Rock ‘n’ roll won’t catch on.
A week at Bognor will always have enduring appeal.
ITV will always be a licence to print money.
The uniformed services will always command our respect.
Only wastrels will squander money on credit cards.
McDonald’s will only ever be a fad.
Shops can’t afford to stay open on Sundays.
Woollens will always be in fashion.
No one will ever drive to a large DIY warehouse on the edge of town.
There’s no mass market for mobile phones.
Only geeks will continue to use the internet.
I’m guaranteed a job for life.
Music albums will remain ever popular.
Politicians of all parties need to cuddle up to Rupert Murdoch.

The motor car is an out dated concept.

Someone to Blame?

Or Pedants’ Corner. If anyone from Plymouth City Bus is reading this, may I ask what is wrong with the following news announcement of 18 February 2011,

“Service 20—the section of route between Mudge Way and the Merafield Plympton is to be withdrawn”

The answer is nothing is wrong, nothing at all. Except by phrasing this is the so-called “passive voice” it implies no one is taking responsibility. “Is to be withdrawn” sounds like someone is hiding. It’s like an operator answering angry protesters with “mistakes were made” when actually it might be best to hold your hands up and say “we made mistakes”. There’s a world of difference. Both are grammatically correct. The former accepts no responsibility, the latter does. (Grammarians will know this as a passivised verb, moving from the transitive to intransitive). Better then for City Bus to say,

“Service 20—it is with regret that we will withdraw the section of route between Mudge Way and the Merafield Plympton”

But before you think I’m over-critical of Plymouth City Bus, may I make two observations.

• First, this is by no means an isolated example of an operator phrasing in this way. I am sorry I seem to be picking on one operator (for illustrative purposes)


• Secondly, it’s a lot easier when you have someone to blame for negative revisions (other than yourself).

Of changes affective tomorrow, City Bus’ neighbour First Devon & Cornwall therefore states things differently. It’s far easier for them. The responsibility lies elsewhere. First uses the “active” not “passive” voice,

“Service 48 (Plymouth-Wembury): Devon County Council has withdrawn its support for journeys that run on Sundays and Public Holidays…”

But ironically the same paragraph finishes badly in the passive voice,

“As a result, all Sunday/Public Holiday journeys will be withdrawn from 11 April”.

Interested grammarians may find more information here on suitable uses of the passive voice. The rest of us might like to head over to Plymothian Transit for regular Plymouth updates.

Saturday Reductions—1970s Style

Talking of Saturday buses, as we were recently, I came across an odd thing the other day, while trying to find information for a previous post. When I found what I was looking for, I browsed the rest of the booklet, a Bristol Omnibus Company Bath timetable from 35 years ago.

It was a rather odd thing that a handful (though by no means all) of Bath city bus services had a lower Saturday frequency to Mondays to Fridays. Take the 204, illustrated. Here is a service operating on Mondays to Fridays at a 10-minute frequency. This drops to 15 on Saturdays.

The 203/13 Foxhill Estate to Bathford or Elmhurst Estate operated a combined Monday to Friday service at every 12 minutes, giving both of Bathford & Elmhurst Estate a confusing 24 minute service. On Saturdays, this reduced to a bus every 15 minutes and a straight half-hourly split to both extremities.

The 205 (City-Twerton) operated in 1976 at every 10 minutes Mondays to Fridays but every 12 on Saturdays.

It’s easy to conclude from this that Saturdays were becoming weaker shopping days even in the 1970s. I don’t know but I suspect this was far from the case. In fact, I rather suspect that the reduction in frequency was more to do with driver shortages in Bath than demand management.

It’s interesting that a look through Bristol City Services’ 1976 timetable showed no such downgrading on Saturdays.

Freaky

The paper quality of routeONE trade journal may have taken a dive, from a lustrous glossy to mat. Were it a bus timetable, this would lead to complaints because of the “bleed” from one side to the other. In spite of this, some of the advertising routeONE carries is interesting.

We all know that the commercials are the best part of Channel 4’s output. You probably can’t say the same for something as down to earth as a bus & coach trade journal but the advert for Heavy Duty Parts below did catch our attention as being both witty and different (from 15 July edition). We’re very sure this doesn’t represent your typical chief engineer…

Buses/Coaches

Weekday service timetables change today in rural Dorset but there will be considerably greater changes in September. In a guest post, Country Bus considers buses and coaches… and whether the twain should ever meet. Omnibuses welcomes contributions

There are two counties that I know well: Dorset and Lincolnshire. I have lived in both and worked in transport in both and continue to take a significant interest in their respective transport activities.

The question I pose is the choice between bus & coach work, primarily with regard to drivers. Should we think of buses and coaches? Alternatively should we think of buses or coaches? My experience of the industry taught me that bus drivers and coach drivers are two quite different types of people, each having their own particular skills and attributes. The two types of work did not often mix well for the same driver.

One person prefers the discipline of the rota, the pattern of work for the coming weeks and months, secure in the knowledge of sleeping in his or her own bed at night, never straying that far from home. The other thrives on the challenge of the daily detail, not knowing from one day to the next where the road will lead, or necessarily where the night (or week) will be spent.

Many firms mix the two types of work to large degree or small, meaning also some mix in the allocation of work to their driving staff. In Lincolnshire there are still several significant independent bus operators across the county, including Delaine of Bourne. This is a well-known, long established business and family owned through the fifth generation. Another operator is Kimes of Folkingham, till earlier this month an employee owned firm. It was taken over on 4th July by Centrebus. What these two have in common is that they are exclusively bus operators, concentrating on what they know and do best. They do not mix buses with coaches.

So with thoughts turning south to Dorset and the results of the recent tendering round we learn that a relatively modest coach and bus operator is growing to the extent of running a very considerable percentage of the supported transport work in the county, including a significant element of registered bus operation. Granted the firm in mind is not independent but is rather a subsidiary of one of the large groups. The question occurs whether the name Damory Coaches remains appropriate.

Whether the owners or others think so or not I wish them well in combining such quantities of bus and coach work, and hope that their managers and drivers will prove my assertion of the two types of driving work to be a mismatch to be incorrect!

i Countrybus, a website highly recommended by Omnibuses

Before our very Eyes…

… weekend bus travel is changing. The importance of Saturday is diminishing. There were always fewer pre-peak and peak time travellers (if there’s really any sort of peak on a Saturday) and this has traditionally been reflected in a thinner Saturday early morning service. These days, though, people are starting out even later. Buses don’t get going till 1000 or even after. And, in smaller market towns, Saturday afternoon on the buses is flat, reflecting a growing trend where, sometimes (and inconceivably), some shops actually shut at 1300, adding to the downward spiral in demand for buses.

As Saturday bus sales shrink, so Sunday becomes ever more important. No longer a day of rest, it’s become a day of relaxation at the shops. The day of rest now appears to have swapped to Saturday.

So, is Sunday the new Saturday? Not quite yet, though if trends continue, it will be. But to become like Saturday, we will need to see far more shops open in small market town England, settlements that have often left Sunday shopping to larger conurbations and out of town sites. Nevertheless, Saturday patronage has slipped so much in some smaller towns that Friday, always a strong shopping day, is by far the more important.

People seem to be more relaxed in their shopping habits on a Sunday. Perhaps that’s because the perception persists that Sunday is a quieter day. It isn’t, because there are often as many if not more people out on a Sunday but shop opening hours are shorted.

And this means condensed, fuller buses. In spite of significant improvements, most daylight services still operate at inferior frequencies to Saturdays or other weekdays, even where the bus industry’s developed in line with both shopping habits and shopper expectations. Buses can therefore be uncomfortably full on Sundays, to the point that Sunday is probably the only day of the week when you might experience standing at 1100.

Where there’s a critical mass of open shops, operators have tended to rise to the challenge of providing Sunday buses, certainly during daylight hours. And this is the further challenge: Sunday bus services die after 1700, after the shops shut.

There are two further problems. One relates to the perennial issue of trying to serve out of town shopping centres that are inconveniently located and have free parking. It doesn’t matter the day of the week, these areas are notoriously difficult to support.

And then there’s staff availability. Higher frequencies on a Sunday add to the burden of staffing problems and can lead to staff being resentful at having to redouble their efforts when others are enjoying themselves. Mind you, stores and shops have overcome this knotty problem. But then again, retail workers are often collectively very weak.

A Matter of Life & Death

No matter the job we do, we all have to handle complaints. There are some who are easily satisfied, others from whom we can learn and, I have to say, others who are just obnoxious. I guess we can all recall those “classic complainants” of times past, when we’ve had to bite our tongues for fear of saying something we might later regret. Some of these people stop at nothing to stir, no matter what we say. It’s a fact of life that you can only please so many people. I once even had a rant from someone whose complaints were so inconsequential that, in desperation, he had nothing left to moan about other than he felt the quality of our printed timetables were too lavish!!!

In all this, I’ve never heard of anyone going on hunger strike about a bus service, though. That’s what’s happened in Malta. Feelings may be running high out there but someone is currently so upset with the new bus system there that he’s prepared to die. Said Mr Cini, “If I am taken to hospital against my will and I am unconscious or something of the kind, I refuse any kind of intervention”. Crumbs.

After what’s happened in Malta, no one should ever underestimate the perils of promising the moon when it has proven impossible to deliver the earth. For, there appears to be a difference between raised expectations and actual service delivery.

There are few occasions when such a major change happens. Actually, I can’t think of any. One of the closest we saw in England was deregulation and, even then, even during the early muddles, services generally retained their numbers and routes. Much later, when Transdev Yellow Buses re-wrote the rules in Bournemouth, you only heard from the displaced, in spite of massive passenger growth.

Not even Dorset next week will see such a change, though perhaps Dorset school transport next term might. There are lessons for Go South Coast and the media will be quick to chide if things go badly. Make no mistake, the scale of the change in Dorset school transport is such that there *will* be teething problems. The spotlight will be on managers to see how quickly they resolve them.

If anyone can turn a difficult situation around, it should be the likes of Arriva. Piling in like the cavalry is a cohort of experienced UK managers & supervisors. And poor Mr Cini’s complaints that he now needs three rather than one bus to get from home to his desired destination isn’t anything to do with Arriva. Indeed, it’s not Arriva’s managing director he blames, it’s the minister he wants to see resigning. The minister appears to be saying the right things as regards Mr Cini and the minister seems to be acting as a model in how to deal with the serious complaints. Whether that will satisfy scalp-hunters remains to be seen.

Early Running

“I think you would be hard pushed to find any of the Big Five who do not treat early running or deliberate late running seriously…”

So said a commenter yesterday. And I agree.


I recall first hearing the maxim that “There’s no excuse for early running but every excuse for being late”. It’s still one that does the rounds, even now, even if there are drivers who deliberately run late. The point of the adage is that, if caught, you can defend yourself if late but certainly not if early.

Early running’s rare. It really doesn’t happen that much. One reason is the possibility of ending up at a public inquiry. With perpetual breaches of the traffic commissioners’ window of tolerance (no more than a minute early and five late), it’s something operators *have* to take seriously. That said, it’s reported that VOSA wish to withdraw already thinly spread bus monitoring staff and replace them with a bolt on to the traffic examiners’ role. Technology should also be able to come to a driver’s aid in ensuring nothing moves too early.

But there are other good reasons why buses shouldn’t—and don’t—run early. There are resource savings if running times are too slack. And if there’s only one person who gets cheesed off with a slack timetable more than the passengers themselves, it’s the driver.

Just don’t mention the last bus of the evening…

Clock Watching

I recall a conversation with a highways engineer at or about the time of deregulation. He was responsible for bus priority which, in those days, meant bus lanes. He gave a stark warning. Now that the industry was acting in a business-like fashion, why should it benefit from improvements to the road network at the public expense aimed solely at helping buses?

I am sure that he wasn’t alone in his thinking. But things move on and traffic authorities generally see the benefit of improvements to bus journey times. And give me unfettered access to the highway and I will show you what growth is really like. True, it’s the bus companies whose bottom lines improve, from increased revenue as passengers see a benefit in using the bus; or in lower costs from reductions in the PVR; or both.

But there are clear benefits for traffic and local transport authorities even if, sometimes, local politics can intervene. The benefits include the potential for reductions in subsidy and helping to meet local targets in modal shift and emissions.

Quite often, an authority’s Local Transport Plan will have targets for changes in motorist behaviour to public transport. Often, these targets are difficult to meet. All the marketing in the world, branding and new vehicles is as naught if the bus is stuck in the same jam as a car. Indeed, a jammed bus is far worse than a jammed car because the motorist has the flexibility to alter his route, take the outside lane and get closer to his destination.

The difference is in the ability to get through to a destination on time. Roadspace for the bus. Enter so-called Bus Punctuality Partnerships, revised DfT guidance for which was issued this very month.

If you think that such partnerships are worthless, impractical or make little difference, the new guidance gives some examples. In Norwich, for instance, the average percentage of buses on time en route was 62 in 2006, 70 in 2007, 77 in 2008 and 79 in 2009. In South Yorkshire, this went from 74 in 2006 to 88 in 2008.

There’s still much work to do to improve upon the Norwich and South Yorkshire positions but a 17 and 14 per cent improvement is good by any standards.

What we don’t know, though, is whether, like the rail industry, there are built in elongated running times or layovers to improve these figures. If there are, I would suggest they are self-defeating. And we don’t know the return on the investment in these schemes in actual car movements deterred and passenger increases.

Another Good Result

Once again, the industry seems to have its ducks in a row. But not when it comes to Toilet Ducks.

For Passenger Focus has again given a clean bill of health to our industry. This time, it’s looked at express services via a passenger survey and concluded a very high satisfaction rating. Not surprised.

Buried in the research are a few very interesting points.

“If given a choice, participants would travel with the operator that had the best price and timetable for their journey”

Often, there isn’t a choice, of course. But how does this go? The survey also suggests that there’s little to differentiate operators.

“Participants felt there was little to differentiate one coach operator from another”

There are indeed few express operators from which to choose. It would seem that Megabus is little different to Greyhound is little different to National Express. Spending megabucks on differentiation is wasted when passengers can’t really spot it.

Passengers “had usually given up on exploring train prices and knew the coach would be cheaper”

Stands to reason, really, as passengers know when they’re best off. For the private or leisure traveller, rail prices are simply incredible. But low prices aren’t everything. The coach rarely matches rail’s speed, comfort or frequency.

“Using the toilet on board was usually avoided. Some feared being locked in. They expressed concerns about the cleanliness of the toilets”

Ah. We’ve come a long way since the 36-footer with 53 tightly packed, rigid coach seats. Passengers in the survey felt that better seat pitches were important. They prefer leather over fabric as they see this as more hygienic. But when it comes to using the plastic seat, the on-board lavatory, a feature rising in popularity sibce the early 1980s, passengers seem to think twice. I bet coach stop lavatories are little better. And I know that on-board rail facilities also leave a lot to be desired.

How can operators improve? Passenger Focus concludes that in spite of a good score, there’s scope for improvement:

1. One place to compare and book
   
   This might seem counter-intuitive to competing express providers. After all, express coaching is very different to the franchised rail industry. But why can’t some independent comparison-type site or Chester-le-Track organisation take on this mantle?


2. More visible staff & police presence
   
   I always feel that the rail industry gets the better deal regarding policing. That said, it has to pay for it. But there should be no reason why express operators can’t do more in providing a suitably trained staff presence.


3. RTI at coach stops
   
   It’s hard enough for local bus services. Imagine integrating coach services into disparate, localised RTI systems. That said, many coaches have wi-fi and presumably are easily located. There must be other ways, too, such as iPhone apps.


4. Allay concerns about lost luggage
   
   Is this *really* an issue? We’re not talking airports here. Are luggage tags practical?


5. Improved journey times. Express operators seized the benefits of the motorways and from the early 1980s began offering more limited stop journeys. There has to be a limit to this without weakening the service altogether. And remember that one of the coach’s main benefits is that it serves small settlements not on the rail network. In the rush to cut journey times, what happens to those?


6. Enhance the on-board experience
   
   Correct me if I’m wrong but haven’t express operators largely tackled this? Except it seems with regard to the quality of their toilets...

Halting the Downward Spiral?

I’ve been reading trade journals not since Adam was a boy but undoubtedly since he went to school. The message about uneconomic coach rates has oft filled their pages. Notwithstanding the popularity of Coachmart’s Marksman column, he did bang on about this to the point of boredom. Why boredom? Because the industry never actually seemed to listen. So, when the even more respected Mike Morgan wrote on Thursday, “Working for less simply doesn’t make sense. Instead, now is the time to stand firm”, I know most will agree but how many will feel able to act?

During the forthcoming school holidays, it might be time to reflect on a few things. One is that local transport authority officers realise the pressures the industry faces but school transport is no more exempt from cuts than schools themselves. In fact, school transport seems a disproportionately high element of an LEA’s “back office” and is a real cuts candidate.

Mike Morgan mentions e-tendering as a driver for cuts. Operators actually welcome e-tendering as a means of modernising the process. It’s the increasingly prevalent e-auctioning they seem to dislike. Who’s to blame LEAs for deploying such a tool when to do otherwise might result in even more industry hardship?

One innovation is dispensing with the time-honoured route-specific way of tendering. Where Dorset leads, others must surely follow. The result, in Dorset, is the potential collapse of small operators as Damory and even Yellow Buses corner the schools market. Yes, there may be implications for Dorset in five or seven years but Dorset needs the saving *now*.

The other is changes to policy. Charging for post-16 provision is now quite common. Its impact is marginal because it reduces rather than withdraws the need for travel. Currently, a significant number of authorities are considering the withdrawal of transport to denominational schools. This will have a more significant transport impact.

How can some operators grow their business nicely when others complain about cuts in their rates? I look at Damory and can only marvel that school (and college) transport brings home the bacon. One lesson, especially at Damory, is economies of scale. “Now is the time to stand firm”. I don’t see Damory doing that.

i Follow Dorset matters on the Dorset Bus Blog

Sign of the Times

I have the inspirational Plymothian Transport to thank for pointing out that under “News & Initiatives” on its First South West & Wales webpages there’s a link to First’s summer 2011 edition of its so-called stakeholder newsletter.

I would tend to agree with Plymothian Transit that the term “stakeholder” is a clumsy one. But I admit I cannot think of one better to describe those to whom the newsletter is intended, even if the term “stakeholder” found its way into a 2008 top 10 list of classic jargon (can jargon actually be “classic”?).

For, the newsletter appears destined for local & regional government and the local community, plus employees. Each is affected by First without having a direct shareholding and all benefit (or not) from First’s activities.

The bulk of the newsletter updates readers on First’s initiatives and, as such, could be any customer publicity puff. For me, the giveaway that this is intended not just for them but for decision makers lies is the second sentence:

“In the past six months a lot of change has happened, Giles Fearnley has taken over as the new Managing Director for First UK Bus and brings a real depth of experience in quality bus service provision”

There’s no further explanation as to who Fearnley is. It’s expected that readers will be familiar with the name and reason for his appointment. If this were *solely* for passengers, they’d be lost at this initial point.

The author, regional managing director Justin Davies, then bravely goes on to admit “we know that in the past few years we have not met all your aspirations and expectations”. Carrying on, Davies implores,

“We want to make the future a better and different place and do business in a way that works for you. Getting that approach right will not be easy or automatic but the determination to achieve change exists now”

Not all the newsletter is dedicated to good news. There’s a stark warning under the Hampshire & Dorset section that free travel formulæ changes “unfortunately may lead to service changes”. Interestingly, the newsletter makes no mention of contract inspired changes in Dorset yet surely the publication is intended as part of the Dorset rebuilding process.

But it’s the openness and honesty at the very beginning that we should applaud. It cannot be easy for an extant regional managing director in his present and recent roles in Swansea and Bristol to admit First has fallen short of aspirations. It indicates a new willingness at First to place the past behind it where obviously, by its own admission, it has to some degree or other failed. Davies should not be ashamed at trying to draw a line in the sand in Swansea Bay, Weston-super-Mare, Fowey or Weymouth.

Critics might say “Yeah, yeah. Whatever”. Provided the pledges are backed by evidence of action, I can see no reason why we shouldn’t take this as a sign of a new beginning and one that will include the expectation of a new livery and brand name in six to 12 months. What that will be and how local (or not) will be interesting to see and one that will no doubt result in a stakeholder newsletter all of its own.

i Plymothian Transit
i First stakeholder newsletter

Classic Bus

Classic Car Weekly was the last transport journal I expected to see a story on Maltese buses. Then again, the newspaper occasionally features classic transport other than cars. And there’s also an advert in yesterday’s edition for a 10-seat minibus version of a 1954 Morris J2 at only £7,500. May not be DDA compliant but it’s as classic as it gets and could be a novel heritage addition to a fleet, perhaps. And, if you’re wondering what a J2 looks like, we would liken a certain modern product to one of them.

The Classic Car Weekly article talks about enthusiasts who are looking to repatriate a few of the former Maltese buses. There are three normal control vehicles left and apparently, these are licensed for private hire work. For the rest, the future’s uncertain following the July changes.

May be the buses should stay put, for Arriva has had anything but a smooth ride since it began this month. Arriva’s provided plenty of fodder for bar room chatter & commuter frustration among islanders, who are asking whether they were better off with their older buses.

They are better off but they may not yet know it. The snags really only appear to be teething problems, only hugely exaggerated by the vast scale of the change. We’ve all experienced such things but not quite on this level.

A major problem was that 180 drivers failed to turn in for work during the first week. Appallingly, a little under half of them were *not* from the old system, though some reports suggest most were disaffected owner-drivers. That’s a rather significant problem that’s outside Arriva’s control. More than 70 drivers from across Arriva’s UK operation have been drafted in. Quite a nice summer job, I’d say.

It also appears that some of the drivers from the old regime are dragging their feet or vanishing while on shift or defecting buses that are later found to be fine. Now, this sort of thing is within Arriva’s control but solving it needs to be fair and it will take time. Management support has landed from the UK. There are 40.

Another issue Arriva faces is that the new route network isn’t to everyone’s taste. As usual in such circumstances, it’s Arriva that gets the blame, whereas the network’s been driven by consultants on behalf of the Maltese government. There are nevertheless promises of early reviews. Not too early, I trust, for the system has to settle down. My guess is that there will be plenty who will eventually benefit and, who knows, these may be in the majority, albeit of the silent type.

There may be those on Malta who want to see Arriva fail. Some of those may be former owner-drivers. But success is in everyone’s interest, certainly the public’s. And there are now plenty of passengers who feel matters are improving or will do so soon. Meanwhile, perhaps we shouldn’t yet export those 30-50 year old buses back to Britain. Maybe they should remain for a while as a kind of insurance policy. Just in case.

Interesting Comments

Interesting comments yesterday on the Go Ahead post and I hope to come back to comment myself on some of the points raised, ere long.

Meanwhile, over on Dorset Bus, Klondike-style, there’s more on surprising times at Shamrock, some analysis, what happened at 1700 on Shamrock’s last day and the aspiration of a flat peak dashed (a particularly puzzling expression, flat peak which, at first flush, makes no sense—more peculiarities regarding the bus industry here).

Catching our breath during the Dorset retenders plus a surprise buyout, today on the Dorset Bus Blog

Positives & Pitfalls

I think I have the right day. Today, David Brown officially takes over from Keith Ludeman as chief executive of Go Ahead. He’s not new to the group, having been its London man till 2006, when he jumped ship to TfL.

As with any new chief, he’ll be anxious to make his mark. I wonder exactly what that mark will be.

Many would argue he should leave well alone the way in which Go Ahead manages its bus subsidies. A collection of individually branded and locally managed operations generally performs well.

For the past five years, there’s nevertheless been a growing recognition that Go Ahead subsidiaries belong to a major transport group. But, as a commenter here stated recently, one problem with leaving “We’re part of the Go Ahead Group” on buses, websites & some timetables is that this can actually tarnish you. By being seen as part of a profit-making group rather than a locally owned independent business, pub talk is just as brutal when it comes to accusations of profiteering at Go Ahead as it is at, say, First. Suddenly at a stroke, you risk losing the local strengths you have.

Is this readers’ perceptions?

It’s worth remembering that the intentions in trying to raise the image of the Go Ahead Group was very intentional and very deliberate. It followed one of the perceived failings of the Wilts & Dorset bid for Yellow Buses all those years ago, in 2005. W&D put forward a strong but ultimately unsuccessful bid. Go Ahead felt that it had failed to engage councillors and senior borough managers who, in turn, felt that W&D lacked the presence offered by a major transport conglomerate.

Reinvented

It's to our shame that virtually everywhere in the 1960s & 1970s the industry did away with the practice of displaying rear destinations. This was an unnecessary reduction in the quality of information available to passengers. I say “unnecessary” because, with modern electronic displays, we have suddenly found that displaying the rear route number again has its advantages. It’s been reinvented.

Looks like, rather than go to a salon, this young lady might have found it cheaper to buy a ticket on an open top bus...

Back in the 1960s, it was almost as if passengers would never approach from the rear of a bus when, of course, this was as likely as not. It may be that passengers might show a sense of frustration at seeing their bus disappearing down the street. At least if they did, they could plan ahead a little, perhaps making alterations or going for a cup of tea till the next bus. And what about the equal frustration of scurrying to the bus’ front just in case it was about to depart, only to find that it wasn’t the one for which they were hoping.

The 1960s decision to write off rear route information was nevertheless inevitable. Most buses were no longer rear loaders. One man operation was becoming very popular and management of the time conspired with the trade unions to reduce the practice of two sets of destination equipment to the point where buses from the mid-1960s (in particular in country fleets, the purpose-built-for-OMO ECW-bodied Bristol RE) were specified without any rear destination equipment at all (and those beforehand saw them either panelled or painted over). There were issues over having enough time to undertake this simple task front & back and leaving cash in the cab while doing so (even though most changes were at termini when the bus was empty).

Unlike many of their neighbours, Hants & Dorset continued ordering a large-ish number of rear loader Bristol FS (and a handful of FL) Lodekkas when the front entrance FSF and especially FLF were elsewhere the more popular. Even here, the rear destination was eventually painted out, leaving the route number indicator. Front entrance single decks of the period with two aperture destination displays and a number indicator front and back often saw one painted or panelled out at the front and all at the rear.

Now, of course, technology has come to our assistance. While sometimes the front might show too much information, I doubt anyone would wish to go back to the point where there was nothing on the rear.

End of the “World”

Perhaps we conveniently forget the link between The News of the World, The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times and BSkyB. There’s no common design, image or logo. Yet, last week, people were again talking in negative terms about the “Murdoch media” as an homogenous whole just like the mid-1980s with the call to boycott The Times over job losses at The Sun.

Who knows what effect The News of the World ‘Milly’ Dowler scandal might have on the circulation of other parts of News International. Closing Britain’s biggest selling newspaper is radical damage limitation when perhaps the blame rests as much with the 2.6mil people who in buying and 7½mil reading the red-top demanded a reprehensible level of journalism. It’s what we, the public, demand.

None of Britain’s bus brands is so tarnished for their owners to take action in closing them down. Selling a few on the fringe on, may be. At least the The News of the World readers have a choice. Bus users have none.

Much of England’s urban bus operations have chosen national branding strategies for the benefits this gives them. One is brand recognition. Some would argue that what happens in one town won’t affect perceptions in another. This is true only to a point. People do move around and they do take with them their thoughts, their perceptions and their prejudices. Branding comes with benefits and disbenefits as News International is finding out.

If what happens in one place won’t affect group operations in another, why brand nationally in the first place?

Above and beyond the call, in getting the news out out a difficult situation, today on the Dorset Bus Blog

Dirty Word

I recall a conversation, many years ago now, with a chair of a local parent teacher association. Referring to school buses including those on normal service diverted specifically for the purpose, she wanted reassurance that operators made no profit out of such ventures. Nice thought.

In today’s Passenger Transport magazine, the editorial states, “The business of providing bus and rail services occupies a strange netherworld between retailer and utility”. Passenger Transport states that public transport is the only industry where profit is a dirty word. That’s not strictly true, of course. Add property developers and a small number of others. Plus utility providers, especially at times of rising fuel bills. And that’s the rub. Bus services are viewed as a public asset, just like gas should be, in the public’s mind.

The question is, why does the public detest the thought of an operator actually turning an honest penny into a profit? Here are some thoughts on the public. They:

• Feel that the service is for the public, as an insurance policy, providing a minimum level of mobility & accessibility that should be maintained at public expense as a comfort blanket. A bit like the Church of England, perhaps.


• Are used to the concept of public transport in public ownership. An outdate concept, true, but it still lives on in their minds.


• Are used to the idea that bus services either never or should never make a profit at all. They recall news stories from the 1970s and 1980s that all services were subsidised and they think that all of them still are. They know that local transport authorities pour subsidy in, even if the public cannot quantify how much.


• See public money spent on infrastructure, large and small.


• See a journey by bus as a purchase they have to make rather than one they wish to. It’s a distress purchase and it adds no value for them.


• See a ride by bus as giving only indirect value or benefit. They can’t hold it, feel it, experience it and it gives little utility. It’s a secondary activity, a means to getting where they need to be so that they can do the things they want or need to. There’s no feel good factor in using the bus. It’s a necessary evil. This fashions their entire philosophy as to whether bus services should make a profit. And it partly explains why, to a monitory of people, they feel it acceptable to try not to pay for it if they can get away with it.

When I engaged the chair of the PTA in the economics of the bus industry, she politely conceded that school transport, especially for smaller operators, was their bread & butter. I say politely for this was a good school. Somehow, though, I know that I failed to convince her. The concept of a public asset was too strong.

Operator liquidates, today on the Dorset Bus Blog

Managing Decline

Several comments yesterday got me thinking. Is the bus industry really managing decline? There are obvious and glorious exceptions but, yes, managing decline is the best way of describing the way in which the bus industry *generally* conducts itself. Unless you feel differently.

It was ever thus. After the early blossoming of the embryonic bus industry then came slow rather than rapid growth. It didn’t take long before everyone who wished to travel was travelling. In the 1930s, it was possible to find that workers travelled not twice but four times daily, including home for lunch. That began to drop. And even in the 1930s, there were rural bus routes unable to cover their costs. That didn’t matter much because there were plenty that did.

The war was a somewhat unusual situation but afterwards came the flowering, as there was little on which to spend money in any case—other than travel. The glory days lasted but a handful of years.

In spite of suburban and peripheral post-war housing that generated traffic, there came a steadily growing affluence and with it, the growing popularity of the motor car. The tide turned in the early 1950s when night-time streets once empty began to fill with parked cars. Still there were plenty of passengers, so no one really minded.

It wasn’t long before crisis hit. By the mid-60s, city to suburb routes went flat. Town to country routes were diving. And we tend to forget the influence of the burgeoning TV revolution at this time that first nibbled and then chomped at the lucrative evening cinema market. The answer was one man (sic) operation and again there was a certain complacency.

The late 1960s to mid-1970s saw this crisis become a catastrophe. Rural and urban mileage fell at the ironic yet lethal cocktail of high fuel prices and rising car ownership. There was inflation and recession. Subsidy became the prop but this was not without its angst.

Catastrophe became utter calamity as the 1980s progressed. With subsidy and passenger decline both out of control, deregulation was wheeled in cauterise the hæmorrhages. It worked for subsidy but alas! it failed to stem the collapse in ridership. Indeed, in those cities where deregulation was at its best (or worst), the fall in passengers was sharpest, owing to uncertainty and constant change. Suburban rail was a beneficiary.

Stability has returned in some places but it’s been a hard slog. Free travel has helped passenger numbers but that seems to have peaked. Indeed, there are examples of where free travel hinders or even stifles fare-paying growth. Meanwhile, planning policies from the 1980s onwards that favour out of town locations (retail, employment, health all with free parking) meant the bus service is less able to respond to shifts in demand, leaving almost an underclass subject to the whims of bus company managers who exercise power over fares and frequency.

During all these periods, it’s hard to see how anything proactive on the part of the industry would’ve made too much of a difference. This was and is society’s problems; the bus’ story is a reflection of that. No, the changes are not because of the bus industry. Rather, the perceived benefits and cheapness of the car is to blame and the way in which the car has divorced where we live with where we want to be.

Illustrations

Illustration 1—Walesonline

“Inquiries by Wales on Sunday have revealed that the price of [bus] day tickets range from just £2.75 to a whopping £6.” Leaving aside the fact that comparing Cardiff Bus’ day ticket with Stagecoach’s regional offering is like comparing hacking The News of the World with The New Statesman, the remedy according to “consumer groups” was for “greater competition to drive down fares and make prices fairer across Wales”.

Illustration 2—BBC

Responding to the increasing competition between Transdev Harrogate & District and Harrogate Coach Travel on the Harrogate to Wetherby service, “bus user Tom Howley, who has travelled on the route regularly for the past 25 years, said, ‘I can't see why there should be three buses leaving Wetherby for Harrogate in a six-minute period. I just can't see any sense or logic in it at all.’”

Illustration 3—TAS Bus Industry Performance Monitor

Bus industry “margins remain well below their peak in the mid-1990s and... profit levels remain below the levels needed to deliver a vibrant and growing industry”.

Ah, the intrigue and dilemmas of the modern day bus industry. Sometimes I wonder exactly where we’re heading.

The Fortunes of Modern Retailing

This is a guest post by Invicta. Omnibuses welcomes contributions

Bad news on the High Street last week. Several chain retailers have announced cutbacks, or gone into administration, including Habitat and Thornton’s. Another, fashion house Jane Norman, is strangely now part of sedate & solid Edinburgh Woollen Mill. A discussion on Radio 4’s Today Programme suggested that almost 15 per cent of High Street shops stand empty. 15 per cent!

Jane Norman, from Racy...

The reasons for the decline were discussed in the same programme: the growth of internet retailing and out-of-town shopping centres were two of the factors identified. So, how does all this affect bus services?

... to chasten

Quite simply, going shopping is probably the primary journey reason for most off-peak bus passengers. Weaker town centres simply mean fewer passengers. But out-of-town retailing is a double-edged sword for bus operators.

On the one hand, they tend to offer masses of free car parking. On the other, they can provide a counter flow of passengers, creating a highly desirable bus route with attractors at both ends.

It does depend on the type of development—those that offer something more akin to the High Street tend to be better destinations for bus passengers than those with a narrower offering.

I firmly believe that the movement of supermarkets out of town centres from the 1980s onwards robbed the bus industry of many passengers. Food shopping is a regular activity for almost all households, and no amount of trips by teenage girls to clothes retailers can make up for the loss of this “bread and butter” trade.

Perhaps the shape of modern bus services is summed up by Arriva’s bus route 71 in Kent, where the successive timing points are “Bus Station”, “Sainsbury’s”, “Morrison’s” and “Tesco”. For good measure, it stops not far from a Waitrose, too, though in fairness the bus station in Maidstone is next to another Sainsbury’s, which opened in the last few years.

The worst of all worlds seems to be the remote retail park, essentially a car park with a tin shed on the far side. These are simply not laid out in a way that can be served effectively by buses, and quite often not even anywhere near a bus route. But they appeal to retailers, with lower running costs and easy access for delivery vehicles, free of the restrictions placed on many town centre roads.

Planning policies have tended to slow down the growth of these retail parks of late, but there are indications that the coalition government is looking to ease the restrictions again. Stephen Joseph of the Campaign for Better Transport felt it worth warning the Association of Transport Co-ordinating Officers’ summer conference of the threat that it might pose.

Might the time have come for bus operators to be more proactive and study the detail of local planning policies and individual applications? Failure to be an active participant could see some of our favourite retailing activity—bus services—scaled back, or worse, like Woolworths, just disappear altogether.

Good morning readers! June 2011 was the best month ever on Omnibuses so I’m indulging myself in a few days off. I hope you don’t mind. This isn’t quiting while I’m ahead. Anyway, it’s a case of having to. Tomorrow, I aim to begin airing a guest post or two. If you think you can help with this, please email me. Meanwhile, if you’ve emailed me recently with something that deserves a reply, I apologise for my delay. And, if you feel that yesterday’s silence and today’s non-post leaves you feeling bereft, why not try a random Omnibuses post, by clicking top left.

Busing

Dear Giles

You will recall that exactly a week ago we asked readers for their views on your proposed rebranding (or brand realignment, if that better describes your intention). We had a very good response from the readership, a mix of industry professionals and enthusiasts. Here are the results. There were also over 40 comments, all of which are here.

We started by asking whether First should rebrand locally (above). 88 per cent of respondents felt that you should. The view under Comnments was that this would help distance First from its past. Nine per cent felt that First had invested in sufficiently strong a corporate brand for it to remain.

We then asked whether any rebranding should retain a corporate element to it (e.g. some nod to corporate colours or the retention of the name First in front of, for example, Eastern Counties) (above). Given the response to our first question, we were a little surprised to learn that 60 per cent of respondents felt that you should retain such a corporate element. 33 per cent felt otherwise and six per cent didn’t know.

We then asked whether First might care to reintroduce “traditional” company names or whether you should build new names from scratch. Here, there was a mixed response:

It was also at this point that we invited respondents to give their own views, in writing. To a person the consensus was that you could mix traditional and new depending upon the circumstances.

We were also curious to learn whether readers felt that “traditional” company names were still acceptable or whether they were tainted:

Finally, we asked the readership whether Arriva & Stagecoach might consider rebranded on a more local basis. 53 per cent of respondents felt that they should. 28 per cent felt not. 17 per cent were unsure.