Do we Need One?

A comment on Saturday’s post raised the question of whether London actually needs a bespoke bus design. It’s something I tackled, a little, one year ago. Given that the Wrightbus development vehicle is very much under test at the moment, the debate is technically over. It’s happening.

So, I thought I would try a different approach. Bespoke to London the NBfL certainly is. That’s because I can’t see anyone buying it in the Provinces, certainly not in its current guise. Provincial operators don’t need a 60-odd seat dual staircase three-door bus. Such a move chafes against operators’ commercial instincts.

But, for London, is this the first ever bespoke bus? Has London ever had a truly bespoke vehicle, other than the coming NB4L?

Take the Routemaster. Aside from a few scattered illiberally across the Provinces, the RM was largely almost entirely confined to the capital. It was certainly designed for duties therein. But was it really bespoke?

• It was a purely London design, a collaboration between London Transport, AEC and Park Royal.


• In shades of the NBfL, it was dubbed “London’s Bus of the Future”.


• It encompassed some revolutionary technology seen nowhere else, that’s absolutely true, and it often took other manufacturers decades to catch up.


• And it wasn’t derived from any other chassis.

It even looked more modern that the stuff being manufactured in the mid-1950s but not so by the end of that decade. But its design was really no different to any other double deck of the time. What features made it unique? Certainly not the rear open platform, the half-cab, the internal design, or external dimensions (though, interestingly, early RMs were shorter than the then permitted length).

In fact, the first production RMs were already dated. Double decks could now be longer and now began arriving with rear engines and front platforms. Other cities managed with this type of bus design. Others dispensed with the hop-off open rear platform provided. It was only in 1966 that the rear engined FRM1 appeared.

Because the RM lasted longer than any other bus type ever, and because there were so few in the Provinces, we tended to become nostalgic towards it. But its 1950s design was far less unique to London that the 2011 design for the NB4L, with the new bus’ seemingly odd features that probably make it nigh unsalable elsewhere in England, let alone the world.

But the Borismaster is still a revolution.

Three in a row on the Dorset Bus Blog today, paying recognition where it’s due, with a plea…

As Individual as Marmite

The New Bus for London will be as individually English (well, Irish) as Marmite or Beefeaters. And whether you agree with the millions being lavished on a pointless bespoke bus for our capital; or whether you feel that at last the bus’ time has come, the project is picking up pace, with prototypes due on the streets of London from between the new year to around March 2012. You’d better believe it. It’s happening. Nicely in time for the world to welcome the bus during the Olympic Games… and for the mayoral elections on 3rd May.

At Ballymeena

For, if you belief the writers of Yes, Minister, politicians like nothing better than finding themselves positively in the press. Yet, how many politicians can claim to have a bus named after them, even if “Borismaster” is really only slang. Put it another way, how many politicians are ever associated with high profile bus projects of any description? Buses tend to fall within the “unsung heroes” category.

London’s surface transport MD Leon Daniels had the pleasure, yesterday, of driving the NB4L at Millbrook. His first thoughts were about refinement, responsiveness and a good lock.

And, guess what, he’s kindly offered me a test drive! No, really. It’s a close call… to break my anonymity & get behind the wheel of the development vehicle for probably the most advanced and famous bus in the world; or carry on with the blog, languishing in anonymity. I would need to come “out”, because false beards & sunglasses didn’t do it for Inspector Clouseau so why should they for me. Daniels did suggest that I turned up like The Stig, mind you. But then again, he knows who I am…

And Mayor Johnson, who actually had the first “official” turn behind the wheel, is no stranger to test driving vehicles, as a former motoring correspondent. Said Johnson in the Evening Standard, “This is the smoothest ride. It's the most sophisticated piece of machinery I've ever seen. This is a marvel of technology.” He would say that… but that doesn’t make it a false claim.

Meanwhile, if you thought the NB4L was a straight (pardon the pun) replacement for London’s benighted bendies, think again. Artics will be off before Christmas, pledged Boris, just a little ahead of the Routemaster 2 prototypes.

i Leon Daniels

Reaching the parts other buses cannot reach (or a procurement nightmare),plus why did London buses have white on black number plates even in the early 1980? Today on the Dorset Bus Blog

Another Operator Sold

So that’s 1,244 bus operators in Britain, then. The passing of Wallingford-based Thames Travel to Go Ahead reduces by one the number of operators quoted as 1,245 by the Competition Commission. Except it doesn’t, of course, because the 1,245 refers to licensed operators, not actual owners; and because Go Ahead has pledged to keep the Thames Travel name and operation intact.

There’s no doubting that the Go Ahead takeover is a good fit. It extends Go Ahead’s Oxford presence south and south east, on routes picked up either at tender or as commercial hand-ins that others have dropped. The key is that Thames Travel has been very successful at growing itself and its business. It lands Go Ahead a ready-made, steady network.

Indeed, Thames Travel has proven that rural inter-urban buses in an area of relative prosperity (i.e. high car ownership) need not be dead ducks. It’s fleet in modern and Thames Travel is one of the UK’s first smaller operators of hybrid technology.

The old Thames Travel website design

Thames Travel is therefore one of our best examples of a niche operator whose base has developed on services others either do not want or can’t operate economically or sustainably.

It wasn’t always thus for the managing director who, during the early days of deregulation, took on the might of Crosville Wales near the Cheshire border. He was one of a select few independents who waded in, throwing his all against an incumbent. It seemed at one point that his blue Wright buses were poised to see dramatic change in the northern Marches. But head-to-head competition can be cruel. Perhaps that’s why Thames Travel is where it is today: developing a niche largely away from existing operators, competing not on-street but for tenders and building otherwise marginal or forgotten routes.

The takeover might cause some competition issues because Go Ahead owns the Oxford Bus Company. Fewer if any issues in the rural swathe through which most of Thames Travel operates. Nor in the Bracknell or Wokingham areas where, to the consternation of some, Thames Travel has gained a tender foothold (if you see what I mean).

So, what’s likely to be in store? Expect

• A Stenning makeover, though not immediately. Thames Travel’s image is modern, with the nowadays obligatory swooshes but does it cut the mustard among such good company as the other Go Ahead subsidiaries?


• The possibility if expansion. Reading Buses and First might now be looking over their shoulders a little. Check out Southampton, as an example. Reading Buses may be the a little more vulnerable in parts.


• In time, management changes. I know Go Ahead’s policy is to manage locally and this is their promise (at least initially) but there’s a difference between a strong local identity and two managements geographically close to each other, especially since one is small and the other not huge. Check out Go South Coast.


• Vehicle changes. Modern the fleet is but it’s also somewhat non-standard. It’s believed that much of Thames Travel’s vehicles are under lease and this is probably not the way Go Ahead would wish to take things.

Patience is a virtue, today on the Dorset Bus Blog

Scroll Down

So, as we speculated back in November, London Transport is finally bringing back the roundel on its buses. Time, then, to consider an even more iconic logo.

The once famous Bristol scroll is 100 years old, this year. There’s even going to be a book about it, ready for Christmas. I bet you can guess who the author will be. If you can’t, click here. So esoteric is the title that it sees a 10 per cent discount on Amazon already, four months ahead of release.

The scroll appeared on the radiators of many a Bristol Commercial Vehicles buses (also trucks), before things went all modern with the introduction of a sans serif block no doubt befitting the BLMC era.

But a golden scroll also adorned the sides of the Bristol Omnibus Company’s vehicles, between 1965 and the introduction of the National Bus Company corporate image in 1972. Coupled with the creamier “OMO livery”, was this one of England’s most balanced & enduring local bus identities?

Beyond 1972, I recall the scroll continued on the Bristol Joint Services fleet on Bristol city services. It seems the city council’s influencing control was enough to preserve the last trace of an honourable past. This vanished in 1978, once the company took over all responsibility for city services. I have no picture to share with you but the sublime though smaller scroll looked slightly out of place in white not gold; on leaf not Tilling green; alongside or near the manufactured NBC “flying ‘N’” logo.

Modern marketers would no doubt scoff at such an old-fashioned logo as the scroll. Looking back, though, it seems to me that of all the Tilling companies’ methods of presenting themselves, the scroll was the most elegant, refined, balanced and stylish, with just the right hint of sophistication.

Pity, then, that during the bus side ascendancy of the scroll BOC was such a struggling operator. There was that huge Joint Services deficit resulting in ever-escalating fares. This was coupled with a collection of very long distance & costly rural routes hæmorrhaging passengers. No matter the nature of livery & logo, like so many former NBC operators, it was always hard to put a positive spin on something that was basically close to bankrupt.

The scroll nevertheless told you exactly what you needed to know. Bristol. It replaced the more typical block name BRISTOL but even before that, for many years, Bristol Omnibus vehicles simply carried the Bristol city coat of arms, no matter that they operated in Weston-super-Mare or Warminster.

Try Flickr for sundry shots of Bristol REs like this one. Without doubt the best first generation rear engined single deck, with handsome BET front with twin headlamps plus OMO livery & Bristol scroll

And this, perhaps, was the greatest failing of the scroll and the Bristol name. In those days, Bristol was probably remote from the day-to-day lives of people in, say, Cheltenham or Chippenham. At least successor brand Bristol Country Bus and then privatised Badgerline appended a town or city name in white block (e.g. BATH) to its fleet, giving a modicum of local identity.

But the changes seen with Bristol’s hived off northern operation were greatest: a brief blossoming of local colour & identities in the likes of Gloucester and Swindon. All, of course, are now gobbled up by either First or Stagecoach. In this context, perhaps the local identity championed by the “Bristol” name & scroll was no bad thing, after all.

i Leon Daniels on the LT roundel

Lost in Transit

Going to the press with a list of unusual items lost on your buses is an amusing way of getting a little positive publicity. People will respond to such an article with a chuckle, even with empathetic thoughts. Cardiff Bus is the latest to list the bizarre and the unusual. Like a sombrero, for example. How do you forget one of those? And a groin protector.

But Cardiff Bus’ lost property statistics came to light in the press after a newspaper raised a freedom of information request. Well, of all the things. Why would a newspaper wish to misuse such a mechanism designed to root out all that is worst in government for the sake of such a trivial story? And I never appreciated that a freedom of information request might apply to Cardiff Bus as an arm’s length company. Then again, its shareholder is in the public sector. You wouldn’t even ask Stagecoach or Veolia, though, would you.

If that’s all Cardiff Bus has to worry about, though, they’re doing pretty well. Except there’s something looming. It was exactly five years ago that Cardiff Bus allegedly put 2Travel out of business. There followed a public censure from the OFT for Cardiff Bus and its predatory behaviour & abuse of position; and another from the traffic commissioner. Now, 2Travel’s liquidators are preparing to sue Cardiff Bus. Here’s the list:

• £7.27mil in lost profits
• £15mil for the loss of the business as a going concern
• £171,000 for wasted management and staff time
• £15mil for the loss suffered by 2Travel and its directors from being driven out of the market and unable to grow the company
• £10mil for the loss of the opportunity to develop 2Travel’s Swansea depot
• £3.2mil in exemplary damages and interest & costs.

I make that a grand total of £50.7mil. This may be optimistic but I should imagine Cardiff Bus *and* its shareholders Cardiff City Council are at least planning for a minimum potential hit of this amount.

Now, wouldn’t that make a tasty freedom of information request. Except that it’s probably sub-judice. So, may be, it has to be back to Cardiff Bus’ list of lost property, like a box of hair, a Christmas tree, bottle of methadone, a tricycle, a pair of slippers, a kettle, an empty suitcase, a vacuum cleaner and two copies of a university dissertation, all of which were apparently left on its buses.

All items need cataloguing and storage for a month, except perishables, which we must keep for two days. There’s a strong case under the Red Tape Challenge for immediate disposal of anything that’s likely to be able to leave on its own (ie. if likely to go off and grow something).

i Press article

The Big Bus Survey

This is a guest post by Invicta. Omnibuses welcome contributions

Bridget Phillipson is the new MP for Houghton & Sunderland South. Wikipedia tells us she was born in 1983 (so won’t remember regulated bus travel outside London), went to Oxford University and worked in the welfare sector before becoming an MP.

At the moment, Mrs Phillipson is running an online consultation called The Big Bus Survey. She recognises that “buses are a fantastic way to get around, but only if local people can easily access them”.

She goes on to say, “At a time of environmental awareness and high petrol prices at the pumps, buses should be the cheaper and convenient alternative”, while the point of the survey is said to be to try to “improve the level of service and increase the numbers of local people using public
transport”.

Well, there’s something in that. But people are then given a range of possible improvements. These include:

• Cheaper fares
• More frequent service
• More direct routes
• Better disabled access
• Later running buses
• Shorter distance from the doorstep to a bus stop
  

I haven't asked Mrs Phillipson to whom she will be taking her findings. Local operator Go North East is one of the better companies at consulting, though several items on the wish list are more within the remit of the highway authority or Nexus PTE. Neither is likely to have any spare funding, while Go North East will be struggling with falling concessionary reimbursement and rising fuel prices.

The motives behind such a survey are admirable though it does suggest that Mrs Phillipson, and no doubt many of her fellow MPs, need a little more education to understand how bus services work and are funded. A role for CPT perhaps?

And finally, you’ve got to be very careful when you construct a survey, otherwise you simply get garbage out. Asking the public whether they think a civilised society should have publicly funded bus services to the highest standard and they will always answer “yes, of course”. Ask whether they are willing to pay many millions of pounds to get such a service and see resultant cuts in education & health, and they may think twice.

i The Big Bus Survey

Ice Alert

When you consider Clubcard, Nectar and other loyalty products, the bus industry’s been a slow adopter. When I say slow, I don’t even mean leisurely. I mean non-existent, usually. Partly, this is because we honour loyalty with a healthy discount on weekly, monthly and quarterly season tickets. But then again, Tesco does something similar. The bigger the package of a particular product, the cheaper it usually becomes, by volume. If you multi-buy, you’ll also inevitably benefit from a discount. All this on top of Clubcard, the reward for shopping with Tesco.

What rewards do we as an industry offer? Sometimes, discount admissions but these are rare. Sometimes a cheaper burger at McDonald’s upon presentation of a bus ticket. Then again, Maccie D’s would probably accept a car parking ticket. We’re in the mind-set that, rather than challenge existing behaviour by trying to lure & retain new customers, we’re probably only rewarding existing passengers who’d use our services anyway.

Where Arriva leads, perhaps the rest of the industry will shortly follow. Indeed, Stagecoach will, very shortly. For Arriva has jumped in. It’s joined Ice, an as yet small customer loyalty scheme with an environmental bent. Only environmentally friendly enterprises need apply. What better way of promoting itself and capitalising upon the small though significant number of people who’ve changed modes for at least some of their journeys thanks to escalating fuel costs.

It’s one of only four transport brands thus far with Ice. The other three are Green Tomato Cars, the somewhat esoteric London taxi offering of Transdev; Eurostar; and City Car Club. Indeed, there are few large, national concerns having signed up under any category. Arriva is an early adopter. But watch this space for others.

What do you get? Well, here’s the downside. Like all loyalty schemes, it takes a while to work up a healthy balance but, unlike some, you can pay part with points and part with cash. For every £2 spent with Arriva via Ice, you get three ice points. This isn’t as good as Tesco, who offer two points per £1.

Buying an Arriva four weekly in Surrey & West Sussex will cost you £83. You’d get 123 ice points, by my calculation. You can redeem Ice points collected with Arriva at 2p per point up to the first 80 points or 1p per point thereafter. Your £83 therefore buys you £2.03 in value, or an effective 2½ per cent discount. But you can add your points earned from other stores towards an online Arriva transaction; or vice versa. It isn’t clear if you can also benefit from Arriva’s m-ticketing discount which, in this particular case, saves £8.30, 10 per cent, which is by far the better deal.

In order to save up £83 worth of points, you’ll need to purchase over three years’ worth of four-weeklies. But if a similar level of reward can work for one in five of the population with a Clubcard, why not elsewhere?

And it was ever thus. In the 1960s & 1970s, you had to smoke yourself almost to death to gather enough Players’s coupons for an ashtray. Or you had to gorge yourself almost to death to get enough Green Shield Stamps to buy a fat-saturated, lardy pie. At least by using Ice and the bus, you can feel smug. It’s also a healthier option. Do try to walk one stop further than normal, though. And beware of ice during the winter.

i Myice

Transportation—an interlude

I always thought the term “transportation” referred to the enforced shipping of petty criminals from England usually to Australia. Indeed, wasn’t that how Australia started, as a giant penal colony? Surely no good would ever come of this in the end. And what do we see? The particularly troubling Home & Away, world series cricket, Australian rules football and callisthenics.

We in England often feel slightly ill at ease with the term “transportation”. Generally, it’s a clumsy word. We prefer to say it simply, as it is, using “transport” instead. Our American cousins have adopted “transportation” as their own, as a noun, reserving “to transport” as a verb. “Transportation” is usually reserved for moving people, not freight but in England, it reverses. Even so, the term for pallets and goods still tends to be “transport” rather than “transportation”. But how typically American, always having to fluff things up to a grander scale. To top it all, they often refer to “transportation” as “transit”. Vulgar.

It was somewhat unusual, therefore, to see the term “road transportation” on the Red Tape Challenge website. Surely they meant “road transport”. Then again, this wasn’t just about buses (or taxis). It did include freight. But, to my ears, “transportation” seems rather unexpected and strange. Matter of taste, I suppose.

How Americans see us... possibly(a post from 2005)

Should we Deregulate?

Should be bus industry be deregulated? Yes, I know that it is already. Should it see fewer regulations, then.

Thus far, the few respondents to the government’s recently launched Red Tape Challenge seem to want to see more regulation, not less.

Yesterday, the government added a road transport category to its growing list of activities where it wishes to see fewer regulations. Here is an ideal opportunity for operators and others to suggest how red tape might be cut. Rather than the trivial responses we see to date, might someone consider something more meaty?

The truth is, however, that even though the bus industry is already “deregulated”, we still need regulation. By that I mean basic ground rules. An anarchic free-for-all without any form of constraint at all would be like a game of football without match officials—impossible to manage, deteriorating by the second, and certainly of no worth whatsoever to its spectators.

When the present government was elected, we asked readers for their unnecessary regulations they’d prefer to see scrapped, bus wise. Check them out here

i Road transport challenge

Off the Rails

If the Competition Commission feels the bus industry is in a muddle, it need look no further than rail to see an absolute mess. Just how do you equate a dramatic upsurge in customers with inflation-busting fares on the one hand, gargantuan increases in public subsidy on the other and incredible over-crowding, to boot? It’s bizarre. Woe betide a bus operator who bases his business on such a model. Ah. It’s still the bus barons who control rail but the difference lies partly with the high cost straight-jacket that’s called Network Rail.

No such nonsense on the buses. Or is there? Perhaps a different sort. During the beginning of the CC inquiry, Wellglade’s Trent Barton was squeaky clean. Trent Barton even stated that it wouldn’t dream of competing with another operator on price, only on quality. That stratagem has changed as it has tried perhaps unsuccessfully to deal with Premiere. But, hey, that’s business. Premiere is probably now too big to touch, in any case. Better to have taken reprisals three years earlier. May be it was on Wellglade that the CC had its eye on when it wondered about the long term benefits of bus wars. With a regime that is relaxed compared to rail, the benefits of such competition are lower fares and a greater choice of buses. Even if this only lasts for the short term.

There’s now news of a merger of Centrebus’ Chapel-en-le-Frith Bower’s operation with Trent Barton’s nearby garage, creating a new operator with the name High Peak. This is eminently sensible, given the management and overhead savings; the distance between the two operators at less than three miles; and the fact that rural bus operations in a chilly free travel reimbursement climate are nowadays somewhat more noxious than normal. Such a move might stabilise employment and this is something upon which Wellglade is majoring.

But it does reduce the competition for tenders in the sort of rural area where that market is weakest. So far, on Omnibuses, we’ve concentrated upon the CC’s views on commercial mileage. The CC nevertheless feels that there are measures the DfT should take to increase the number of competitors for service contracts. Let’s face it, there are usually few. In spite of a trend that has seen tours & excursions decline sharply, the general coaching industry has failed to respond, as the government 25 years ago would wish, to bus service opportunities.

So, in merging, is Wellglade again potentially falling foul of what the CC wishes to see? Or is this a pragmatic stand against the inevitable further slide in rural bus services? Whatever the answer, it couldn’t be worse than on the railways.

Reflections on 2p

Or... 2p or not 2p, that is the question. Or... tuppence for your thoughts ...

Hardly surprising really. Analysis of the Competition Commission initial report has been all over the trade press like a rash. Fortnightly Passenger Transport was ideally placed to maximise its coverage and it reminded me of newspapers at the death of Diana, princess of Wales or That Wedding. See pages 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 14, 17, 22 & 26. That kind of thing.

Passenger Transport chose to lead on the cost of a perceived lack of competition. The CC had calculated that market failures were costing the passenger a whopping £70mil a year. Not each passenger individually : ) but all of them (us), together. Passenger Transport divided this £70mil by the 2.9bil journeys passengers make. The adverse effect of a so-called uncompetitive market? In crude terms, 2.4p per passenger journey. In true bingo still, not “7/6d, was she worth it?” but “2p, was it worth it?”, they asked. You could barely feed the birds for that, at tuppence (2d) a bag, even in Mary Poppins’s time. Assuming that a passenger travels by bus on five return journeys a week, for 48 weeks of the year, and this will cost each one of them (us) £9.60.

But the real mystery of the CC report is not the imperceptibly small value on market distortion but the tension we now see before as the CC grapples with exactly what to do, to give each passenger back its tuppence a trip. It’s as if the CC doesn’t quite know which way to turn. It wants to see more competition yet accepts that bus wars can be counter-productive. It wants to see a more competitive market but, where competition is said to be failing, proposes something completely anti-competitive: franchising. Is it me, or does a quality contract actually distort the free market and remove competition? The CC should make up its mind.

Oh, go on then. Argue that competition is best off-street in a race for a franchise rather than on-street in a race for the bus stop. But say cheerio to smaller operators in the process.

Ye Olde Flag & Shelter Tavern

Occasionally, I stand waiting with a group of other hopefuls at a particular town centre bus stop. It sees frequent buses. It’s off a very awkward junction and it’s quite tight for bus drivers to swing their 40ft single decks round to the stop. In fact, it’s impossible. Drivers always overrun.

All the passengers stand huddled around or under the shelter. Not me. I stand 4ft downstream for I know the bus will always overshoot the box by that much. If it’s raining, I ensure I move from under cover just in time for the bus to arrive. The driver then invariably aligns with exactly where I’m standing. I feel a little smug as I get on board first, as all the others have to shuffle forward.

OK, this is technically queue jumping. What astounds me, though, is that EVERY bus on EVERY occasion HAS to overshoot, yet all the other passengers simply wait by the flag & shelter*. Not one of them has figured out that it might be advantageous to move further along the pavement. Surely not ALL the passengers are newbies. Indeed, I’d warrant that most of them were regular.

I’d also warrant that the same thing happens at just about every bus stop in England, for one reason or another. We herd around what we see, even if we regularly espy the bus pulling up long or short. We are fixated by infrastructure and since it’s there for our use, we make surer we do. Herding and habit come to mind. And comfort at knowing we’re at a proper stop. And doing what we’re told.

The other day I was on a bus when the driver stopped short of where a single elderly lady was waiting, under the shelter (well, she might’ve been married but she was the sole passenger waiting at the stop). She wasn’t too good on her pins and she castigated the driver for not pulling up opposite her. I have to say this would’ve saved some time, as the lady waddled Weeble-like to the door. Had the passenger not seen the blue van parked immediately past the stop? Had the driver pulled up to the flag, there was no way he could’ve manœuvred around the van that was also very proud of the kerb.

How many other passengers feel inwardly angry when a driver fails to stop where they might expect him to?

In 2005, I commented that it would be good (if it were legal) for all motorists to spend a day behind a bus wheel. Driving 40 feet of metal might make them appreciate some of the daily difficulties bus drivers face. May be that should equally apply to passengers, too.

Going back to the introduction about the stop where I wait downstream, if you think the shelter was badly located, it, too, was in the only possible location, owing to the constraints of the pavement and roadspace.

* Sounds like a pub, really, doesn’t it: The Flag & Shelter, a free house, the sign perhaps depicting a safeguarding Britannia draping her Union Flag protectively over and across a weary sailor.

After the Great Blogspot Disaster of Thursday/Friday, still no sign of the return of all those comments swept away during The Crash..."

The Color Purple

Know anyone who wants to buy a dozen five-year-old Wright Streetcar articulated buses?

We like to think that in a deregulated provincial environment, bus services are free from political control. It’s tendered rather than commercial services that are influenced by the political will.

The recent local elections changed the political landscape in the city of York. In shades of Boris v Ken one of the central planks of the victor’s campaign was to “get rid of the FTR purple buses”. It doesn’t matter the hue of the successor (though I have to say that it wasn’t purple). The point I am making is that politics will inevitably play its part in bus service provision, in spite of what we might think or perhaps even hope. Buses are viewed as a public asset. More people see them as a public service than, since deregulation, what they are: a service for the public (to borrow a pithy statement from a comment of several weeks back).

But whereas operators can ride out the political repercussions of service cuts or even fares increases, it’s more uncomfortable when politicians begin calling for changes in vehicle types. This is rare but acceding has significant financial consequences. In this case, a considerable investment and the problematic cascading of 18.5m artics.

If you think politics and commercial services shouldn’t mix, York’s victor is only stating what a good proportion of the population feel: that the FTR actually hinders rather than helps. Admittedly, either that’s from a car- centric view or it ignores some of the positives about FTR. But FTR was supposed to be the future of public transport (hence its text-speak name) whereas many in York, the majority no doubt (and even a slice of bus users) shows antipathy towards it. It helps none that FTR finds its way onto public roads rather than dedicated “track”.

The last time I spoke with anyone from First on this, they felt that ridership increases were good but not quite that for which they’d hoped. After the early ticketing debacle First has double crewed all its York FTRs, at considerable additional cost. Since 2009, First began replacing FTRs with conventional rigids in the evenings and on Sundays and has now even substituted on weekday mornings. It may even be that First will look at the new politics as a face-saving way of extracting itself from FTR.

Whereas York’s ground breaking FTR partnership will end next month, this still doesn’t actually mean that York will be rid of its super-wide, super-long artics. It’s in no one’s political gift to see off particular buses on a commercial service, even for those with the benefit of a considerable swing and majority. And since the £1.5mil spent on easing FTR through York’s streets is a lasting legacy, there’s no reason commercially why First should simply pull FTR.

But if noises for their withdrawal grow, who knows what might replace FTR. How about the bottom end of First’s cascade programme, for instance?

The irony is that in 2011, York celebrates the 10th year of an overnight, 86-vehicle injection into the city (in 2001/2). That’s an almost unprecedented level of investment by First . Since then, with its ups and downs, York has largely been a public transport success, much to the envy of First’s managers from elsewhere in the country. Now, those managers, particularly at the recently restructured First north region, will have a less enviable task of deciding exactly what to do. Keep an eye on the “vehicles for sale” classifieds of the York Press.

Implosion

As news spread in the public domain last week of yet further cancellations, it would seem that operators in South Wales are confident that much of Veolia’s imploding empire could be taken on by others.

If that’s the case, the question is, if Shamrock (Wales) and others could operate commercially before Veolia; and if operators are about to step in, why did Veolia err in what remains good bus territory?

One benefit of the improved Powys network was the introduction of various weekday longer distance services to larger neighbouring centres. There would be a different destination each day, run in between schools. Indeed, there was a fuller integration of the scholars and especially student market, at the same time

One part of the answer is that registering operators will, of course, be selective. Some formerly commercial mileage will go. And a large chunk of Veolia’s work is under contract. It’s unlikely that the local transport authorities of South Wales will be able to safeguard everything, especially if there are fringe commercial deregistrations to cover as well. TUPE will apply here and, interestingly, Veolia’s buses for the Gower Explorer will also transfer to the new contractor, First, as these are owned by Swansea council. Such vehicles are looking somewhat shabby, though, by all accounts.

Another part of the answer lies in the price Veolia is rumoured to have paid for Shamrock, which is believed to have been well over the odds. What happened to due diligence?

Yet another is the disparate nature of the preceding companies and services that had very different traditions and environments. A fourth, though, must surely be a lack of management resolve.

Veolia started positively, delivering new investment to replace what had become a wildly eclectic, mismatched set of vehicles. This, too, has added to Veolia’s burdens, on top of the large price it has paid for its main predecessor.

With pending cancellations and garage closures, it’s hardly surprising that drivers are jumping ship early. This results in further lost mileage.

The missing piece of the jigsaw so far is southern Powys. Here, back in July 2007, Veolia more or less swept that board, with a five-year deal that apparently cannot be broken. There’s a year to run. There was great controversy at the time but the savings Powys made with Veolia, together with a complete restructuring of a once indifferent network, has paid dividends in terms of ridership increases. Powys currently has the best bus network it’s ever enjoyed. If Veolia indeed lasts the course but doesn’t retender, the benefits of five years’ worth of cheaper funding could in future be lost. And existing or former operators might well say, “I told you so”.

To Err is Human

So, what’s been happening? Blogger’s been messing about over the last couple of days and that’s resulted in no posts on Omnibuses since Wednesday (and on quite a few blogs elsewhere, too). There was talk among the Blogger “community” of human error at Blogspot’s end during routine maintenance. So the maxim isn’t true after all: “to err is human, to make a cockup can only be done by a computer”. Seemingly, this time it wasn’t the computer’s fault.

The result at the Blogspot end was a loss or removal of existing posts, existing comments, the inability to publish and, from a reader’s angle, “intermittent outages” (i.e. irregularities) and arriving at unintended blogs or unexpected error pages. Said Blogger on Friday,

“Yesterday [Thursday] we returned Blogger to a pre-maintenance state and placed the service in read-only mode while we worked on restoring all content: that’s why you haven’t been able to publish. We rolled back to a version of Blogger as of Wednesday May 11th, so your posts since then were temporarily removed.”

Sorry about all this. Other than planned posts not yet published, the only damage I can see is the removal of 15 comments under Dusting Down. I am sorry if you have seen your comments mysteriously sucked out. Blogger seems to expect to restore them over the weekend. To err is human and only a computer can now put it right.

Dusting Down

Time to dust off my battered and dog-eared copy of the Transport Act 1985 (once I’d actually found it. It’s been a while).

With the help of Transport 2000 a campaigner is challenging the council in court, claiming that Cambridgeshire has acted unlawfully in its decision to cut its entire supported network. Cambridgeshire is one of three local transport authorities to propose this. The challenge is threefold.

1. Failure to have due regard for the equality of protected groups (racial, disability & sex discrimination)
   
   Is it me or do bus services transcend social groups. They have as much impact on able bodied white males as others.


2. The public consultation was flawed
   
   The campaigner asserts that Cambridgeshire took decisions without consultation. We’ve seen that consultation is a somewhat restrictive and largely arbitrary activity. Consulting affected bus users would no doubt produce an expected result. And let’s suppose 90 per cent of Cambridgeshire’s 750,000 don’t use a bus. Consulting them on priorities for cuts might well produce a result that might surprise the campaigners. If campaigners success on this, surely it will only postpone, not halt the process altogether.


3. Failure to discharge its duties under s.63 of the Transport Act 1985.
   
   If s.63 is their main challenge, do they have a leg on which to stand? It states:

   “In each non-metropolitan county of England and Wales it shall be the duty of the county council—(a) to secure the provision of such public transport services as the council consider it appropriate to secure to meet any public transport requirement…”

   s.63 goes on to add,

   “(b) to formulate from time to time general policies as to the description of services they propose to secure under para (a)…”

   I read this as a duty to formulate policies as to those services it wishes to secure. Such a policy might read, “We will secure no bus services”. And even were it to have a policy to support bus services, under 63(a), it need only subside those “services as the council consider it appropriate to secure”. In this case, it appears that Cambridgeshire feels it is inappropriate to support *any* services.
   
   s.64 talks of consultation but this is a duty for a LTA to consult with neighbours and constituent districts and “persons operating public transport services”. No mention of passenger groups or the general populous (however noble the intent might be to do so).

Meanwhile, as reported on p.4 of yesterday’s Coach & Bus Week, there’s a government presumption against wholesale LTA services cuts. This, the government says, would be a “ mistake ”...

And to be fair to the campaign front woman, she doesn't just represent people who will suffer as a result of the proposed cuts, she and her family will, too. That’s quite unusual, really.

i Transport 2000/Campaign for Better Transport campaign

2036

A sort of Boys Own Paper 21st century transport future as predicted in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950 was a romanticised one with long distance monorails and individual rocket powered backpacks. But instead, we’re stuck with cars and oil. And the bus, of course.

A commenter yesterday asked, “Wonder what things will be like in 25 years’ time?” In truth, on a personal basis, few people plan ahead in their lives more than five years. This is partly in reaction to the very swift pace of change these days. Bus operators, happily, are planning somewhat further ahead. But history shows us that things aren’t static for long and longer term plans need to be very flexible indeed. Who in 1961, 25 years ahead of deregulation, was planning for regime change and privatisation? Who in 1969 was at the formation of the first PTEs and the National Bus Company felt that both would be split and sold?

By the time we reach 2036, the era of cheap oil will be well behind us. Since the early 1950s, our whole economy has blossomed on the back of plentiful oil. It has removed the need to live, work and shop within a few miles of home. For most of the western world, it has opened up new vistas & horizons. It has enabled cost-cutting centralisation and economic efficiencies.

One commenter felt that in 25 years’ time we will all be walking & cycling for journeys of up to two miles. Thereafter, he felt, it will be the new heyday of the bus, late 1940s style. Another considered trams and trains though trolleys might be a more practical offering. There was one comment that we might not actually travel at all, presumably as we retreat into some sort of new stone age, something like an Trantor after the fall of the Empire (Asimov), where the planet’s man-made surface was ripped up to grow crops.

What will life be like on the buses or off them in 2036, I wonder?

Silver Jubilee—3

In the context of the important NEG shareholder meeting today, the Supergroups and Competition Commission, here’s the second in our series on the 25th anniversary of deregulation. See the previous contribution here

Consider the transition from publicly owned to privately run operators and from the regulated to deregulated environments. At the time, we all knew that the late Nicholas Ridley MP was off beam with his anticipated collection of artisan, own-account busmen, each with their own vehicle. Such a cottage industry approach was impractical and impossible. But how many people saw the opposite end of the spectrum, the coming of the Big Five?

Still a two-way street for the National Express Group? Or will Elliott Advisers see parts of NEG unloaded today? (Note the vehicle destination display)

1986 and 1987 were years when the future seemed mapped out and certain. England’s territorial bus companies would pass from the State to their mangers. Or, if not, to small sized groupings, each somewhat disparate. This would then somehow fossilise. Managers would become masters of their own destiny rather than be at the diktat of others. As the first subsidiaries to sell went to their managers, it seemed inevitable that this would be the norm. There were even managers who dreamt of passing their businesses to their heirs.

There was a bit of a jolt when in 1987 Stagecoach bought Hampshire Bus. Hampshire Bus was one of three operating subsidiaries that in 1983 was carved out of Hants & Dorset. It was always seen as the poorer performing, inheriting much of the problems associated with the old H&D. It was almost unthinkable to suggest that someone from outside was interested. Stagecoach was the buyer and it was Stagecoach that later impressed with a business transformation.

But even this surprise didn’t blow the prevailing view of stabilising management buyouts off course. Things often worked out rather differently, though. Running a self-supporting, feather bed-less operation in an age without revenue support was not easy. For one thing, servicing bank loans took precedence over fleet investment. Little wonder, then, that all but two former National Bus Company operating subsidiaries found themselves, at one time or another, selling up.

By 1993, we knew that the world would be so very different to the one we had imagined. The assumed reality wasn’t going to happen. 1993 was the year both Stagecoach and First floated.

Time moves on and in the second decade of the 21st century, we are facing a third upheaval. This time, it includes transnational control. RATP, Abellio, Deutsche Bahn, Transdev and with it dare I mention Veolia are the new conglomerates controlling our industry. And who’d’ve predicated that back in 1986?

Tomorrow, National Express Group faces its nemesis from Elliott Advisers who wishes to see it sold or split. If I were a betting man I would say NEG will emerge intact though damaged. Elliott nevertheless foresees a world where even the NEG will blow rudderless when compared to the rise of the transnational conglomerates. I bet few predicted that back in 1986, too. Meanwhile, against this backdrop, we have the interim views of the Competition Commission on how they recommend injecting more competition within an industry that is ever more controlled by boards outside Britain. A touch of irony there, then.

So, where *was* that picture of the former London Transport RF? See the comments here

Have we Failed?

Said the Competition Commission, “Too many operators face little or no competition in local areas”. Of course, they’re right about a general lack of competition. But that need not be a bad thing in itself. In the light of the initial findings from the CC’s market investigation, has the English provincial bus industry failed to embrace the Transport Act 1985?

“To deregulate” doesn’t just mean “to compete”. Deregulation means “to remove regulations & controls”. Once those controls were loosed, several things happened. Here are the successes:

1. The industry has rejuvenated itself. Taking control of its own destiny, many (not all) managers have consistently stepped up to the plate. It’s hard to imagine our current crop of astute, commercially-focused, driven young managers being who they are in a regulated environment.


2. The profit motive that drives the provincial bus industry aligns nicely with the need to run buses where and when passengers want them. Commercial services generally run free of other outside influences.


3. Niche providers are doing well in supported markets. Virtually every market place now has a lower cost operator whose cost base means they are often more competitive than the bigger groups. Here, niche operators are most comfortable in terms of competition.


4. Subsidies have decreased. They may have crept up but 1986 saw a rebalancing, a re-benchmarking of public support far below the feather-bedding of whole network revenue support.


5. Over 90 per cent of provincial mileage is provided commercially, without direct local support. This benefits the public purse, especially at a time of austerity.


6. Operators have innovated and grown their businesses. Taking advantage of the post-deregulation ability to be nimble on their feet, operators espy opportunities and they tackle them. Some work, others don’t but it’s a healthy industry that takes (measured) risks.


7. Operators have oft branded and marketed their services effectively, winning new customers. Many such operations spring to mind.


8. Operators are fully flexible to respond to market needs. Once too flexible, now that flexibility emerges in the provision of faster, direct services; commercial Sunday mileage; night buses; and clockface, understandable timetables, even on previously ragbag inter-urban and rural services.


9. Once we’d left the initial, painful years of dereg behind, the level of investment began to rise. Especially in the last 12 years, it’s been consistently high. This in spite of profit margins that give long-term investment concerns.

But, on the other hand…

1. Fares are lower where there’s competition and daytime services often better, too, but this brings a burden on other parts of the network where either there are fewer journeys than might be viable or fares are higher.


2. Indeed, monopolies offer no incentive to operators to reduce fares. Fares are the one barrier that passengers perceive as difficult to overcome. Passengers do not see the link between fares and investment or quality of service.


3. Parallel with deregulation, there’s been a growth in off-centre destinations such as industrial estates, hospitals and retail parks. Commercial operators cannot easily serve such disparate demand with its smaller flows. This is a weakness that often not even local transport authorities can easily cover.


4. Where an incumbent faces competition, it would be madness not to react. If new competition keeps operators “on their toes”, being on their toes means that they will respond in ways that try to destroy that competition. This surely is inevitable.


5. Competition tends to be in bursts along specific, selected corridors during daylight hours. Not only are the benefits of competition therefore narrow, such actions are usually highly unstable. Often relatively short lived, it damages both parties and probably one irreparably. This would tend to indicate that the market in many towns cannot sustain competition.


6. There are few examples of whole network competition. Again, few towns can sustain it. Where they do, it’s still invariably along certain corridors only. Or operators using the Transport Act 2008 reach some form of accommodation (e.g. Chester, Oxford).


7. Large operators seem reticent to target adjacent large operators commercially. They have learnt from the past that markets struggle to support two. If this was so easy, why isn’t it universal? There is the obvious fear of retaliation but also there are considerable set up costs involved.


8. Small operators seem reticent to target large operators commercially. There’s simply too much at stake. Better to concentrate on where competition tends to be easiest—off street, during tender time.

So, have we failed? Not at all. There’s plenty of evidence of that. We’ve done all that has been asked of us. But have we succeeded? That’s a different question. With both sides of the argument claiming a victory, the CC nevertheless thinks we haven’t succeeded and is starting to address the issue with possible remedies, in particular:

• Improvements & changes to multi-operator ticket schemes, making them more inclusive


• Restrictions on aggressive, predatory behaviour


• Recommendations on the circumstances that might dictate a QC or QP—no doubt to be welcomed by operators and LTAs alike

And what was missing? What external factors have the CC forgotten?

1. References to the car as the main competitor.


2. Public policy that still drives passengers away because of off-centre destinations.


3. The use of bus priority and roadspace.
   

Yes, we’re doing all that’s asked of us. We face competition from niche providers for tenders. We’re balancing our books in difficult circumstances. We’re improving our game and winning customers. And investing. Clearly, that ain’t enough. We should be wading in and picking fights elsewhere.

Has deregulation, then, been a big fat failure? Would the pre-1986 status quo have been better? What do passengers make of it all? It’s hard to conclude that the only real solution is a franchised environment.

Wide Awake Yesterday Morning

We woke up yesterday morning to the news we’d been expecting on and off for several months. The publication yesterday of the Competition Commission’s summary of its findings on the market investigation of the provincial bus industry and its notices of possible remedies could prove just as important to industry’s future direction as the Public Transport & Traffic white paper of 1967 and the Buses white paper of 1984.

London carries on along its own sweet road. Meanwhile, I don’t think the CC’s “Provisional findings on AEC and resulting detrimental effects” on page 1 of its remedies report refers to Regals, Reliances or RMs

I bet there was much management time taken up yesterday with digesting the combined 48 pages. I doubt whether everyone in the industry agreed with the CC’s findings. Flawed or not, there seems little point in arguing some of the finer points as there’s probably not much the industry can do in any case. In one sense, though, the big surprise was that the report didn’t go quite as far as expected—no calls for enforced divestment, for example.

There were the typical reactions to the reports. Both the CPT and the pressure group The P.T.E.G. were welcoming. You wouldn’t expect otherwise, of course. But there were some really interesting and contradictory comments from these opposing camps (that really should be pulling in the direction of the passenger).

Said the CPT,

“Many, if not all the issues raised are covered by the 2008 Local Transport Act, and now that the uncertainty this enquiry has caused is behind us we can look at ways of using the Act to benefit passengers”

Hmmm. Both parties have an interest in the CC report but was The P.T.E.G. reading from the same documents? Said the officials,

“There is a big opportunity here for the Competition Commission’s final report to crack some of the remaining obstacles to better bus services that the Local Transport Act 2008 didn’t quite manage to do”

And there’s more. The CPT, for example, stated the CC,

“recognises that the industry does not need any fundamental change to its regulatory structure”

The P.T.E.G. felt otherwise.

“The Competition Commission report has put the final nails in the coffin of the 1985 deregulation vision”

As the industry considers the questions asked of it in the notice of possible remedies, and there are 15 broad areas upon which to comment, Omnibuses will need to come back to this again in the near future.

Meanwhile, I don’t think the CC’s “Provisional findings on AEC and resulting detrimental effects” on page 1 of its remedies report refers to Regals, Reliances or RMs.

Steve Wright in the Morning CC Factoid: combined 48 pages and just two references to the car—and not as a form of competition for the bus

A Dangerous Precedent?

This week, Silverdale Coaches of North Lanarkshire, Scotland, withdrew from the Scottish free travel scheme because it alleges that the Scottish government owes it £20,000. In a way to alienate over half of its passengers—those who previously travelled free—it has placed notices on its buses demanding pass holders pay 50p. The notice then suggests that passengers should claim this back from the Scottish government. Nice try. If taken literally,I wonder if it might freeze the Scottish administrative process as passengers flood the government with small, 50p claims. But that won’t happen. There are other parallel operators who accept free travel passes. Pensioners are therefore likely to forsake Silverdale. Will Silverdale be better off as a result? Other operators will probably benefit, though.

“There are only a small number of services on which your National Entitlement Card cannot be used, for example premium fare nightbuses and City Sightseeing Buses”

I’m no expert on Scottish law but were an operator to withdraw “voluntarily”from the compulsory English scheme, they’d be breaking the law (unless you know differently).

So, is this the UK’s first operator to withdraw? And will it set a precedent? We know that operators in some parts of the country are unhappy at the reimbursement rate and that the scheme makes them worse and off rather than neutral. Yet, this is Scotland, where till recently the waters have been very calm, compared to England. Recent scheme revisions north of The Wall may change all that.

Or is this some local dispute peculiar to Silverdale Coaches that is a symptom of greater things at play between the Scottish government and one discontented operator? Is there something going on we don’t know about? Perhaps the press comment from Silverdale has something to do with it. “They did a check on a bus and said the driver was putting cards through illegally and deducted £19,400.”

Continuity

We all took it very seriously. Too seriously, as it happened.

I don’t know whether you recall the preparation for 1st January 2000. I don’t mean the haircut, the clothes, the comestibles, the booze, the fireworks, the partying. I refer, instead, to the business continuity planning surrounding Y2K.

Someone, somewhere decided that the world’s computers would stop working between 23:59:59 and 00:00:01because software fields containing dates were only two digits long rather than four. As the date changed from “99” (AD 1999) to “00” (AD 2000), there was a concern that the world might go back to the stone age, as financial and safety systems crashed because they “thought” the year retarded to 1900 rather than advanced to 2000. The person responsible told someone, who told two others and soon the world was on Y2K Watch. Someone coined the term “business continuity plan” and it has been with us ever since.

11 years later and our reliance on systems & software is now even more ingrained within our procedures & processes. Revenue sales, cash counting, driver monitoring, safety monitoring, smartcards, engineering systems, engine management, business analysis, information dissemination, digital destination displays, vehicle location, RTPI, you name it. Some (most) systems are interdependent upon each other.

Imagine the horror if one of these systems crashed. Imagine, especially, if your electronic ticket machines suddenly floundered, en masse. One minute, your drivers were issuing fares and the next, nothing.

Occasionally, this happens in supermarkets, usually owing to a power failure without proper back up. The tills stop working. The store immediately closes on safety grounds (there being only emergency lighting) but the real reason is the fear customers will leave with goods unpaid.

If the electronic ticket machines fail on buses, there’s no opportunity to shut up shop. You can’t halt a journey half way through. Emergency ticketing is not ideal from many perspectives and in any case is very slow.

This is exactly what seems to have happened in Glasgow, Scotland, this week. ETMs on First buses linked with GPS crashed. It’s rather difficult to estimate the amount of revenue lost but it would be significant across a 900-vehicle fleet. In terms of continuity, First Glasgow was reported as initially charging a flat adult single fare of £1 though it’s understood First tried successfully to increase the fare.

You wouldn’t get this problem with mechanical ticket machines. But neither would you get the data from ETMs. Then again, mechanical machines did stick and jam (though they could be repaired at the garage, of course). In the early days of ETMs, often a garage would have its old machines as back-up. Not any more.

If anyone needs any clarification as to what I meant yesterday on the Dorset Bus Blog by “To ensure regulars in Lower Parkstone and the eastern extremities of Boscombe & Castlepoint are caught unawares, from Poole Wilts & Dorset has swapped its M1s for M2s and vice versa” had better click here

Upgraded

Omnibuses wonders why there’s no universal, complete First PDF timetable booklet available in regions other than Wales...

First Group has upgraded many of its UK Bus regional home pages though not yet quite all. How easy is it to get the bus information you need?

Land on the front page at firstgroup.com and it defaults to “bus” rather than train. This recognises the sheer volume of users interested in road rather than rail travel.

The new style regional home pages are sharp, clear, well designed and laid out. Compare to the older style, below

It’s a fairly painless process getting what you need. There are three choices: by area; by origin & destination; and by service number. I tried origin Fareham to destination Southampton and was surprised at getting three exact matches including one service to the “city centre” that was self-evidently Portsmouth (ser 57), not Southampton.

In addition, the site suggested four pages of “related” matches. This involved connections but sorting this out was an impossible task given the volume. Said First, “The timetable(s) shown below may involve one or more changeovers to complete your journey.” What, prithee, is a “changeover”? Sounds American. What’s wrong with “connections” or “changes”? Or perhaps the public can’t grasp the concept.

The old-style search box was obvious when it dropped down but otherwise was less so

Next, I started again and entered the route number 80 into the required box. Three results, one of which was from Fareham to Southampton. Being cantankerous, I chose Norfolk instead. Times for a Bury St Edmond’s local service appear quickly in HTML on the screen and you have an opportunity of printing a standard (single page) or large print (four pages) PDF.

More than that, you can personalise the timetable by choosing a starting, finishing point and a time. I chose a 1700 departure from the bus station to the interestingly sounding Out Risbygate and First gave me times from 1656 to 1816.

Finally, I clicked on the “Forthcoming Timetables” tab. This is now much clearer and more noticeable, alongside the “Current Timetable”. There were no immediate changes here.

Back to the UK Bus Home Page and I then selected information by area. I chose “South & West Wales”. You’re still faced with a plethora of timetable pages (in this case, no fewer than 13) but there’s a route number and origin & destination search box on the left to help. This is a great improvement. Gone is that small but drop down “Click here to find a bus service” search facility that I missed altogether the last time I searched with First.

It isn’t altogether obvious that clicking “South & West Wales” at the top of the page brings you to the regional home page, above. You are rewarded nonetheless with a clearer, distinct, well redesigned feel that if you can stand the pink looks almost as sharp as any Stenning offering. A Greyhound button appears the timetable & home pages but, strangely, you’ll find one for Swansea park & ride only under timetables.

Now then, what I particularly like about South & West Wales is the link to First’s local timetable booklets. Click it and you have a choice of six. You can view, save or print them. Some are rather large, of course, but it does give you all you need in one source rather than fishing around. You can easily be selective in your printing.

Most First regional home pages have a large link to the equivalent Traveline site. Some, like in Yorkshire and London, are customised. Only in London is there a direct origin/destination full link to a landing page, in this care from TfL. Indeed, here First recognises red rather than Barbie

Why is South & West Wales the *only* First region that allows you to view actual, proper timetable booklets? Even if First chooses to produce printed leaflets rather than books, it’s simple with publishing technology to stitch together an online booklet that gives all services for an area with a summary of changes, an index and useful travel information.

Might other operators also learn from this?

Wilts & Dorset changes this morning in some unspectacular yet interesting ways, today on the Dorset Bus Blog

At Sixes & Sevens Gives Rise to Five Demands

A group of passengers in Bath disgruntled at First’s changes (in part recently reversed) have organised a campaign, the results of which are five clear demands. It’s tempting to suggest that just 235 respondents to the campaign’s east Bath “information day” showed extreme temerity but to disregard their views would under-estimate passengers’ feelings. I suspect you would find similar sentiments anywhere outside London.

It all started when First broke the 6/7 circulars. Since reinstated, First now operates the service effectively every 40 minutes. To think Larkhall once saw four buses an hour while Baytree Road and Solsbury Way each enjoyed a half-hourly service

• The Government should approve more transport funding for the Bath area
  
  Fine for them to say so. But would the government agree? Or could it? Or ought it to, when such a high proportion of services are commercial? The truth is, it probably ain’t gonna happen. Nice try though. And why just Bath?


• There should be a minimum bus frequency of 30 minutes in urban areas
  
  This request seems somewhat unambitious given that parts of the 6 & 7 historically have enjoyed a 15-minute service. Nevertheless it would be a mistake to assume that a prescribed minimum frequency would suit all routes and all areas.
  
  To do so would result in a thinning in some areas to help “pay” for improvements where a half-hourly bus was unnecessary. Demands such as this look to bring back the discredited “cross subsidy” principle that protected weaker services at the expensive of the stronger. It ignores demand and the potential for growth, both significant driving factors.
  
  Better to request that settlements of equal size, demography and social make-up have an equal service and this, I suspect, is what operators such as First in Bath are doing, albeit probably unconsciously; though factors such as vehicle size and route length also are significant determinants in terms of frequency.


• Income from parking fines should be ploughed into public transport contracts
  
  A delicious thought. Tell that to the motorist who’s probably content with this in principle but will always wonder whether he’s being milked. Ain’t gonna happen, though. This has a faint whiff about it, in the public’s mind.


• Bus service reductions or improvements be made subject to full consultation with passengers
  
  Sorry, but who’s brave enough to suggest that this request is slightly delusional. One thing we’ve learnt at Omnibuses recently is that consultation is neither the tool nor the panacea for which operators or passengers had hoped. Consultation seems to stultify, not expand. This is because the response is heavily in favour of the status quo, even where a balanced view might achieve passenger growth.


• The establishment of an integrated transport authority to cover the West of England, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, and Swindon with powers to regulate fares and frequencies.
  
  Wow. This drives at the heart of things, doesn’t it. Should buses be regulated or not? Is the market working properly? Leaving aside whether a regional bureaucracy that would rival the monoliths of the northern PTEs would itself be good thing, the first reaction is, is it better for an *operator* to match supply with demand and provide a commercial network—or not. In favour of an ITA approach is consistency thanks to accessibility planning, a difficult-to-comprehend though admirably accountable method of designing a network. Against is the likely cost associated with such an approach.
  
  And costs must surely be a factor. That the campaign group expressed concerns at the impact of cuts to BSOG illustrates that they cannot promote a five-item wish list such as this without expecting a bill. Strangely, the group didn’t mention free travel reimbursements.
  
  And, as a measure of what might happen when you engage the public, one commenter suggested making the 6/7 every two hours, given that “90 per cent of the buses are empty anyway”. Obviously an over-simplification but you get the point…