How to repackage and re-present longer distance inter-urbans, today on the Dorset Bus Blog

Veolia off the Scene?

Continuing yesterday’s theme, Veolia is the other constituent of the forthcoming Transdev/Veolia combine. Veolia first entered the UK under the maligned Connex name … and departed swiftly. Connex started running the South Eastern & South Central rail franchises 15 years ago, with South Eastern due to finish this year and South Central five years ago. Citing a loss of confidence, the then SRA terminated early, in 2003 and 2001. Connex operated buses in London between 2000 and 2004, before selling to National Express who in turn sold to Ned Rail.

But Veolia had aspirations to return and return it did, in a very different guise. Five years ago, at the very time Transdev was moving in, it was all go for Veolia.

Five years ago, it’s believed Veolia paid well over the odds for the colourful South Wales independent Shamrock Travel, fronted by Clayton Jones. This Veolia added to its Bebb business, purchased the previous year. Also, five years ago came Alpha Bus & Coach, other South Wales independents and Paul James of Leicestershire. Significantly, that year, Veolia purchased Dunn Line. 2007 saw more in York added where initially it had tendered successfully. This Veolia has recently sold to Transdev, even before the French merger talks. And, last year, Veolia let Nottingham go (buses to Premiere ; National Express contracts to Yourbus).

Since 2006, its South Wales rump from Carmarthenshire to Monmouthshire and Powys remains but there are even question marks over that operation.

• It’s never managed profit in spite of some heavy low floor investment


• Now, Veolia is reported to have lost National Express work for a dozen or so vehicles, the contracts transferring to Edwards of Llantwit Fadre


• It cut back heavily in 2008


• It’s struggled with council contract work & time keeping in the Ammanford area of Swansea and reports suggest work is being handed in


• Indeed, it remains exposed to any local transport authority budget cuts, as a significant slice of work is under contract


• It was recently penalised to the tune of £33,000 for punctuality issues in and around Cardiff


• In late 2009, Clayton Jones returned to compete against them.

Veolia staff in Wales have apparently been warned that there might be up to 200 redundancies. Rather than affirming post-Nottingham the South Wales position, a representative quoted in a local newspaper at the end of January stated, “At the moment senior management [at Veolia] are making no comment and not confirming anything”.

Ahead of the competition of the Transdev/Veolia merger, UK industry watchers are speculating as to which organisation will have the management upper hand. The seeds already seem sown in that 640-vehicle Veolia still with bases in Wales, the Midlands and the north east may actually exit ahead of the changes.

Meanwhile, under the merger, Transdev Yellow Buses was due to hive off to RATP Dev on 22 February. Nothing’s yet happened though matters are in train.

Lower-most photo by "Gerallt Cymro"

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

Survey Results—2

Thanks again to everyone who completed the 2011 Omnibuses survey. About a fortnight ago, I published some qualitative results regarding reader dislikes. Now’s the time to go all quantitative, with the survey’s main results. For some of the questions, I have data back to 2009. Please click on the images to enlarge them.

How can you help Omnibuses

This was a new question for 2011. Half of respondents weren’t sure whether they could help or not. But that’s OK because I am pleased to say a quarter of you answered that you could submit an occasional article. Thank you. I can now look forward to semi-blogging retirement : )

How do readers rate the Omnibuses Blog

This year, one person felt that the blog was “OK”. This was an increase of one over the previous two years. Consistency, however, continued across the three years as, mercifully, no one thought that Omnibuses was “poor”. The proportion of people who responded who felt that the blog was “excellent” had increased year on year, to 58 per cent.

How often you read the Omnibuses Blog

75 per cent of readers who responded to the survey join the blog daily. This is also consistent across the three years of surveys. About 20 per cent read two or three times a week.

What’s your interest

You will recall I asked whether readers were (a) enthusiasts, (b) worked in the industry, or (c) both. Summing the results, 82 per cent of respondents felt that they were enthusiasts, up from 71 per cent in 2009 and 79 per cent in 2010.

Many of these also work in the industry. Nearly half of readers (46 per cent) do (or did) so, whether enthusiasts or not, up from 34 per cent in 2009 and 43 per cent in 2010. See graph above.

Is Omnibuses unbiased

This was a new question for 2011. 98 per cent of respondents felt Omnibuses was unbiased. This comprised 72 per cent who felt that the blog was “usually balanced but with the odd imbalance or biased view” and 26 per cent who felt the blog was always unbiased.

How is Omnibuses rated against other transport blogs

A growing number felt that Omnibuses was their favourite transport blog. This now amounts to over 40 per cent of respondents. As this number has increased, the proportion of those who declared the OB was better than other transport blogs has decreased, albeit marginally, from 40 per cent (2009) to 35 per cent (2011).

Length of posts

There was a change of one percentage point from 2010 (when we first asked this question) to 97 per cent of respondents felt that the length of post was about right.

Where you live

The proportion hasn’t changed much over the last three years. About half the readers declared they lived in southern England (however that’s defined), including Dorset. The proportion reading from Dorset has reduced by one percentage point from nine in 2009 & 2010.

Dorset Bus Blog

We asked, “Do you think by moving most Dorset posts to the Dorset Bus Blog that we’ve managed to overcome previous perceptions of a southern bias?” I was grateful for a written comment that corrected me by saying that this was previously less of a “bias” and more of a “focus”.

28 per cent of respondents weren’t sure. 12 per cent disagreed but 61 per cent agreed. Issues about Dorset are expounded further in Survey Results—1.

Your age

Roughly, 33 per cent of people here are between 18 & 35; 33 per cent third over 50; 25 per cent between 25 & 50; and about five per cent under 18. Though the under 18s have recovered a little since 2010; the percentage was nine in 2009.

Community and Stake

New for 2011, 55 per cent of respondents felt that the blog has “developed a strong online community & following” with virtually all the remainder unsure. Only a handful felt there the statement about a strong community was false.

We also asked whether readers felt that they had a stake in this blog. 39 per cent felt they had. 32 per cent felt otherwise. The remainder weren’t sure.

Allestree, Remember Me

In the minor hit “Elstree”, The Buggles sang the chorus line “Life is not what it used to be”. And so it is in Allestree, Derby, as bus operator Trent Barton & city council seem to be heading towards something of a very broken relationship.

According to the council, it’s retaliation. According to the operator, it’s just common sense. Who do you believe?

Not the current Allestree incarnation

It all started over the council’s decision to abandon at some future point its Kedleston Road bus lane. This has been in place for some six months. Bus lanes are never popular with many in the community motorists. I’ve yet to see any similar priority measure that’s been wholeheartedly welcomed by other than those you would expect. It seems Kedleston Road is no exception.

The world’s only non-contentious bus lane? Linking Creekmoor Lane & York Road via Broadstone Way, near Poole

Then came an email from Trent Barton’s managing director, stating that he intended to withdraw his Allestree service from the bus station. This, he said, was nothing to do with the council’s decision over the aforesaid bus lane along which the Allestree operates. Instead, it was to save time and save a bus in the Allestree cycle. All very noble.

Not surprisingly, the council struck back. Stated someone, “I sometimes think the bus companies believe they run the city as well as the bus services”.

Trent Barton then clarified matters more publicly. Relations between company and council were at their “lowest ebb”. The withdrawal of the Allestree from the bus station again had nothing to do with the bus lane. Usage on the Allestree to and from Derby’s new bus station was, according to Trent Barton, low. People preferred central city centre destinations. By terminating in a loop along which people actually want to travel, Trent Baron would save the cost of a peak vehicle (£110,000) plus it maintains the frequency because punctuality & reliability will improve.

But you cannot win in such circumstances. Trent Barton has been here before. In one of Omnibuses’ most commented upon posts, Trent Barton threaten to withdraw the Mickleover from Derby bus station. This was for the self-same reasons as now argued about the Allestree. For the Mickleover, there were sound reasons why Trent Barton should do this. And yet there was a high profile campaign spearheaded by the local press that resulted in a Trent Barton concession. The operator is even believed to have slotted in an *extra* resource on the Mickleover to assist punctuality.

It may be less comfortable that passengers wait on street that the bus station. Then again, it would appear that street side stops are where passengers want to go. And with a bus at every 7½ minutes, waiting on-street isn’t long. But these are arguments that Trent Barton probably cannot win.

Perhaps another line from Elstree might apply. “They stop the orchestra if you get it wrong”. It would be nice to think that both parties might pause for breath, take stock and come to some understanding, a sort of quid pro quo. It would be good to see the best of both worlds for the Allestree: the retention of the Kedlestone Road bus lane *and* the bus station. “There’s no reality and no one dead…”

Another New Suit

Plymouth City Bus isn’t the only operator to launch a new livery this month. Rotala, the new owner of Preston Bus, has very quickly come up with something different.

When you consider it took Plymouth City Bus a year to settle on its red+red design, Rotala has devised and applied something fresh in just weeks. And although you may consider it looks average on paper, Omnibuses’ Northern Correspondent has seen it in the flesh. His view? It looks far better face to face and is almost majestic, thanks to the colour silver.

This new Mercedes Citaro is believed to have been heading for Rotala in the West Midlands but was quickly diverted to Preston. Preston Bus drivers will notice the build quality when compared to the East Lancs bodied Scania/Esteems

Indeed, at the heart of the Preston Bus deign is the colour silver. Silver’s been adding a refined elegance to new cars since the early 1980s but it’s rarely seen on buses. Over a quarter of new cars in any typical year tend to be silver. What better colour to attract motorists?

The new livery retains the recently introduced limy, lettuce green and it darkens the blue. The most interesting feature of the silver is that it sees the withdrawal of cream. Losing the buttermilk really does modernise the livery. Mind you, it’s believed that Rotala’s double deck Preston Bus livery will have more green (along the roofline) and replace silver with white.

Rotala has developed stylised “PB” logo as a variation on the pre-Stagecoach motif of old. It looks a little like a swirling pennant or eddying banderol being waved in the wind, though some might consider it has a cheap, child-like quality to it.

Images and additional information by Omnibuses’ Northern Correspondent

The New Order

In spite of tangible cuts in near enough ¾ of local transport authority supported services’ budgets; and in spite of a fall in total bus & coach new registrations owing to economic uncertainty, Arriva yesterday unveiled details of a massive order.

One of Arriva North West’s VDL SB200/Wrightbus vehicles when days old, assisting in Altrincham during a tram possession

Of the 419, we’d already heard of Optare’s quota. Mere crumbs, though significant for Optare. If Optare felt pleased with its 69 vehicles, Wrightbus will be delighted, for the Ballymena builder will body 334 buses and build another five integrals, though the 207 ordered DB300/Gemini 2 DL double decks are what might be termed semi-integral.

Mind you, 117 are for London to TfL specifications and, as such, don’t represent a true commercial investment on Arriva’s part.

In a sense, there are no surprises. Wrightbus is Arriva’s favoured bodybuilder. The bulk of the chassis are from VDL, Arriva’s favoured bus manufacturer. These include 96 SB200s. Arriva has consistently been the major purchaser of the successor to the SB220. Heavier than the Dart but lighter than the 21 Volvo B7RLEs also ordered by Arriva, the SB200 carries Dart-sized, eight-stud wheels compared to the B7RLE’s 10 studs, and these make the VDL a little lighter and passengers should notice a little less wheel intrusion, if they cared about such things and were able to make a comparison.

Arriva is the major patron of the SB200 but others also take them. Here is a brand new SB200 recently delivered to Fishwick

Presumably for evaluation, Arriva has ordered five Wrightbus Streetlite minibuses against 13 Optare Solos. Though the Solo has its critics, regular Solo users know what they’re getting. Would this be true of the Streetlite, a concept yet to have proved itself?

It’s worth noting that there are no repeat Temsa Avenue orders. The Avenues were pitted against the SB200. Hmmm. May be it’s too soon to tell...

Images: Omnibuses’ Northern Correspondent

New Clothes

It might not be the only way that an operator presents itself but for the non-user, livery is at least initially the most important. In one design, it gives a visual representation of the business and its brand. It sets the tone.

One of the two latest liveries to find their way into our streets this month is at Plymouth City Bus. Former Wilts & Dorset man Andrew Wickham’s certainly taken his time in deciding upon new clothes. It’s been over a year since he and Go Ahead took over. But he wanted to get things right. At least the website and bus network’s recently received a makeover. One of these is of considerable importance to the business.

The new livery is streets ahead of Plymouth’s current incarnation which, though modern, has too much white against red. It makes the red look stark. Very visible, certainly, but also too brash.

The new design is still visible but cleverer. In line with the current vogue, the livery fails to follow the vehicle’s lines. It therefore gives the impression of a more thrusting and enterprising organisation, something that Go Ahead would wish to foster and indeed exploit.

Mind you, it’s questionable whether there needs to be so much vinyl on the lower panels between the axles, just where you might expect there to be scuffs and damage.

I like the design nonetheless. The bit with which I am least comfortable is the use of two closely related reds, either side of the welcome white swoop. The rear is almost a russet. It’s an orangey red that’s very warm in nature. The front is more oxblood or claret and is much colder. They seem to be slightly juxtaposed. They remind me of a slightly mismatched lounge suit or wallpaper from different batches.

Plymouth City Bus of old has seen quite a number livery incarnations. The best was its 1982 livery when it increased the amount of cream. In 2007, we said of the 1982 livery that it literally & metaphorically redrew the boundaries of design. The new design doesn’t do anything so revolutionary. In many a sense, it’s Stenning through and through. But it does modernise the image to the extent that passengers and non-passengers will look at City Bus and they just might believe things are changing for the better.

i More images of the new livery including shots like the one above from Brian George on Plymothian Transit

Tesco & the Rest

This is a guest post by the Fat Bus Bloke. Omnibuses welcomes guest posts. More information here

Comments on recent blog posts raise the eternal question, “Should buses be a public service or a business?” The answer is that they are both. Tesco also provides a public service, making food available at competitive prices to any member of the public that chooses to go there. How does Tesco and a typical bus company compare?

Last month, Tesco added this Bournemouth store, just off The Square, in the former Borders Books premises. Tesco already has one at The Triangle

They are both in business to make money for their shareholders. We tend to accept that for Tesco yet we resent the concept for the bus operator.

Tesco does not offer cheap prices for children and senior citizens yet we expect this from the bus company.

“Prophet in exchange for profit” as the Mail put it. A highly controversial Tesco store was this one at Westbourne, Bournemouth. It opened in November 2010 in a former Methodist chapel and retains therein its stained glass

Tesco has loads of “up-front” price offers, including bulk buy bargains. The bus industry is coy about advertising single journey prices. Indeed, this is probably the only industry where you have to buy first then know the price later—that is, after you have boarded the bus. Apart from season tickets and “rovers”, the industry rarely has special offers.

The bus industry is expected to provide its product when few people want to buy it: every evening, on Sundays and in rural areas. Tesco would not dream of opening anywhere and at any time when there are only a few customers and we would not expect them to do so. True, larger Tesco’s open 24/7/364 but they may as well, as they would be open for self-stacking and for bagging up home deliveries.

The bus industry is castigated when one company “sees off” a competitor while Tesco has been doing it for years, and more aggressively. We complain about the denuding of our town centres but no politician would dare to “force” Tesco to tolerate a competitor on the same site. The market is king and, despite the protests, we all shop at Tesco.

Tesco has proliferated across the Bournemouth-Poole conurbation

Jolly Jack Cohen (the founder of Tesco) worked on the basis of “pile it high, sell it cheap” but we expect our buses to be both cheap & of high quality; and moan when they do not meet our aspirations. We praise Tesco for its “economy” brands, but we are uneasy about “Magic Bus”.

Finally, in a more general way, we demand subsidy for unremunerative bus services and we also want “something to be done” to keep post offices, shops and pubs in our villages. But we are aghast at the concept of paying increased taxes to pay for these “public services”!

i The Fat Bus Bloke writes the occasional blog called Public Transport Experience

Optare on the Up?

There’d be a certain delicious irony if the recently announced 68-bus £7.6mil Optare order for a “major operator” went to National Express West Midlands. For, there’s talk again of NatEx and Stagecoach buddying up. If the order was indeed NatEx’s, that would mean Stagecoach once more buying Optares in some quantity. Well, sort of.

Speculation à la 2009 in the Grauniad yesterday that NatEx and Stagecoach may join. Or they may not

But the order isn’t likely to be NatEx’s and in all probability it won’t be Stagecoach’s. So, who, then? Optare isn’t giving anything away, preferring to make you guess.

Part of a batch of 10 Visionaires for Arriva, were these East Lancs badged Volvo B9TLs

Optare clearly states the order is for a UK “major operator”. It’s a mixed order of single & double decks. To me, this doesn’t smell of First. Perhaps Go Ahead. If I were a betting man, I’d guess Arriva—and more precisely, perhaps some of this going to Arriva London. It may yet include some open tops for Arriva London’s Original Sightseeing Tour. These would be Olympus variants known as Visionaires, or Panaires, as the fully open top bodies are (or used to be) called. Time will tell.

Now that the Olympus Visionaire operates in Dorset, the more I see them the more I like the look at them, in spite (or perhaps because) of their being the last legacy of the East Lancs era. Of the all-Scania OmniCity, ADL400 and Visionaire deckers recently delivered to Wilts & Dorset, it is the last of these that looks the best. And the Scania OmniCities seem to have developed very early squeaks & rattles.

Optare is planning to raise £7.4mil in new shares to fund the relocation of its Leeds factory and to provide some working capital. These are on sale at 2p per share. Yesterday, Optare’s shares are worth 3.25pps at their closing bid price. Surely even either 2p or 3.25p, they can only go in one direction. Especially after a staggering 68-vehicle order.

Why did Wilts & Dorset withdraw its successful More services east of Boscombe? And might W&D re-introduce a truly cross-conurbation service again? Today on the Dorset Bus Blog

Silver Jubilee

This, our 2,000th post, seems an appropriate moment to take a look back at the beginnings of a momentous occasion and a frenetic time...

25 years ago this month, each and every bus operator throughout the land was putting the finishing touches to the nation’s first ever commercial networks. Or the first ever standalone, commercial networks since the 1920s.

Operators needed to have their networks registered with their respective traffic commissioner by 28th February 1986, eight months ahead of D-Day on 26th October. Of course, most services started in earnest the following Monday.

The February cut off was to assist local transport authorities in assessing and tendering socially necessary services.

For the operator, February was a difficult month and it resulted in a deal of hard work, late nights and it often culminated in a last minute courier dash to the traffic area office.

The Department of Transport (as then called) sent this deregulation guide to all PSV operators, hoping to spark some reaction from those hitherto uninterested in bus operations. It arrived as late as December 1985. Though operators were busy planning their commercial networks, it still left little time to digest the guidance to the nuts & bolts of registration

And it wasn’t just about registrations, either. There were other things on each operator’s plate besides a viable network. Every one of the following added to the pressure:

• For National Bus Company subsidiaries, there was the prospect of privatisation. To buy or not to buy a stake in your own business was one such consideration. Another was whether someone else might take a fancy. This meant carefully constructed bids. There was much detail and negotiations with bankers and backers, not to mention placing your personal assets on the line.


• For the municipal sector, this was a time when the apron strings were loosened. Each undertaking was no longer to be a department of their owning councils but fully fledged trading companies, albeit at arm’s length. The business transformation process was considerable and time-consuming. Not everyone back at the Town Hall understood the process or the need to meet the deadline.


• For the PTE operators, there was also an added complication that staff needed transferring between the soon-to-be arms-length operations and the rump of the PTE and the PTA. This caused some tensions. A further complication was the lead up to April 1986 when the metropolitan counties were abolished. PTAs had to be reformed as regional organisations outside the doomed county structures.


• For four remaining larger NBC companies who were now forced to split, there were also enforced divisions to manage. This was announced very late in the day, in February 1986. This meant that they were even more poorly placed to ride out the changes and were at the back of the privatisation queue.


• For all operators, large & small, there was the need to assess potential competitors. Obviously, this was something of an unknown quantity and, as such, it was easy to over-react. This fed back into the formulation of commercial networks to defend against *potential* competition. As a result, commercial mileage was often exaggerated.


• For those operators keen to try their hand at the new freedoms allowed, there was the additional time consuming need to look for opportunities to develop what might soon be their own businesses. Many did so by investing in (short-lived) local coaching. Others assessed whether it was possible—and profitable—to compete in new local bus markets. It would be a rare general manager who didn’t at least consider such expansion. Busmen were beginning to show some sound commercial judgements and it was often fairly easy to understand where best to compete. What was more difficult was weighing up any likely retaliatory response. This often resulted in the status quo.

For all operators, there was the need to carry on the day job of getting garages of buses turned out each morning and keeping passengers & stakeholders happy. It was also a time when negotiations with the union were particularly sensitive, when operators were about to step out into the unknown without the so-called feather bed of subsidy. With only a few exceptions, everyone got through it OK, though.

The Sun Says

“Bus spotter blog picks up hundreds of followers”.

It’s surprising what a mention in the Sun newspaper can do for your site statistics and the sudden popularity of a bus blog. Not this blog, the X1 News Blog.

Visitors (yellow) and page views (red) to the X1 News Blog, from 14th January to 12th February 2011 inclusive. On 11th February, it hit the Eastern Daily Press. Yesterday, it reached The Sun

I’m not referring to the Bournemouth-Lymington X1 (X12) but the 113-mile bus service from Peterborough to Lowestoft, via King’s Lynn, Norwich & Great Yarmouth. If its length wasn’t enough, the thing operates at half-hourly intervals and by English standards, it’s therefore truly prodigious. The PVR is claimed to be 19.

Since the autumn of 2008, the First Eastern Counties X1 has usually been home to brand new 74-seat Volvo B9TL/Wrightbus Gemini buses to dual purpose standards whose seats beat the average you find these days. But they’re still somewhat harder than in bygone times. This the more so, given the length of time an end-to-end passenger will spend on the vehicle. A single trip westbound takes 4 hrs 34 mins.

The X1 News blog is also prodigious. Like its dependent bus service, the X1News Blog isn’t for the faint hearted. It chronicles the almost daily account of vehicles in service but does so in a well written and informative manner. Unlike the Sun headline, not everything therein is about Spotting. Read the blog and you’ll get the definite impression that the service, in spite of its length, is pretty reliable and often very punctual (except perhaps on summer Saturdays and at some peak time pinch points).

Slightly ironic that the Sun should tempt us to find a new car online, to the right of the article

The blog refers to recent Jointace adverts on the X1’s rears. Perhaps such advertisements are prophetic. May be passengers need joint care products to assist those who struggle get comfortable on long trips aboard the Gemini. Note that such adverts have appeared in Bournemouth and Poole where generously pitched leather seated luxury or 2+1 seating prevails!

Unsurprisingly, First keeps an eye on the X1 News Blog. “We think the blog is an excellent example of how modern technology can be used in a positive way to monitor local services”. Sure beats an Inspector with a clipboard though I’d guess the union might have something to say if the blog was ever used as part of a disciplinary.

i The X1 News Blog

Survey Results—1

Just for a change, rather than publish the quantitative results in this week’s survey first, I thought I’d start with some of the qualitative written responses. There were too many of them to comment on them all but I do value everyone’s opinion.

Here, therefore, is a flavour of what people *dislike* about Omnibuses.

By far the biggest beef was a need for a fairer geographical spread of content or a perceived regional bias, though one person kindly preferred to use the term “focus”. Most who commented nevertheless understood.

“As you imply elsewhere, [there is] limited content from some regions”, said one.

“There are many articles from around the country and I understand it is hard to include the whole country. However there are not many articles from… the West Midlands.” Two others who said something almost identical echoed this: “Not much news about the midlands, North West, Scotland or Wales”.

“Not many posts from my area (Yorkshire).” At least that particular writer was magnanimous in saying that he “still enjoy reading the blog though”.

One person offered a solution to a lack of articles from the North. “Appreciate this is because of where the blogger lives/works. May be an assistant could be recruited up here?” Someone was blunter, referring to “the unfortunate lack of a national perspective due to the correspondents’ southern addresses”.

Click to view: We asked, "Do you think by moving most Dorset posts to the Dorset Bus Blog that we’ve managed to overcome previous perceptions of a southern bias?"

The above tends to mirror last year’s survey comments. This resulted in most Dorset posts being hived off to the new Dorset Bus Blog. This year, there was a little bit of a southern backlash.

“I would like to see more Dorset posts (the number has decreased too far!).” Another went further. “I now find it a pain having to pop over to the Dorset blog to read local stories; especially when the Preston saga didn’t get its own site.”

OK, point taken. Continuing about Dorset, another comment was that “it is as relevant to anyone having a general interest in the industry as anything occurring further north”. I did like the concept of places “further north” than Bournemouth & Poole! Plenty of scope, there : )

Another person wrote that when “I came to this blog as it had a Dorset/Southern focus… and was a good way of keeping in touch with the area. It rarely touches on Dorset happenings these days (even with the separate Dorset blog) which to me is a great shame.” Could it be that the heady days of the Bournemouth council sale, the immediate Wilts & Dorset aggression and the early introduction of More are now long gone?

Nevertheless, someone put it more stridently, “No reason to have a separate blog. You’re based in Dorset… if you are looking to cut down on the amount of work cut the additional blog.”

Finally, on this subject, one respondent offered the following.

“I wouldn’t say you have a north/south bias at all. There are some subjects that are covered more than others, for example there’s been a recent obsession with Wellglade/Trent Barton, but if they’re making the news then it’s natural they feature more.”

I wouldn’t put it *quite* as an obsession. Trent Barton was breaking with tradition after all, but point taken. This issue did, after all, garner plenty of reader comments. He nevertheless offered a solution. “This can only be changed with more correspondents from across the country.”

Changing the record, a number of people felt that, “Replying to posts is a bit clunky” and “Logging in to post a comment seems rather complicated so I usually post as Anonymous. This might be out of Busing’s control and more of a Blogger issue.” Indeed, yes. I can keep it as it is or restrict it to members or those with Google accounts…

Another felt “Sometimes I find the comments a bit biased, but everyone’s entitled to their view.” At least most people seemed happy with the generally impartial content with the blog itself.

An interesting dislike was “Not knowing who you [the blog owner] are or why you do this”. On the other hand, this not knowing is also has its advantages, don’t you think? To find out a little more about the blog author, see here.

An unexpected gripe came from someone who felt “There are never any external links in blog posts. Come on, that won’t lower your rank on Google!”

Really? I do forget but often there’s a link at the bottom of a post, marked thus i

Linked to this, there are “Not enough photos.” This is a real problem for someone who doesn’t take that much bus photography and doesn’t always get the opportunity to do so even when visiting other areas. Are there any general photographers out there who might allow me access to their Flickr or Fotopic images free of charge?

One person felt that, “Occasionally, the post is too long”. It’s interesting though that over 90 per cent of respondents clicked on the posts “about the right length” answer further down the survey.

One optimist stated that there was nothing he disliked, save that, “you need to post more”. Gulp.

Another felt that “the biography of Red & White… was rather negative and biased, but that is my only gripe.” That person has a very good memory, as this was published in September 2006!

Another unexpected dislike was regarding “comments from people who get things wrong”. They also provided the answer: “Perhaps I should have responded to that though!” Indeed. Any constructive comment is welcome.

A fair point from one commenters who suggested, “Sometimes [you] seem to get stuck in a bit of a topic-loop, such as the current number of posts about cuts/BSOG etc. Don’t forget there are other things happening, though.” Guilty, I guess, though for those not involved in the industry, free travel reductions in particular are exercising many a mind at the moment.

“Perhaps some of the linked blogs could be updated. There are a couple that seem to have been dormant for more than one year.” I’ll try to look at this over the weekend.

Finally, here’s an interesting one on which to finish. I might add that I asked whether readers felt they had a stake in the Omnibuses Blog. 40 per cent of those who responded stated they did (and 30 per cent weren’t sure).

“It’s your blog, you should write about whatever you feel. If you live in and around Dorset why not feature that area as much as you want. You offer readers the opportunity to post articles. They can do that about their local area if they wish. Too many use the internet to complain and berate and too few use it pro-actively. Great blog, look forward to reading it each day.”

Over to you. If you feel your area is under-represented, please do something about it.

In Print

In spite of the similarities between the two blogs in terms of “innovative journalistic engagement”, in the aftermath of the sale of the Huffington Post Blog to AOL for £196mil, there is no truth whatever in the rumour that the Omnibuses Blog has sold to New Transit magazine for a “considerable five figure sum”.

Why would we? New Transit now seems to have slumped to occasional production only, with the last two editions spanning two, not one month. Two of New Transit’s main writers have recently left. These are former editor Robert Jack and contributor Andrew Garnett. Both enjoyed high standing as cutting-edge transport writers. They join Meera Rambissoon, who left a while back. She now works for Coach & Bus Week.

Indeed, Jack & Garnett are about to launch their own magazine, entitled Passenger Transport. The offer sounds a little like Old Transit: a news-led fortnightly but with analysis and comment. Indeed, Old Transit had replaced the erstwhile Bus Business as the industry must-read. Old Transit differed from CBW & routeONE in that Transit didn’t simply bring you the news, it sought to analyse it. If the promises are kept, Passenger Transport looks set to bring back this older format, including that much missed company financial analysis senior managers would eagerly await each issue. Even if half of them were rail based!

Jack and Garnett’s passengertransport.co.uk domain currently points to this empty Wordpress site. For those who know it, the image is somewhat redolent of the B3082 near Badbury Rings, Dorset...

That’s not to say that the road to Passenger Transport success will be easy. It has to compete in a crowded marketplace. CBW’s relaunch, for example, means it impresses much more than it has for a long time. Modern Railways plus a raft of other journals is still the most important in the rail sector.

And, since the Old Transit news-led fortnightly seemed to have waned (and hence its relaunch as a features-led monthly, in 2009), success is by no means guaranteed. For Transit, the new format was do or die…

New Transit’s trump card is its website. Here, you will find the sort of news once available in Old Transit—albeit without some of the comment & analysis. If a £95 subscription seems a lot for a magazine like New Transit, you do get access to articles online that appear in other Landor journals, especially Local Transport Today. Some may be of interest to the operations industry though others set the public policy scene.

Passenger Transport nevertheless looks promising. Its editors say that the coverage of the bus industry will be “substantial”. They liken its appeal to the former Old Transit but are quite clear that this is a new venture. They’re being tight-lipped about subscription prices and mock ups and, cleverly, this heightens anticipation levels.

Present alongside Jack & Garnett will be Stuart Wilde. He’s the other of the Blazefield team. And, of course, your blog author Busing is always open to offers… but they will have to be nearer the Huffington Post end of the spectrum before he even considers switching on his computer : )

An online experiment, today on the Dorset Bus Blog

Passing of the Bus Barons?

When in the late 1920s and early 1930s the rail industry bought into buses, it was to protect their markets. They’d begun to realise that in some—many— circumstances, buses were a real threat to rail growth. Buying in was preferable to starting their own: rail managers realised bus operation was fundamentally different to the railway.

Rail interests eventually resulted in the nationalisation of much of the territorial bus industry. In 1948, when Tilling voluntarily sold its stake in its operators to the British Transport Commission, the railway was nationalised, giving the State overall control in considerable bus networks.

OK, so that was a gross simplification. But fast-forward to the mid-1990s, and we see the reverse situation, not (necessarily) because of any business risks but because of the opportunities that would accrue from and with rail privatisation. The bus industry had a vision for rail, having been through its own privatisation, and bought in.

What we then began to witness was the emergence of the Bus Barons with the likes Brian Souter, Moir Lockhead, Phil White and Chris Moyes. Upon Moyes’ death, bus- turned rail-man Keith Ludeman took over. Ludeman retires in five months’ time. Lockhead’s going. White’s gone.

25 years after the bus privatisation process started and 15 years after rail privatisation, we’re now at another juncture. We’re beginning to see new men at the very top.

We know that First’s Tim O’Toole has some changes in mind. Dare we say that he and his newly appointed First UK Bus MD Giles Fearnley, together with other supporters at board level, will have a marked impact in turning around the poorer perceptions associated with First Bus. Might there be a willingness to buddy up a little more to public sector partners, rather than just in name?

What of David Brown when he succeeds Ludeman, at Go Ahead? Brown’s currently firmly wedded to the Capital and its buses. Till 2006, he headed up Go Ahead’s London General and London Central. After a five year spell as second only to TfL’s Peter Hendy, Brown’s coming back to Go Ahead, having spent at least decade &m more in the regulated world of London. Another opportunity to reap the benefits of stronger partnership with the public sector?

And then there’s Arriva. The top of the tree isn’t actually occupied by what perhaps I would term a Bus Baron, because Arriva’s route from its roots at Cowie & British Bus has been somewhat different. Nevertheless, even here, things change, as ultimately, the chief executive now reports to Deutsche Bahn, Berlin. Whether bus or rail, DB outside Britain operates in strongly regulated markets.

It may be too early to understand whether these events will bring fundamental changes. The passing—almost—of the old guard may bring with it opportunities that might have a marked impact on the future. We know, for example, that the current government is even keener on partnership than the previous one. We know that some PTEs have their eye on the potential for quality contracts. We know that there continue to be hard times ahead for the bus industry as the country recovers (or not) from recession. We know that wasteful competition is just that. Could this at last see a remodelling of the regime under which most the provincial industry operates?

Two Different Results

An organisation called the National Highways & Transport Network has recently published information from over 100 local authorities. They range from small unitaries to our biggest county councils, via metropolitan & London boroughs.

Among the raft of highways data is some information on local bus service perceptions. The NHT isn’t the only people to release such statistics. Over the summer, Passenger Focus did so. It’s interesting to compare the results. Passenger Focus went in to 14 areas. The NHT survey overlapped with 10 of them, though NHT data were not available for one.

Click to enlarge this comparison between the Passenger Focus (blue) and NHT (green) surveys, indicating percentage satisfaction across nine areas of England

I know that it isn’t always easy to compare questions that are slightly different. NHT asked about the overall satisfaction of local bus services. Passenger Focus reported on the overall satisfaction of the bus journey. The two are not identical. But it does give a pointer.

NHT also asked a sample of *all* of residents in its areas. Passenger Focus just those *travelling* (or about to travel) on a bus.

Notice that in every case, the satisfaction levels are higher & more consistent for bus users than the NHT overall population sample. Passenger Focus’ figures, when published, gave the industry some comfort. Apart from fares, passengers were either “very satisfied” or “satisfied”. Excellent news.

The NHT samples show, across the board, that respondents (who may not use a bus) are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with buses. There might be a crumb or two of comfort in there. At least the answer was neutral and not negative. And there’s plenty of scope for improvement. It would seem that there’s a latent, dormant pool of people who might be persuaded out onto the bus once in a while.

Perceptions are everything, though. The survey would indicate that there’s much more to do in order to attract and retain support for the bus industry. We mustn’t get too carried away by the Passenger Focus figures. People who currently don’t use the bus count, too. Probably more so.

i NHT Survey where you can fish around for all sorts of data for the authority of your choice

Looking at the chart, above, is anyone able to explain why there’s a marked difference between Liverpool and Cambridge? There’s a 20 percentage point gap between the NHT results. Liverpool has a strong Arriva network, supplemented to the city’s east by Stagecoach. Cambridgeshire enjoys a successful Stagecoach Citi network. Perhaps the difference lies in the fact that car ownership is lower in Liverpool—and therefore bus usage higher. Of course, both surveys did not concentrate exclusively on the city.

Turning Blue

Later this month, the long-established former Hants & Dorset 56/56A from Southampton to Lymington via Millbrook, Totton & Lyndhurst passes from Wilts & Dorset to the Bluestar brand. For a number of reasons, this is an interesting move, not least because henceforward it will be a joint operation between W&D’s Lymington garage and Bluestar’s Totton.

More than that, the five of W&D’s Lymington contingent employed on what will become the Bluestar 6 will be painted in the whey blue shade adopted by Bluestar. This means W&D crews, operating W&D buses but in Bluestar livery. And more. When the new 6s arrive at Southampton, they will immediately work short on the 10/11 to Cadnam. Crews at W&D and Bluestar enjoy different conditions and the changes bring with them some opportunities with which management will need to grapple. And, interworking will see Bluestar drivers finding their way to Lymington. That’ll make a nice change for them.

The appointment of former Transdev Yellow Buses man Ed Wills as divisional director for both W&D and Bluestar cemented Bluestar as effectively an operation of W&D. Here, we see the first outward benefit of that restructuring. Actually, it has an appealing lateral thinking behind it. For, in one swift move, the benefits to all concerned will be as follows:

• It strengthens Bluestar’s position along the Southampton-Millbrook-Totton corridor. Bluestar’s 10/11/12 currently operate clockface every 15 minutes. From 27th February, add the 6 and they will run six times an hour, without any extra resource. This will foster growth, and some.


• The Bluestar brand is much stronger in Southampton. W&D is less so. There are obvious marketing benefits.


• Punctuality will improve across the (5)6, 10 and 11. Between them, there will now also be an additional bus to help with reliability & punctuality instead of one on each individual cycle. All three suffered from problems and later this month each bus will step back. This will particularly assist with the challenging summer traffic in Lymington & Lyndhurst.

The five W&D buses planned for repainting into Bluestar livery are the two remaining W&D old-liveried Spectras at Lymington; one Lymington Solo; and two Solos from Salisbury.

The interesting operational thing here is that the plan is that each night Totton vehicles will outstation at Lymington but will be driven by Lymington staff before returning to Totton the following day.

How can this be, when ticket machines are not inter-operable? Actually, this will be possible after the introduction of new ticket machines that can operate on across the entire Go South Coast operation.

The stretch particularly south of Lyndhurst doesn’t really warrant a half-hourly service. The old H&D 56/56A used to operate half-hourly Southampton to Lyndhurst only, with hourly extensions to Lymington. Go South Coast continues to see the benefit at least operationally of two buses to and from Lymington… but might there actually be an opportunity to send one of them to Ringwood, instead? Aside from the rumpus this might cause at Lymington, this would reintroduce a Ringwood-Southampton service, a journey that is now most difficult following the fall of Dorset Sprinter’s.

Annual Survey

’Tis time once again for the Omnibuses Blog annual survey. New visitors may like to know that we at Omnibuses try to listen to readers and one way of doing so is via a survey. We’ve held it in 2009 and 2010 and we feel that it’s worth repeating. There’ve been good turn outs, too.

Please therefore take our newest survey. We always publish the results. And we now have much data with which to form comparisons. We’ll be publishing those, too. But, this year, we are also introducing a few other questions.

It shouldn’t take much more than a few minutes. Most questions offer an easy clickable choice. Those questions requesting text entry are *not* mandatory and can be skipped if you prefer. Thanks for your help.

Some of the useful previous feedback from surveys have included:

• A request to see recent comments independently (lower left hand side) so that late comments on older posts are not lost


• Minimising the amount of this colour


• Larger pictures


• Days in the life/interviews


• Adding the full date stamp to the top of each day's post, not just the day itself


• Reducing the amount of Dorset posts following the Dorset Bus Blog (Dorset usually used just to illustrate, where possible, national trends) (not that I would say Dorset posts were high!)

And one we haven't yet cracked and continually ask about—correspondents especially from the North who might add useful content. What about it, readers?

(The survey is now closed)

Meanwhile, Back in the Real World

It’s all well and good referring to the Beeching of the (Rural) Buses and getting carried away by what may come. Overall, such services carry few of our passengers. We’re a commercial industry and the potential lies in urban & inter-urban buses and less so in those between market town and the deep rural communities.

Services between Leicester & to Oadby are affected. First no longer competes on the 31

Arriva Midlands’ Leicestershire network changes of a week ago coincide not with a reduction in direct local transport subsidy but indirect payments for free travel. While there are those who suggest that up to half the industry’s revenue comes from subsidy, this includes free travel. Reimbursements are *not* subsidy. When an authority such as Leicestershire is forced to see a cut of over £500,000, an operator who is now worse off has an obligation to its stakeholders to make adjustments.

Arriva has chosen not to withdraw any service. Instead, it’s opted to cut frequency, carefully ensuring it doesn’t touch those services competing with First. Two services are affected—one longer distance—plus one on Sundays, with the promise of more to come, in March.

Here’s something to which we’ve alluded before. The CPT did a fine job for the industry in largely protecting BSOG, the partial rebate on fuel duty. But did it take its eye off the free travel ball? Might it have been better to strive for a continuation in free travel reimbursements as were—in line with government promises to keep the scheme intact—to safeguard both urban and especially inter-urban series? And use deeper cuts BSOG to pay for it?

Neither is pleasant but, in reality, no one likes the term “subsidy”. It has
Such negative connotations. Cutting BSOG more harshly to protect free travel would, politically, have left the bus industry & CPT nowhere to go in rallying support, while potentially doing more to protect services.

Who Needs Large History Books?

1900s—Largely horse drawn carriers.

1910s—A few motor buses combine carriers carts with passenger work.

1920s—Men return from war with skills and money to purchase new more reliable breed of chassis. Territorials begin to coalesce. Competition becomes chaotic.

1930s—Regulation, consolidation, railways buy in and large groupings emerge.

1940s—War sees mileage cut, older buses coaxed beyond reasonable life, clippies and evening curfews. Post war boom in travel follows.

1950s—Buoyant golden age, even though decline sets in from 1953.

1960s—Promising start but staff and vehicle shortages, strikes and swift decline cause problems.

1970s—Troubled times as fuel increases, passengers desert, transport authorities step in but can’t stem the cuts.

1980s—MAP reappraisal fails to halt decline. Deregulation brings new freedoms, potential & actual competition, minibuses and, uncertainty. Privatisation gives mangers new fillip.

1990s—New managers gradually sell to large bus groups under the Bus Barons.

2000s—Demand increases in some parts and services show some buoyancy. Free travel and booming economy all help.

2011—Uncertainty…

Save Our Buses

I’ll try to resist the temptation to refer to the Campaign for Better Transport’s “Save our Buses” campaign, launched yesterday, as three days late. If that’s indeed the case, I guess it’s something of a metaphor for the bus industry!

The campaign comes with an interesting map that pinpoints exactly where cuts may or will fall, and their scale

The fact is, it’s here. We’ve said before that campaigns of this profile are rare. It’s a reaction to countless local transport authority decisions to cut services, the likes of which we haven’t seen in over 10 years. Indeed, I’ve been through a few rafts of bus service cuts in my time (though less so of late). They’re part of the fabric of our industry. But these have tended to be piecemeal and therefore they go relatively unnoticed outside their immediate area. This time, it’s the opposite. Not since Boris versus Ken has the bus been so in the spotlight. And that occasion was for very different reasons.

There’s also talk of a “Beeching of the Buses”. That people still refer to Dr Beeching some 50 years on shows the rose-tinted, romantic view we have of our railways. Throughout its life, the railway has always been turbulent and unstable, in spite of what we like to believe about Thomas and his jolly friends. But you can see the link between Beeching and the bus: this time, there’s a common thread that will see nationwide cuts, though to date authorities in neither Scotland nor the Welsh regions have declared their hands.

The campaign logo features another left hand drive bus

But it’s at times like these that we need to be grateful that over 80 per cent of bus services—and over 90 per cent of mileage—are commercial. Mileage under threat is, by its very nature, marginal, however important it is to community cohesion. Particularly with regard to rural buses, we need to:

• Be grown up enough to realise that high costs per passenger are unsustainable as fixed, standard bus routes. There may be alternatives.


• Recognise that rural areas have changed in the last 40 years and that there is but residual demand.


• Understand that 80 per cent of the population live in a town or city. This green and pleasant land is largely urban.


• Understand that significantly reduced demand in rural areas is also a good sign, one that shows we’re progressively getting wealthier and that living standards are improving.

The question remains, though, what do we do with that residual demand. If only I had the answer.

(I promise not to mention cuts again this week. It *is* a big topic at the moment, though).

i Save Our Buses