coal mining areas, most of the industry was contemplating its future under the 1985 White Paper when coaches & buses were used by flying pickets, the National Coal Board and police during the miners’ strike. Who bodied these utilitarian police Bedfords?

The programme mentioned rock stars, miners, strikers, new age travellers, football fans but not the spread of local coaching associated with bus privatisation. What was a newly privatised territorial operator supposed to do to grow its business but invest optimistically in a new local coach brand? Of these, few lasted beyond five let alone 10 years, of course, as general local coaching’s decline accelerated as the decade continued. And the corporate giants who were the real “gobblers” had no room for bespoke coaching that saw its investment in fleet unused for considerable periods.

* in the BBC TV comedy Gavin & Stacey

i Time Shift: Modern Coaching

Not since 1985

It seems that not a day passes without a local transport authority announcing withdrawals in bus services, in response to swingeing budget cuts. And then there’s a second threat: increasing fuel prices. Whereas larger operators will have hedged (though this really creates only a lag effect), smaller operators who these days are often the bedrock of the provincial tendered market see fuel pries increasing right now. I wouldn’t like to be a LTA in the midst of a current tender, as operators large and small will undoubtedly consider the current and very uncertain future fuel prices in their quotations. This will have a further effect on the level of service an authority is able to provide.

The Campaign for Better Transport may have got the date wrong...

What better time, then, to launch a campaign to try to stop bus services cuts. This is exactly what the Campaign for Better Transport is doing, or will be, at the end of the month.

Has there ever been a sustained, *national* campaign regarding bus services since the union-inspired anti-deregulation & privatisation crusade of 1985? Local activity, may be, but nothing national. The 1985 offensive was doomed to failure in the face of a revolutionary government insistent upon regulatory change. Lest we forget, the focus back then was also on reducing the subsidy bill, something it achieved.

And what of the chances of the current campaign? It will probably have little effect. In some areas, it might blunt the knife but the surgery will continue. Why so?

• Public finances are quite desperate. No area of public life is immune and certainly not bus services, when you weigh them up against education and social services expenditure. Ironically, buses are also matter of social justice, promoting social inclusion.


• Cuts will be fragmented across the county. Some areas will do better than others. Each LTA will adopt a different policy towards changes This makes it hard for a national motivated campaign to be truly successful.


• Those who most need the bus service are generally considered some of the most powerless in terms of making their voices heard, in articulating the reasons why buses should be maintained.

i Campaign for Better Transport Save our Buses

Getting the Hang of It

With warmest thanks to readers, commenters, contributors and tipsters, here is Omnibuses Blog 2010 in review.

After more than five years, it seems like I’m starting to get the hang of this blogging lark. During 2010, the number of words on Omnibuses leapt by a third, from 132,000 in 2009 to 174,500. Yet, the amount of time I spent writing them increased only marginally.

The 175,000 total makes me by far the single most prolific serious writer on buses and bus services... and the least well paid. Unpaid, actually : )

Total visitors year on year ave increased significantly

Yet, the reward for this extra graft was a 65 per cent increase in visits in 2010 and a 74 per cent increase in page views, when compared to 2009. Nearly three quarters of visitors return to the blog consistently. Thank you all.

47 per cent of visitors—nearly half—arrived here directly by typing in the blog’s URL or by searching directly for “Omnibuses Blog”. Then, just under 20 per cent of traffic arrived having made another search of some sort. 33 per cent of visitors arriving at Omnibuses did so by clicking a link from another website of some description.

Excluding searches, of this website-driven traffic, the most important were other blogs, message boards, fora/forums & groups (e.g. Yahoo Groups) and general transport websites. 38 groups or fora/forums sent traffic Omnibuses’ way, including some rail sites.

Other people’s blogrolls are still becoming less significant as time passes. Nevertheless, links from 46 blogs sent traffic here, the top ten most significant being shown below. Please try to return the favour by visiting these blogs, noting that Plymothian Transit and Leon Daniels generate by far the most traffic. Leon Daniels’s has caught up and may soon overtake Plymothian Transit. Manchester Bus is defunct but still sent visitors, especially in the early part of the year.

Less than a fifth of people arrived here using a search engine. I have no idea whether they found what they wanted or whether they stayed around. Given the overall increase in the number of visitors, some must do. Unsurprisingly, Google continues its world domination, with a total of 91 per cent of searches made. Nothing else comes close, not even second placed Yahoo.

Of over 9,000 search terms, the most important remained “Omnibuses blog” followed closely by “Omnibuses”. Thereafter, in order, were Dorset Sprinter (4th last time), Erica Roe (7th), Optare (17th) and Cheltenham District FSF (3rd). Once again, I am not sure why the FSF returns such volume. Fotopic problems (see also revealing Fotopic graph) re-entered the top 10, while usually popular Mercedes 608 was static at no. 11. Borismaster crept in at no. 10.

Whereas Google continues its search supremacy, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is declining. Half of visitors continued to browse using it. A quarter preferred Firefox. Safari & Chrome each held 10 per cent. On the other hand, 86 per cent were using Microsoft Windows OS compared to 10 per cent via Mac OS.

Finally, a word about punctuality and reliability. Keeping up the tradition of 2009, 2010 saw an Omnibuses post every day, so that’s 100 per cent reliability. In terms of punctuality, we aim to get a post up before 0700 NSSu and 0800 SSu (and on bank holidays). Only on nine occasions were we late… in the second half of the year. This equates to 97.5 per cent, well ahead of the traffic commissioners’ 95.

2011 Targets	Target	Actual
Reliability (frequency of posting)	74% (deliberate)	??
Punctuality (before 0700 (0800 SSu)	95%	??

The reliability target for 2011 is deliberately set lower. Find out why.

Value for Money

This is a guest post by Invicta. We welcome contributions

Buried amongst the 290 pages of TfL's “Travel in London” annual report in Table 4.13 is the fact that the gross cost of providing London's bus network in 2008/09 was £1,822mil per annum. Around 60 per cent of that cost was recovered, leaving a subsidy requirement of £720mil for the year. Or, to put it another way, almost £100 for every man, woman and child of the 7.75 million who live in Greater London.

As far as I can tell, that figure does not include concessionary fares reimbursement, which is funded by the London boroughs. Nor does it include the public funding put towards Bus Service Operators’ Grant, but that applies throughout the rest of the country too.

Elsewhere, the story is rather different. Around four or five years ago—that’s before the introduction of the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme but after “free” local travel was in place—the accounts of a metropolitan council in a PTE area revealed that the precept for that body was the equivalent of £48 per head. And for that, you got concessionary fares and a bit of rail subsidy thrown in, too.

At the same time, a bit of work in a shire county produced a figure of around £16-17 per head. That included all the spending of the county, and the concessionary fares funded by the districts within that county. Said county also spent a little on rail projects, while some further spending came from highway budgets, which paid for some improvements to infrastructure.

Nevertheless, this ratio of spending comes out something like, Shire area 1: PTE 3: TfL 6. So what should we conclude? Is public money better spent in the shires than it is in the big metropolitan areas, let alone the biggest metropolitan area of all? Or perhaps if PTEs spent less time dreaming and applied their spending more practically, they too could emulate the passenger growth achieved in Brighton or Oxford or a host of other provincial locations. Either way, a little less spending in London could go a long way towards saving the proposed cuts now being reported almost daily in other parts of the country.

Choices

In a highly entertaining pre-Christmas article, Bus & Coach Buyer nominated several candidates for its “Complete waste of money of the year award”. Here, “Boris’s replacement of perfectly serviceable artics with double decks on increased PVRs at a time of severe financial constraints” did not win.

Operationally, I’ve wondered before whether London is so special that it needs a specific bus design of its own. But that doesn’t mean that it should abandon such a project.

The mayoral campaign was largely fought on the basis of bendy buses versus a 21st century Routemaster. Routemaster, the New Bus for London, won. If this costs more, so be it. There are plenty of examples where public authorities deliberately go for a gold standard because they have made that choice. In public transport, brand new school coaches over serviceable ordinary buses is one good example. And why not, if this is a choice democratically made.

This philosophy permeates TfL in so many ways. It has deliberately provided very high frequencies, with higher than average cost buses, each with fewer seats per unit than in the provinces. The costs are high but the benefits to the public at large are high, too. London has succeeded in doing what we all want to see: in making buses socially acceptable for all. The result is a bus network almost the envy of the world and certainly the PTEs. TfL could easily have adopted a less expensive policy but it chose not to.

TfL has a mandate to provide a NBfL. Thus far, may people seem to agree that it looks good, in the flesh and in terms of what it sets out to achieve. It raises a flag up the flagpole for the industry and it gives the bus service a far higher profile than it currently enjoys, even in London.

This week, though, safety concerns regarding the rear platform have again surfaced. The BBC has questioned whether the EU might challenge the NB4L design, outside Britain. This follows some toing and froing on the subject of the safety of the rear platform. This may yet thwart export sales, which would be a shame as the appearance internally and externally is extraordinary. Rest assured, though, the vehicle has thus far received type approval certification under the small series scheme (for builds of 250 vehicles per annum or fewer). Getting approval beyond that may prove difficult, though, which may be a shame if others are denied the opportunity of running such a bus.

It probably won’t appeal to provincial England because the way in which services are deregulated. A large open platform is a revenue risk. But it might’ve done well in some European markets.

An Uncomfortable Association

Did you pick up the mention during the Christmas Trivia Quiz 2010 of the sixth anniversary since Wilts & Dorset’s “More” branded launch on 12th December 2004? It might be one further month on but...

This autumn was also the fifth anniversary of More deservedly winning the first Bus Marketing Campaign section of the 2005 UK Bus Awards. More’s appearance kick-started a transformation of the strategic inter-urban Poole-Bournemouth corridor in ways six years ago none of us would’ve foreseen. Placing a stamp of individuality, it was the first major flexing of W&D’s new Go Ahead management. And it was the area’s first major, sustained marketing initiative since Yellow Buses’ early 1980s “Catch the Yellows” campaign. Indeed, had the UK Bus Awards been around back then, doubtless Yellow Buses would’ve won.

December 2004 saw original liveried More buses in between Poole & Canford Heath

But there was another corridor given the More treatment of new vehicles in their smart, then smalted blue with red relief. The unique buses with their generously spaced side-by-side front double seats plus single seats opposite appeared on the Poole-Canford Heaths. Unlike the frequency boost given to the M1/M2 between Poole and Bournemouth (and beyond to Christchurch & Burton—remember them?), the M5/M6/M7 of the time operated at the same intervals, albeit with more early services.

The Heaths retain their M5/M6 route numbering and are referred to as More in W&D timetables

For those unfamiliar with North Poole’s Canford Heath, as the name suggests, it was once an open, scrubby, sandy heathland where countless generations of children and young people could roam free, cycle free, kick a ball, play Cowboys & Indians, war, or just chase girls. From the mid-1960s, it progressively fell under housing. Its current population is about 15,000, the size of a small town but, excluding the adjacent out-of-town Tower Park leisure complex, is suburban in nature, with few local facilities.

The current Poole to Canford Heath timetable is still More, top right

The Heath looks to Poole town centre and, indeed, W&D has long given up on the once half-hourly Broadstone/Canford Heath to Bournemouth 107/8 introduced in 1978. Even successor Transdev Yellow Buses has cut the Canford Heath-Bournemouth service after a foray from 2006, though the TYB successor to W&D’s 108 remains yellow.

Over the years, the former 5/6/7 & successors had seen a steadily increasing bus service, somewhat lagging behind the area’s housing build. Buses nevertheless terminated in the suburbs and, as such, didn’t seem to lend themselves to inter-urban More branding. That’s not to say that the Heath should be excluded from improvements; it was the type of offer that was surprising.

Plainer styling, especially at the rear, marks out the so-called "Get More" livery of 2010, in a shade of Celeste. Gone is the distinguished red either side of the registration number in favour of two red ears higher up. Photo: Bus Pics South

At the start of its 2010 More vehicle refurbishment programme, when W&D introduced its so-called “Get More” Celeste blue, W&D trumpeted a More ridership increase of 100 per cent. Significantly, virtually all of that growth can be attributed to the M1/M2 inter-urban corridor twixt Poole, Bournemouth, Boscombe & Castlepoint. The Heath generated very little of this total. Better, perhaps, for W&D to have invested the More branding on conurbation inter-urbans such as the once-named Wimborne Flyer.

Indeed, the Heath lost its More vehicles for a period, from August 2005. These were transferred to bolster the M1/M2 expansion of the time. The Heath then saw ordinary buses and needless to say, there was an outcry. No one on the Heath believed W&D’s claim that More would re-emerge but, in time, it did, when the Citaros arrived in early 2006.

Not updated since 2009, the orphaned Morebus.com website has never referred to the M5 or M6 (or M7)

Even so, mixing under one brand the suburban Heath with cross-conurbation inter-urbans still seems an uncomfortable association. Local industry watchers will doubtless know that W&D puts far more effort into the development of its M1/M2 Mores, leaving the Heath as an also ran service. Witness the Morebus.com website, apparently not updated since August 2009 (sic) and never featuring the Heath. Click the More link on W&D’s newly revised wdbus.co.uk website and you’ll also see no reference to the Heath. Yet, W&D still perpetuates the More product on individual Canford Heath timetables, printed and online.

W&D still needs congratulating on the way it has transformed travel in the Poole-Bournemouth conurbation under More.

Cutting a Dash

Update: 2215 12 January. The Dash Travel Group has formally asked that Omnibuses removes any damaging comments about its business. DTG specifically mentions the blog comments. Readers will be aware that this blog is maintained with limited resources and I therefore need to comply with this request. Therefore, as of 2215, I have no option but to take down these third party remarks. There were 43.

Are there indeed coaching opportunities in recessionary Britain? How easy is it to start a high profile express coach operation & brand? Should we be taking what appears to be soon-to-launch express operator Dash Travel Group seriously? DTG thinks so. “DTG is a new travel provider aimed at offering great value and simply intercity travel in the UK.”

Well, perhaps I am losing my touch. Several comments yesterday on Dash Coach Travel and I still don’t know much about who they are. More worrying, neither do any of my trusted colleagues or usual contacts. So, if anyone’s in the know, do tell us.

What do we know about the Dash Travel Group? Its website claims to offer “the future of intercity coach travel” and that it will launch in 2011. The site features a modern liveried Van Hool Astromega that appears to be on the street but is almost certainly photoshopped. Indeed, the rear green swoop seems to match one of Stagecoach’s.

The company’s domain names were registered only recently. That for Dash Coaches was in September 2010 and for Dash Travel Group, in November 2010. Both are registered to an address in Temple Meads, Bristol, but that tells us little, as this appears to be a corporate office location.

There are a number of jobs purported to be on offer, all of which were posted online yesterday. They range from drivers to on board hosts via reservation & admin assistants and a reservations supervisor. All the sort of thing you might expect from an intercity travel operator, all apparently permanent and full time. But, get this, the locations are advertised as Newcastle-upon-Tyne; Bradford (West Yorkshire); Bristol; Manchester; Sheffield; Blackpool; Edinburgh & Glasgow, Scotland; and Cardiff, Wales. No mention of London, though. Reservations are dealt with in Newcastle, so can we assume this is the operations hub?

Then there’s the fact that someone’s gone to a lot of trouble and expense, not just in terms of recruitment, but in the design of liveries and logos. The spread of locations seems very ambitious for a start up operation, something that will need considerable marketing to get its name known very quickly, particularly as cheaper coach expresses may be reaching saturation. It will need considerable experience and, dare we say, financial backing as well as operational back up. But there is more to an operation than these matters. How, for example, will the company or firm operate? Direct operation? Consortium? Contracting in? Has anyone applied for (or been granted) an O licence? Are there multiple operating centres, as there appear to be?

And finally, the recruitment site suggests that DTG will operate intercity expresses over a 24-hour period, seven days a week. There are “night time shifts etc” (we’re not sure what the et cetera actually means). In addition to serving on board refreshments, helping to ready & load the coaches, hosts are expected to work a minimum of nine hour shifts, with some as long as 16 hours. “Our timetables do have tight turn around[s] and the drivers will be assisting the hosts to get the coaches ready for its next journey.” Unsurprisingly, some overnight lodging will be required.

Administration assistants will be based in Manchester, Bristol and Newcastle. Reservations at Newcastle will be open 24 hours a day. From the information available, it would appear that this relies more on a call centre than internet booking. There appears to be no mention of web based reservation management.

Update: 2215 12 January. The Dash Travel Group has formally asked that Omnibuses removes any damaging comments about its business. DTG specifically mentions the blog comments. Readers will be aware that this blog is maintained with limited resources and I therefore need to comply with this request. Therefore, as of 2215, I have no option but to take down these third party remarks. There were 43.

Raising the Profile

While the recession is affecting extended coach holidays in some interesting and far-reaching ways, operators are also reacting to changes in travel patterns in the express market. Growth in budget travel has fostered the piecemeal expansion of First’s Greyhound brand and today we see the launch of two new Greyhound services, though neither is actually new in itself.

Anglo Scottish Overnights

This evening, Greyhound raises the profile of First Glasgow’s Nightflyer service between Glasgow & Hamilton in Scotland and London. First took this over from Silver Choice, in 2008. Here, there remains just one departure in each direction, at 2200 from London and 2210 from Glasgow. Though Greyhound’s press release trumpeted the usual headline £1 fare plus booking fee, the cheapest between now and 8th February is £9, with single fares usually in the range between £16 and £19—an absolute bargain by any standards.

I’m Mandy, fly me. The generous style and seat pitch associated with Greyhound’s Scania Irizars won’t be gracing the Glasgow-London service. Instead, there’ll be Plaxton Paragons. Meanwhile, Cardiff-Swansea gets the luxury treatment. Photo: Gerallt Cymro

In something truly reminiscent of the iconic American long haul, this becomes Greyhound’s longest distance service. Unlike other Greyhounds, its first “international” service is concentrating on cheaper fares rather than generous seat pitches, leather and free wi-fi. This somewhat fragments the Greyhound brand but in all honesty, it is already segmented into:

• London commuter & lifestyle express
• Inter-urban limited stop
• From today, overnight specialist long haul bucket travel.

And never the twain shall probably meet. To date, Greyhound has majored on an upmarket image at bargain prices. Glasgow-London seems to drop the former of these.

You’d have thought, though, that one of the requisites of a 400 plus mile journey taking at least 8½ hours was the ability to spread out a little. To date, seating has been Greyhound’s unique selling point. This is the more so twixt Glasgow & London since National Express also serves the longstanding Anglo-Scottish overnight market with a “fast” departure at 2230. Indeed, you won’t find the Greyhound Irizars on the Glasgows. Instead, First is using otherwise redundant First Wales Plaxton Paragon-bodied Volvos.

Winchester

Also today, First adds Winchester to its south coast to London Greyhound commuter & lifestyle network. This follows Bournemouth and its extension to Poole; and Fareham, on the back largely of Greyhound’s Portsmouth services (though one weekend departure operates from Southampton).

The Winchester services will be formed from one Poole-Bournemouth-Ringwood-Winchester-London trip in each direction (daily); and one Southampton-Winchester-London in each direction (Mondays to Fridays).

Fareham bookings are showing promise and First expects to run non-stop direct on a trial basis using an existing weekend duplicate.

Developments to date

From	To	Market Segment	Start Date
Portsmouth	London	Lifestyle & Commuter	14th September 2009
Southampton	London	Lifestyle & Commuter	14th September 2009
Bournemouth	London	Lifestyle & Commuter	1st May 2010
Fareham	London	Lifestyle & Commuter	31st May 2010
Bournemouth Uni	London	Lifestyle & Commuter	5th September 2010
Poole	London	Lifestyle & Commuter	13th September 2010
Cardiff	Swansea	Inter-urban Limited Stop	20th September 2010
Winchester	London	Lifestyle & Commuter	Today
Glasgow	London	Long haul	Today

Casualty

Thus far, industry causalities in the current recession have mercifully been rare. A couple of resellers have gone by the board. A few SMEs have also disappeared, some liquidated, others sold. The biggest to date has been East London, which found itself in administration. Some might argue that this was odd, given the market in which it operated, though Macquarrie buying at its peak at a price well below the level of its debt probably and losing franchises had something to do with it. There have been on and off rumours abounding about Optare for some time, now hopefully quelled by the involvement of Ashok Leyland.

The standard Diamond Holidays website, above, is now replaced by the usual administration notice

We heard on Friday that Diamond Holidays of Swansea, Wales, was in administration. Diamond is no bit part player. It runs a substantial holidays and tours programme and for this it’s reported as the largest of its kind in Wales. Its problems reached just about all the national press (that concentrates on anything more than gossip).

Diamond appears caught between the pincer of increasing fuel prices and a reduction in demand. They say that Swansea relies on the public sector for one in four jobs, so the future in the age of austerity will look even bleaker in 2011. But there are also other factors.

• Diamond is also believed to have faced substantial competition. Could this be driving prices down to unsustainable levels? One such competitor, equally renown Edwards, is believed to be considering some sort of rescue.


• Diamond has invested heavily in impressive fleet, including top of the range Setras. This means significant debt repayment. It’s a fine line between investing for growth and investing and being optimistic about the return.


• Diamond optimistically bought the Kingfisher arm of Islwyn Borough Transport.

You’d think at the moment that a tour operator who gets his costs and product right could do no wrong. The recession has resulted in more home-based holidays. The coach touring market aims squarely at the over 50s and 60s, a population segment taking more holidays than any other and who are often relatively well off, with neither children at home nor mortgage. If only it were that easy.

Yet, coaching holidays have seen some major changes in recent years. Operators rightly concentrating on moving their products up market, to lose the so-called “Carry On” image, find that value-seeking customers currently take shorter breaks than perhaps they once did. Ironically, the recent buoyancy’s been at the lower end. Operators who don’t adapt to this changing environment can face considerable problems. It’s always sad when we see a loss of this type but Diamond may not actually be the last.

Meanwhile, a comment left here yesterday suggests that Veolia is looking to sell its South Wales business. We cannot verify this.

Excuses, Excuses?

The other piece in the Nottingham bus war jigsaw is the next move from Your Bus. Out goes the original Y81 (Y82) that kicked the operator off. In comes Y100, a bus service from Southwell to Nottingham and one that competes directly with Nottingham City Transport’s 100 (though Yourbus has chosen to operate evenly between existing NCT departures). Extended to start from Newark at peak periods, the Y100 also cuts across Marshall’s 90.

Both the 90 and 100 were formerly operated by Pathfinder, a start up local service operation that survived longer-established South Notts, eventually joining it as part of NCT. Under NCT, the 90 struggled, hence its move to Marshall’s. The 100 remained and, in spite of some investment, is probably somewhat lacklustre. The $64,000 questions are, why should Your Bus jettison the Y81 in favour of a borderline route that to date hasn’t responded much to treatment? And, will NCT use this move as a good excuse to let the 100 go?

The excuse Your Bus gives regarding the Y81 is parking problems in Hyson Green. We all know that this can be a real difficulty for operators and the solution, where it’s extreme, is to increase running time and resources, neither of which Your Bus probably wishes to do.

Could traffic be nothing other than a smokescreen, though? The raison d’être for the Y81 was always to have a go at the tram. Tram-like Y81 running times seem too tight, loadings appear too inconsistent and, let’s face it, picking a fight with the tram is probably going to be nothing other than one-sided, especially when you have traffic problems as reported by Your Bus. The tram can easily put paid to such irritations.

Your Bus is also beefing up its newer combative service, between Chilwell & Beeston and Nottingham. This is aimed at a softer target than the tram, squarely at NCT’s buses. To date, NCT has been prudent in not responded. Will it now follow the Trent Barton’s regional lead and up the ante?