Bonanza?

Well, now. Several colleagues have reported that passengers have been asking whether their buses are on strike today. One email I’ve seen states that a passenger quizzed a member of staff and when told *everything* will operate as normal, she still asked, “Does that apply to route X?” D’oh. Reminds me of the daft questions I used to get when I was in an enquiry office.

No matter how we like to portray ourselves as belonging to the thrusting private sector, there are still those who either see us as a nationalised industry or owned by the council taxpayers. This, no doubt, is partly a legacy of times past but it’s something that we don’t seem to be able to shake off. It’s only been 25 years or so, after all. Even so, the public equate us with Town Hall staff. We’re viewed as a Public Asset.

May be it’s also a legacy of industrial unrest that beset the industry in the 1970s and 1980s. From time to time there are still strikes but they tend to be far, far fewer than they once were. It seems that in the good-old-bad-old days, there might be a strike every few weeks. And picket lines were much more active and militant back then, too.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter what passengers think about ownership. All they want is a cheap bus, running on time, taking them where they want to go.

One set of passengers who struggle to get a (direct) bus to where they want to go is in the health sector. These days, most general hospitals tend to be located on a radial and not in the centre of towns or cities. I doubt therefore many nurses use the buses these days. I also doubt many teachers do, either, if they ever did. So, it’s probable that the industry won’t feel the pinch too much today, as over two million people don’t go to work. Unless, of course, bus-using working parents take leave to care for their children.

In fact, I bet bus services will be busy as anything during the day. Virtually all schools in Bournemouth & Poole are closed and if this is replicated throughout England—as it seems to be—there’ll be every excuse for a bit of Christmas shopping. Parents with their children, older children with friends and even strikers themselves will be overwhelming our city centres. A proportion will get there by bus. As long as these aren’t substitute journeys for those later in the next 3½ weeks, it looks set to be a bit of a bonanza today.

Felix—the Cat’s out of the Bag: Sort of

So now we know. Remember the shenanigans where Trent Barton over-registered Felix journeys on the Ilkeston Flyer and Black Cat bus services? For a matter of weeks? And appeals by Felix for passengers to stay loyal during the short period of competition?

Trent Barton announced yesterday that it had purchased those very same Felix bus services. Yesterday, the Omnibuses Blog tried to speak to a Trent Barton representative to try to untangle the truth but no one was available for comment “because of preparations for tomorrow’s [now today’s] UK Bus Awards”.

Ah, well. We’ll have to hope that the story gets out sooner or later. Did Felix try the market for a better deal? Did Trent Barton initially offer too low a price? Was there a threat that Premiere might’ve stolen Felix from under Trent Barton’s nose? All speculation at the moment.

In the meantime, we’ll have to Console ourselves with MD Jeff Counsell’s official comments that “We have nothing but respect for Felix”.

Meanwhile, it’s off to the UK Bus Awards where Trent Barton’s up for the Putting the Passengers First award. You never know, too much celebratory (or commiseratory) drink and someone might let something slip. We’ll let you know. If you are staying, see you later, Alex? Mine’s a pint but on this occasion, I’ll buy : )

Sad Affair

The second hand bus market’s been if not flooded then certainly whelmed with newish stock that was once operated by Veolia. Someone’s got to benefit from Veolia’s decision to sell property, assets and a surprising number of vehicles that were reportedly owned rather than leased. This all in an attempt to deal with its debt as Veolia divests in the UK. An example of one beneficiary is Go South Coast, with a handful of Tempos, some of the latter even now appearing in Wilts & Dorset livery.

These vehicles are young low floor examples and, as such, they make a lot of sense as a sound second hand investment. Veolia doesn’t appear to have looked after its vehicles so well and you’ll have to be prepared to give them something of a heavy overhaul, though. Then again, you’d probably expect to do the same for older ex-London SLF stock, not because of poor maintenance, but the sheer pressure of their working environment.

The above Slimline Solo is perhaps the most remarkable former Veolia example, as advertised in the trade press, alerting operators to an eBay listing. The advert states “Engine MISSING”. How careless of Veolia to lose it. Perhaps the engine was shot. More likely, the engine’s been used elsewhere, as the Solo appears to have other bits & pieces also missing, perhaps as a donor vehicle for spares. It’s sad to see a 2007-reg bus in such a condition. It indicates the parlous state of things at Veolia when it has to strip a new vehicle to keep others going.

There’s also another former Veolia Solo currently on eBay, this time offered for sale by Volant PSV.

Do readers know of any other similar situations, where newer buses find their way onto bricks, as donors?

As an aside, one wonders how the proliferation of trade mags that specialise in used vehicle classifieds can ever compete against dealer websites or eBay listings…

Midas Touch

Stagecoach is a past master at innovating and turning muck to brass and then to gold. Today’s launch of Stagecoach’s fifth Gold route features 13 brand new Scania/Enviro 400s for the impressively long Cross County X4 service, between Northampton & Peterborough (where you can head for the coast at Lowestoft on the X1). It will be no surprise to learn that the buses and the route are given the Gold treatment—free wi-fi, leather seats, and all the usual accouterments.

What passengers may find surprising is the Stagecoach claims that there will be “specifically-trained uniformed drivers”.

Now, I think Gold is an excellent concept. It takes routes that have shown considerable ridership increases in the recent past (muck to brass) and gives them even more of a profile, even more of a lift, to squeeze out even more growth that might not otherwise materialise with an “ordinary” change in vehicles (brass to gold).

But like First’s attempt at Gold, I struggle with “specially-trained uniformed drivers”. Is that something passenger might envisage on every route? They don’t always get them, of course, but the expectation’s there.

This implies a specific driver roster. Here’s something else with which I sometimes have difficulty. Drivers who are singled out for their customer care and or driving ability gravitate to a special roster rather than finding their way throughout the entire spread of duties. That’s great for the specific route but what does it do for the rest of the network?

i Pictures at Andy’s Bus Blog

The Omnibuses Guide to…

… major contract changes.

The report may be nearly 100 pages long but there’s a lot of repetition within and the final Dorset investigation document into the school bus problems this September also includes the compete contract specification which, for those unfamiliar with LTA tendering, may be of interest. The uninitiated will find some of the obligations quite onerous and interesting.

i The final Dorset council report is here

The report talks of things like Dorset call centre staff going home mid-way through their shifts owing to stress related problems and others not coming in the following day. This, I suspect, is more to do with parental attitudes and the way complainants conducted themselves. Over the years, I have come to know first-hand how angry passengers can be. There’s a growing and disturbing increase in complainants becoming less and less civil. The culture has changed. The same must apply to parents in these situations. No matter how upset passengers are, there should be no room for taking it out on people. Supermarket prices seem temporarily on the slide but even in the inflationary 1970s, you never heard anyone taking price hikes out on the checkout staff.

The report also highlights that it wasn’t just the price of a concessionary seat that caused parents problems but the reduction in availability. Where had parents been? This was given a good airing in the press well before the contract change. This should not have caused a surprise during the last week of August and first in September.

In the report, neither Dorset nor Damory comes out particularly satisfactorily. But the report does highlight what went well. Those affected must take comfort in that.

In the end, though, the Dorset 2011 school transport problems boiled down to just two things:

1. Ask any set of workers to cite the no. 1 problem or issue they face in doing their jobs and, without fail, they will say “communications”. This no matter the time and effort put in to try to communicate properly in a well-managed way. And so it was between Damory and Dorset. Damory did not keep Dorset fully informed of impending problems. It’s easy to have some sympathy with this view: to do otherwise is a sign of weakness and there seemed a genuineness on Damory’s part that they were on the brink of sorting matters out. Perhaps had they had more time…
   


2. The period of time between award and mobilisation, in hindsight, was too short. Looking at it on the ground rather than from the Council offices, Damory actually did well under the circumstances but there were gaps as TUPE didn’t always work and premises weren’t always ready. This in spite of the length of time it took to get to the award stage.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But others who intend to change things as significantly—and I am sure there will be others—now need to have the foresight to ensure that they take both these points on board so that neither operator nor council falls into the same trap.

I’d say that both Damory & Dorset rose to the challenges they faced and, in context, most contracts to most schools went well. Following the report, it’s now time to draw a lined, leave Damory alone and allow them to get on with things.

Face Saving?

Email exchanges between bus operators on its home turf gives the Tyne & Wear integrated transport authority an opportunity today to debate what its response should be.

Though the Competition Commission has noted some rather unpleasant anti-competitive practices between operators in the north east, the CC isn’t changing its draft recommendations, many of which are voluntary and none of which calls for the remedy of compulsory quality contracts.

Here, though, the ITA departs from the CC’s view. The ITA is looking to introduce franchising to replace what the ITA feels is a failing system. The local media have seized upon this as a very black and white affair.

If the 21 comments on the press report are typical of the Newcastle city region as a whole (and this represents 0.0018 per cent of its population) then the public wants change. They see unco-ordinated services, barriers to travel, lack of fares inter-availability and sloppy operations as widespread.

Now, I don’t know Tyne & Wear at all well but I do not believe operators are regularly dropping mileage or their drivers acting with careless abandon. You, dear reader, may know otherwise but my guess is that there will be day-to-day operational problems, of course there are, but that these will not be solved simply by a QC. Much scorn seems to be poured on Go North East, an operator that has actually done well in recent years to promote bus services in a positive light. It remains in the best interests of operators to ensure smartly turned out, well trained & informed drivers run on frequent routes with vehicles that match passenger expectations.

You might expect a certain response to a web-based newspaper article. For a more balanced view, we should turn to Passenger Focus. Flaws in PF’s approach there may be but it’s the only independently-produced research that is readily available. Passenger Focus found in the north east that 82 per cent of respondents were satisfied with their bus trip. Here was the best regional result at the time of the 2010 survey. It’s hard to see whether London-style franchising would produce any higher results.

That said, Nexus apparently pumps in £44mil in free travel funding. This is no insignificant sum and even though this considerable free travel element isn’t really a direct subsidy, it’s still public money. Then there’s £15mil BSOG (at today’s rate, of course. Wait till April when, at the least, we might expect fares increases). What does Nexus get for public funding? What influence does it have? Very little, it would argue. Is this right? Indeed, the ITA points to continued falls in patronage and a lack of stability. These issues should be of equal concern to both operators and passengers.

This is a very difficult circle to square. Battle lines will be drawn. QCs come at a price (or so we’re led to believe). Perhaps the compromise face saver on all sides will be a QBP rather than a QC. Perhaps the only way to drive such a move is by threatening QCs. Because what the ITA report is actually considering alongside franchising is giving Nexus PTE powers to develop a “meaningful” quality partnership between Nexus, councils and operators to achieve exactly the same aims. This is something different altogether to QCs and something that all parties can surely get behind. But it isn’t quite so newsworthy.

i Local newspaper report

Blue Buses Return to Birmingham

I always thought that the Central Connect brand had much potential, especially given the disparate operations the name eventually replaced. Even though the name was based on location (in the West Midlands), it seemed to imply all you expect from a bus operator: a means of connecting people to central places.

The one problem with Central Connect was that its largely white buses seemed to lack profile, especially against the white of dominant National Express West Midlands. And, of course, post-Go West Midlands, Central Connect offered a fairly incongruent network and this didn’t help the idea of “Connect”.

An original Diamond Bus brand

Parent Rotala has decided to rebrand Central Connect by adopting a new version of its Diamond brands: Blue Diamond. This will actually mark a return to blue buses in the West Midlands (albeit lighter than traditionally) in the same way as Rotala did in Worcestershire. This, no doubt, is intended to give Central Connect more of a presence in the West Midlands in the same way as Red and Black Diamond has. Once the transformation is complete, it would be nice to think that there could be a little brand stability. I can’t recall all the Rotala and pre-Rotala West Midlands incarnations but they seem to have been numerous: Pete’s Travel, People’s Express, the original Diamond Bus, Zak’s and North Birmingham Bus.

Perceptions

As we look forward to Hampshire’s very own BRT; as plans for BRT in Birmingham progress; and as the Luton-Dunstable BRT gets under build, we must ponder why BRT has such a bad press in the public’s eyes… and what we can do.

• BRT—it’s just buses, innit. If it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck… Buses simply aren’t sexy enough to woo beleaguered motorists, or so the public believes. In spite of the ride qualities of dedicated bus infrastructure, buses are still perceived to throw you about.


• Buses aren’t permanent so why should BRT be? Stick buses on a busway and you can still cut frequencies and mess around with the terminal points off the line of route. After all, that’s the kind of trick that bus operators play day-in-day-out. Or substitute poorer specified vehicles as they do in York and Swansea during the evenings and at weekends.
  Trams are more solid. Unlike a bus service, trams won’t change. They’re permanent.


• BRT is unfocused. It features guideways such as in Cambridge and bus-only roads such as will be the case in Hampshire. But the term BRT also encompasses the FTR Metro projects in York and Leeds. In York, especially, the twists and turns of a “trambus” on ordinary roads plus an historic city centre have resulted in quite some local criticism. It least Swansea’s has central area infrastructure in place.


• After the considerable public expense of building the things, there’s a popular view that bus operators will simply come along and operate at vast profits, on the back of a public hand-out. True, operators commit to new stock but they’d have to do that anyway, at some point, under the process of normal asset renewal.


• Bus operators are perceived poorly, locally. Readers of this blog will be able to list those operators who have a good perception in the industry but, hand on heart, do they always have an equal reputation on the eyes of the public? What local operator can say that they are perceived by their passengers as well?

It’s true that the public hanker after a tram-based system. This is in spite of trams costing 10 times as much. So, what might help ease BRT into the public’s minds?

• BRT is cheap compared to LRT—tram is about 10 times the expense.


• BRT can be built quickly (though seemingly not in Cambridgeshire!)


• Planners need to lay aside any thought that tram delivers more. It doesn’t. Indeed, the bus is the more flexible off the “track” whereas a tram can’t get off the track!


• BRT operation is subject to some sort of partnership agreement. Trams, though, are operated on the public’s behalf. Might there be some sort of profit sharing arrangement between BRT operator and infrastructure funder? That way, local people might see some sort of return on capital invested. Just a thought…

Give us a Clue

Tomorrow at noon, the Saturday repeat of BBC Radio 4’s classic comedy panel game I’m Sorry I haven’t a Clue is aired. I heard it on its first broadcast on Monday night, of course I did, but others also have till next Monday to catch up on the BBC iPlayer. This episode was recorded in Guildford. Among the usual chairman’s remarks on the host town was this parody of an old bus joke:

“A famous company operating here for many years was Dennis Bros, who built double decker buses. The brothers died in nineteen hundred and thirty nine, within days of each other. Isn’t that always the way with bus manufactures?”

Cuts & Bruises

Few of the dozen or so online comments about last week’s Nottingham City Transport incident have much sympathy for the victim.

This was an event where a driver had to brake sharply to avoid a crash. In the process, a seven year old fell from her inward facing seat that was in the wheelchair area. Mother landed on top of her. The youngster sustained quite a deep cut.

Sympathy or not, this does raise an issue about the tip-up seats towards the front of modern buses, the ones that seat you at 90 ° to the direction of travel. The mother of the injured party is demanding seat belts be fitted to them.

These days, it’s perfectly possible to order a service bus with seat belts. This tends to be at the behest of a local education authority. Buses so fitted never have belts on the inward facing seats. Why? Two reasons:

• The seats tip-up and the dynamics of a sudden stop may cause them to do so, on the rebound, with a belted passenger.


• It is neither practical nor especially safe to fit belts to such seats. The body twist and recoil that may result in the event of an impact would render the belts ineffective or worse.

Of course, service buses that permit standing passengers are exempt from the requirement for seat belts. It would seem unreasonable to fit belts in situations where people are obviously less protected and more vulnerable when standing. Indeed, people can and do choose to stand. Some prefer to remain at the front (causing an obstruction, but that’s another thing) rather than moving to the last empty seat at the rear where, sometimes, they feel uncomfortable.

Another valid argument is that seat belts get in the way of the continual churn of passengers. They slow things down. Buses tend to operate at speeds far lower than coaches and obverse more stops. Unless, of course, they operate on an inter-urban service where, on single carriageway roads, buses can even exceed the permitted 50 mph.

But what about inward facing seats? Longitudinal seats have been with us for some years. Witness the Bristol VR, the Bristol RE and the Leyland National.

This situation reminds me of a post back in September 2010. Note the retro-fitted seat belt!

NCT’s reaction to such seating was interesting. They stated, The seats

“are not the primary seating area downstairs. Most seats face forward, so passengers generally have a choice of which seat they use.”

Was NCT trying to say that such seats should not normally be used when there are others available? What about parents who wish to sit with their buggied offspring? Or the person who can struggle no further than the first such seat? Or the children who actually like to sit in this particular area?

If these seats really do pose a problem and if you can’t fit them with seat belts, what’s the point in having them? None at all till you recognise that this would force between three and five people per bus to stand, at busy periods. And, as stated, standing offers greater risks. And would people actually use the belts if fitted?

Oh and on this journey there were apparently already standing passengers, who were already more vulnerable. When I was seven, my mother used to make me give up my seat for an adult passenger. But I admit that that was in the day of the five cylinder Gardner with an acceleration of 0 to 35 ee-vent-u-ally.

i The original press report

A Stroke of Genius?

In old news, the new bus for London’s likely to star alongside Daniel Craig in the forthcoming Bond movie, Skyfall. Money’s no object, so no doubt one of the celebrities will blown up in some part-CGI-part-real stunt or other. My guess it’ll be the bus, not Craig. And to think there are still so many old Routemasters they could have used instead à la Clarkson : ) Only joking.

Well I remember seeing that masterstroke on the Ipcress File when Michael Caine breaks out of what he and everyone else believes is an Albanian prison. Over the wall he goes and the first thing he sees is a (proper) Routemaster. Unforgettable. We none of us saw that coming. I can still remember the music. Who needs films like Inception and The Matrix when you can have Caine. And no one blew the RM to smithereens. This was in 1965 when the design was but 10 years old.

The withdrawal of the previous RM’s left something of a vacuum in terms of an instantly recognisable symbol of the capital. To some extent, it was replaced by the London Eye. Newer video productions still seem to feature the red bus, though, even if it’s for the colour rather than the design. The first episode of the new Doctor Who series (with Christopher “Every planet has a North” Eccleston) showed an introductory scene featuring nothing less than red Citaro articulated buses. I have the box set, of course I have, and that was in 2005, in a very different world. By the end of this year, such a sight will be as rare in London as an original RM bus. Never mind, though. The first Wrightbus prototype will be there to create some interest.

London eye-cons

The NB4L might be oddly symbolic of London but it still hasn’t the cachet of the RM. From the front, it looks as if the poor thing’s had a stroke. It’s only when you view it on the side (and rear), though, that the bus seems that little bit special.

At its inception, there was talk of NBfL conquering the world in terms of exports to the Provinces and worldwide (to the colonies, commonwealth, Europe and anywhere else for that matter). The Borismaster might yet be redesigned for such applications, I suppose, but the very feature (apart from all over red) on the offside that makes the bus stand out in London is the same thing that will make it unsellable elsewhere: that stepped glazing that runs the length of the lower to the upper deck front windows via the stairwell. It’s novel but try applying a modern provincial Stenning livery to that. Now we know why London buses are red: it makes life simple even for the most complicated of designs.

Bonanza

This week sees quite a mini-bonanza in top jobs. And interesting ones, too. Passenger Transport advertises three directorships; Coach & Bus Week three managers and one directorship; and Route One, two managers and a directorship.

As you might expect, there’s an element of crossover. One of the directorships appears in all three journals and two of the manager vacancies in both the weeklies. Some posts appeared in previous weeklies.

It’s interesting that the first thing you read with First’s vacancy for a service delivery director (Wales & West) is the words “Can you handle a challenge?” Is First suggesting that running out a large PVR from any number of garages across Wales and the West can be inherently demanding & tricky? Or do they mean what I think they do in that the job is both interesting & exciting?

Advice to applicants: First has a long way to go but it’s rising and it should be a different organisation well within the next 12 months.

By far the best of the jobs is the advert for managing director, Go North East. This is a real opportunity for someone to follow in Peter Huntley’s steps. No matter which way you look at it, Huntley’s built on the work of previous incumbents to deliver more than a half decent level of business growth.

Here’s a rare job where you can expect to have genuine & considerable autonomy and one, too, where you can anticipate using your creative skills to the fullest. There are still positions left in the bus industry where you can demonstrate flair but there are few that allow you to express yourself to such a degree as this. A true rare opportunity.

Advice to applicants: be careful with emails to neighbouring operators, allegedly.

And then there’s the business director at Transdev Blazefield in York. This rolls up operational and commercial positions into one and is with another operator with an enviable reputation. There’s talk within the advert of being pivotal in developing the “next stage” of the York business.

Advice to applicants: watch out for the word “Veolia” in the advertisement (proving that Veolia isn’t quite as dead as we first thought).

There’s also a job for an engineering director floating around, with another organisation that’s doing well, Nottingham City Transport. There was also a traffic manager & director joint job at Halton for which membership of the CILT was required, now a very rare ask.

Eclipsing the Car

The BRT naysayers are back. On the cusp of pre-launch material for the Gosport-Fareham busway, the BRT detractors can’t help themselves with their predictions of doom about the A32 congestion-busting initiative.

Fine if you want to go from Gosport to Fareham but useless if you want to go anywhere else, they say. But, isn’t that the point? A quick bus service twixt two adjacent towns, serving a local population to the busway of over 100,000? On a corridor that’s incredibly busy between the two, where the gravity model would such demand is strong?

And demand certainly is, by car and by bus. First already offers a 10-minute service between the two, a level broadly unchanged since the 1950s and certainly since the 1970s. Not forgetting, of course, that the service will link Fareham rail station and Gosport Ferry. If you’ve ever been to Gosport Ferry at peak times, you’ll know that passengers flood off the buses to boat across to Portsmouth in significant numbers. Bus-ferry-bus is more attractive to many Gosport residents than any other way of getting to Portsmouth.

The south Hampshire busway has more in common with Runcorn that it does Cambridge. No guide wheels and car traps in Gosport, it seems. Just a dedicated road that could, conceivably, turn itself into any old route for any vehicle. Except it’s reserved for buses (and cycles) (and it has a nasty low bridge that would prevent heavies using it). To me, that it can also be used by emergency vehicles speaks volumes for the time it will save.

This is an interesting impression of an Eclipse vehicle...
Hampshire council has published details of the livery and “feel” of each of the dedicated buses on the service. This will be no tertiary brand. Eclipse will be strong & dominant on the outside and pleasant & comfortable on the inside.

I rather liked Hampshire’s transport supremo’s comment that “it was important the buses had a clear identity to get people to use them”. How true of Eclipse but also how true of any bus service (yet, sometimes, the industry fails to recognise this).

Cynics also say that jams will continue along “one of south Hampshire’s most congested roads”. And so they probably will but watch Eclipse build and build as, for the first time, the bus it provides a real alternative for locals who day-in-day-out struggle with the misery of the A32.

Another oft-quoted “problem” with the busway is that it’s direct, by-passing housing. Well, honestly. You can’t have it both ways. One reason why motorists continually ignore buses is because they see them as indirect. So what does Hampshire do? Provide a direct service… only to be criticised for it. The truth is that the busway will act more like a tram than a bus and it will attract passengers who are prepared to walk a little further than an average passenger in exchange for the benefits they will accrue downstream.

And there remain those who would rather see investment in a new road, either on the busway alignment or by widening the A32. Both these solutions immediately fall down when you consider what happens when traffic hits the outskirts of both Gosport & Fareham, where traffic inevitably has to start queuing again.

Normal Service is Resumed

Many thanks for all the significant numbers of emails advising me that Blogger seems to have thrown a wobble. Am grateful for them all. It’s like when the electricity goes out: everyone thinks that someone will have phoned and it ends up that nobody does. It’s better to let me know.

May I assure everyone that the blog is not down, just somehow got its knickers in a twist. Neither will it be on subscription.

Rather sensibly, I think, I have held over the Monday blogpost till tomorrow.

Busing. 14/11/11 at 2040

11/11/11

On 11th November 2009, we reported live via a series of blogposts on an epic journey around Birmingham’s Outer Circular service 11. By using the Elevenbus website, there’s a brief synopsis of the journey where, if you chose, you can pick the Omnibuses 11 post or posts that are most appealing to you. Those posts are among my favourites on Omnibuses.

Foot Shooting

Be guarded what you say in emails! They’re a matter of record though they never seem to feel like it. Although the Competition Commission is unlikely to change its recommendations, the revelation following recent discoveries of emails between operators in the north east (and elsewhere) suddenly gives the £25mil investigation into the local bus market the edge it never had.

Rather late in the day, here is the evidence that the CC wanted all along: frank emails that appear to carve up and protect territories. “We told you so” seems to be ringing clearly out of Southampton Row.

It’s all about territory, retaining it and preserving it. You come on to my turf and we’ll not just tread but stamp on your toes back home. Such messages are anti-competitive. But might they be practical? The reason I ask is that few bus networks can sustain prolonged competition. It’s self-defeating. Operators know this and that’s why there are few Big Five incursions.

And that’s why there’s still the concept of “territory”. It’s been with us a long time. Pre-1931, operators fought long and hard to establish themselves. They were suspicious of their neighbours and would try to out flank each other and manœuvre themselves into advantage or by using blocking tactics.

Along came railway interests in the late 1920s, 55 years-worth of regulation from 1931 and nationalisation. Little wonder that territory’s embedded in our culture. Some of these territories are shrinking around the unprofitable margins but that doesn’t mean higher prized core markets can sustain competition.

Today’s fortnightly Passenger Transport magazine devotes six pages plus its front page to competition issues and the analysis makes interesting reading. Passenger Transport also implies that industry managers all know each other well and that this marks out the bus industry as different to other retail sectors. It’s certainly true that directors & managers will know each other, often well. It’s the nature of the beast. Let’s face it, many have more than a passing interest in the industry and we all revel in vibrant industry news & speculation about each other; we all like to know about and comment on what’s going on down the road. Why else would there be such a saturated, even overtraded, industry newsprint market?

Passenger Transport also makes mention of the strong language contained in emails between competitors. Busmen are nothing other than earthy people and always have been. Until recently, they’ve often been passionate people who’ve risen from the ground floor. They retain that grittiness and an unpretentious approach to life; that sleeves-rolled-up-can-do attitude that’s served us well for generations. Until email came along, spoiled it all and exposed the under-belly of the industry.

Inter-urban Survival?

This is a guest post by regular reader & commenter Daddysgadgets. Omnibuses welcomes contributions

We have recently noted, some may say celebrated, the 25th anniversary of the deregulation of local bus services. So, out of all this, how has the passenger faired? In particular, what of the lot of the inter-urban passenger? Recent attempts to rationalise my increasingly unwieldy collection of transport ephemera happened to throw together some timetables that show how things have developed over the last 55 or so years on five routes radiating from Swindon. A route from being part of a large, private grouping, through state control, privatisation as a small company and then part of a large, private grouping again.

The July 1947 Bristol Tramways timetable shows:
Swindon /Cheltenham - 13 journeys weekdays, 4 Sundays
Swindon /Chippenham – 4 journeys weekdays, 2 Sundays
Swindon / Devizes – 3/4 journeys M-F, 4 Sats, 3 Sundays
Swindon/Marlborough - 15 journeys weekdays, 8 Sundays
Swindon /Oxford – No route in operation

The early years after World War II gave little opportunity for private motoring, but bus companies were equally short of vehicles and could not expand quickly. However, by our next snapshot bus usage is already declining. Despite that service provision has held.

The July 1960 Bristol Omnibus Company timetable shows:
Swindon /Cheltenham - 12/13 journeys weekdays, 8 Sundays
Swindon /Chippenham – 7 journeys weekdays, 3 Sundays
Swindon / Devizes – 3 journeys M-F, 4 Sats, 2 Sundays
Swindon/Marlborough - 16 journeys weekdays, 9 Sundays
Swindon /Oxford – 7 journeys weekdays, 4 Sundays

By 1985 NBC’s Market Analysis Project, initially an internal exercise at Midland Red, had spread itself across the country. Many established networks disappeared, or changed unrecognisably, with longstanding routings cut.

The December 1985 Swindon & District timetable shows:
Swindon /Cheltenham - 7 journeys weekdays, none Sundays
Swindon /Chippenham – 9 journeys M-F, 11 Sats, none Sundays
Swindon / Devizes – 1 journey Thursday and Saturdays only
Swindon/Marlborough – 13 journeys weekdays, none Sundays
Swindon /Oxford – 6 journeys weekdays, none Sundays

Swindon & District was split from Bristol Omnibus in 1983 to be part of the Cheltenham & Gloucester Omnibus Company. This became part of privatised Western Travel in 1986 and then, in 1993, part of Stagecoach West.

The November 2011 Stagecoach timetable shows:
Swindon /Cheltenham - 11 journeys M-F, 9 Sats, none Sundays
Swindon /Chippenham – 45 journeys M-F, 44 Sats, 21 Sundays
Swindon / Devizes – 15 journeys M-F, 14 Sats, 10 Sundays
Swindon/Marlborough – 16 journeys M-F, 15 Sats, 4 Sundays
Swindon /Oxford – 27 journeys M-F, 26 Sats, 9 Sundays

So what has caused the dramatic expansion or services, particularly on Sundays? There have been a number of initiatives by Wiltshire Council and Stagecoach to provide cross-county services, particularly on the Devizes route which continues on to Trowbridge. However, the services would not operate at the levels now provided if the passengers weren’t there. Someone somewhere seems to be doing something right.

Further to yesterday’s post, the correct pronunciation of Damory is Dammory (sic). Dam (as in a barrier to water). More (as in a W&D bus). Ee (as in ee by gum). Dam. more. ee. Equal stress or emphasis on each syllable. I suppose that the best indicative spelling for this pronunciation might be Dammory with two Ms, as Damory (one M) implies Dame, not Damm. The link to a Dorset Life article as posted yesterday by Stephen is interesting if you like this sort of thing.

Dawn Raid

A fear of a knock on the door from and a dawn raid by the OFT will usually guard against operators making inappropriate contact with competitors. Indeed, operators will usually be guarded when they need to speak to neighbours, even going to the lengths of securing such meetings with PTEs or local transport authorities present. It can be very dangerous territory indeed and there are stories where people have come a cropper. Some of these accounts are no doubt urban myths but others are not.

Far from angelic activity in the north east? Or pragmatic solutions cleared at the time with the OFT?
There appears to be little to show after the Competition Commission’s millions spent on a market assessment of the bus industry. But some things are interesting in themselves, such as the Commission’s recently published evidence of geographic market segregation in the north east.

The Competition Commission alleges that in spite of a patina of competition, both Arriva and Go North East colluded locally with each other in secret. The commission points to 70 emails, phone calls and meetings and if nothing else, it serves as a warning that emails may seem ephemeral & informal but are in fact matters of record that cannot easily be “lost” like papers in a file.

Though Go Ahead has denied it, this episode may be behind the departure of Go North East’s managing director.

The agreements resulted in route swaps, reduced competition and the integrity of each other’s patches. Yet, at the back of my mind, I seem to recall both operators cleared this at the time with the OFT (unless you know differently. Was this so?).

I have to say that no matter what the Competition Commission may like to think, the idea of “turfs” or “patches” is actually strongly inbred within the culture of the bus industry. We’ve had deregulation for 25 years and the market defends that position in public while fearing toe-treading in private. Does this stem from territories established over the last 100 years? Or the protections previously granted under road service licences? There’s an obvious fear of what might happen should an operator stray onto an area considered its own, and for good reason. The incumbent has much more to lose than the interloper but ultimately few markets can warrant sustained competition before weakening both parties. Such notions may drive the status quo.

Perfect Storm

I’ve heard it pronounced several ways by those who don’t know: Dame-ory is the most popular mispronunciation but there’s also Damm-*ore*-ee, with emphasis as in Bally*mor*e. My maternal grandparents were from Blandford Forum but in spite of the family link, I’ve never fathomed exactly why the word Damory is so popular in the town. No one else seems to know either. Suffice to say that there are several local landmarks bearing the name. The best I can do is that it comes from Damory Down, also a district council ward name. There’s no record of it being a family name.

That name is now synonymous with transport in rural Dorset. Since July, Damory (Coaches) has respectively 88 and 93 per cent of the school and public transport networks. And it’s been a rocky road for the Wilts & Dorset/Go South Coast subsidiary, especially regarding school transport. So rough, in fact, that the transition’s under considerable scrutiny by Dorset councillors.

And the start of this process made it to two full pages in the current routeOne magazine, not to mention the front cover. They say that all publicity is good publicity. Whether that’s true will depend on the process as it evolves.

I don’t recognise everything I read in R1. There were few real problems as regards the local bus network. The again, the council scrutiny focuses on school bus failings, some very well publicised locally. 90 per cent of the network nevertheless ran OK. What Damory didn’t correct in the first week it righted in the second. It also has to be said that in rural areas, with a high reliance on school transport, weeks one & two in September are always difficult, without the added upheaval of a major contract overhaul. Much—most, in fact—went well. Damory might just be a victim of circumstance. Go South Coast’s current managing director has nevertheless very publicly apologised for the difficulties but not everything can be held at Damory’s door, like:

• The 60 per cent increase in the cost of a concessionary pass (where those not entitled to free transport can buy a seat)


• A reduction by half in the number of seats available.

Both of these are surely good things in helping to rebalance parental contributions versus the taxpayers’. Since even £400 p.a. won’t cover the commercial cost of a school bus seat, reducing seats (and PVR) can only lead to efficiencies. Carrying a high proportion of seats where income is below cost cannot be good. It was right for councillors to make such changes. It wasn’t so popular, of course, with parents when they actually wanted to buy.

Dorset council is also to be applauded in placing a high reliance on quality. The evaluation process was always quoted as 60 per cent quality, 40 per cent price and this must surely give Dorset one of the highest quality percentages in England. This is a huge swing in favour of quality. This resulted in Damory doing well, at the expense of many a local operator, where quality is usually viewed locally as high, and at the expense of First.

Considering those independents and the change automatically placed Damory on the back foot as it needed to exceed the performance of smaller local operators locally perceived as good. Detractors might feel that Damory’s quality wasn’t always so good, but they need to look beyond the vehicles—some decent, others older—and concentrate on management, supervision & delivery, all of which are solid and all of which are improving. We’d be surprised if Damory is unreliable.

And, finally, there’s the issue of the relatively short contract lead-in period. No doubt Damory made promises from May 2011 to July (local bus) and September (schools) but, given that the “constructive dialogue” tender process was unusually long indeed, perhaps both sides needed to concede that less than four months was inadequate for delivery. Should Damory have foreseen that independents would not wish to TUPE drivers? Damory actually did well in drafting the necessary staff from elsewhere.

And then there were local customs & practices of which Damory were unaware, let along Dorset transport staff. At contract changeover, these googlies always seem to catch people out. In September in Dorset, this was somewhat magnified.

In coming to a view, Dorset’s scrutiny process should also highlight some of the good things that have transpired and are rarely mentioned:

• Command & control is good, with a single contractor as the point of contact. In the long term, this will reduce the burden on transport staff and schools.


• There were savings as a result of this process.


• The tender process was an innovative one.

What are the lessons learnt?

• Perhaps make significant change at October, January or even Easter, well away from the chaos that is always September in a large rural area.


• More time to prepare on all sides.


• Be wary of any change in such a politically-charged environment such as school transport. It seems to me that school transport ticks over when it works well but make significant change and you create a perfect storm.

Slammed in Her Face

As if it isn’t difficult enough being a bus driver, these days. The occupation is (obviously) unsupervised and drivers can therefore find themselves in positions where they are wrongly accused.

On Friday, a Gloucestershire newspaper ran a story of a one-woman protest that involved a disgruntled passenger standing in front of a Stagecoach Gold bus. She’d been refused access. Neither side would relent. This, apparently, blocked up the whole of Cheltenham’s famous & exclusive Promenade. Eventually, after “several minutes”, the driver did give in. The passenger had an “important hospital appointment” to attend (to the journalist involved, whenever was a hospital appointment other than important?).

The woman immediately ran to the local newspaper. I don’t know why the newspaper’s first sentence started with the words, “A single mother...” Was this designed to engender sympathy for her?

Miss F stated that she was on time for her bus. “But I just asked the driver if I could check the clock in the bus shelter”. She stepped off and the driver closed the doors on her and drove off. Or tried to.

Hmmm. Something doesn’t jell. If Miss F was on time, as she stated, she must’ve known the time without stepping off the bus. Didn’t the driver have a watch? Or the ticket machine a clock? Or her mobile phone with which she captured an image of the driver? Newspaper readers nevertheless would’ve jumped to conclusions. Nasty driver. Nasty bus company. Not for the first time. Or the second, an even worse case.

Whatever pity readers had for Miss F will have quickly evaporated by the publication yesterday of the truth behind the story. If anyone doubts the value of CCTV, they should think again.

From a Stagecoach comment, it appears Miss F did not ask the driver to wait for her while she went back to the shelter to check the time, as claimed. Then, she did not show her intention to board the bus, and even turned away so it appeared to the driver that she did not wish to board. If Miss F actually wanted to catch the bus, doesn’t this show a disregard for the driver and, particularly, the other passengers on board?

It seems the driver had to make a judgement. Miss F had left the bus and seemed disinterested in it. Once he had left the stop and the bus was already moving, it seems that only then did Miss F ran to try to catch the bus. It was presumably at this point that she ran a little further to block its progress.

It’s never been either popular or clear to passengers but driver are (or should be) instructed to ignore passengers once the bus is in motion. This in spite of banging on doors, shouting, dirty looks or whatever. It’s a basic tenet of bus operation. The trouble here is that, on occasion, some drivers yield and this means passengers expect such treatment in such circumstances at all times.

Miss F missed her hospital appointment. With a 10-minute service on Stagecoach Gold’s 94, though, and the fact that only after “several minutes” the driver conceded, you have to wonder whether she’d cut things a bit fine in the first place.

Fair play to the newspaper for straightening things out.

i Original Friday article
i Rebuttal

There’s an accompanying case study regarding out-of-town developments on today’s the Dorset Bus Blog

Get Out of Town

We’ve created a monster. Humans have lived in Britain, in Torquay as it happens, for over 44,000 years (if you believe the news this week). Some might say that the average age in Torquay *is* 44,000 ; ) but not me.

No matter how nice the climate is in Torquay, humans soon spread east, west and north. But it’s only in the last 55 years that humans have been able to spread rather more quickly, when we fell head over heels for the motor car.

After the Second World War, the only activity in our urban streets was children playing out. But then something happened. From the mid-1950s, suddenly the number of parked cars became noticeable. I mean very noticeable. No longer would people stop and stare. Mass car ownership was becoming a reality. One consequence was a gradual reduction in the number of bus passenger journeys, from 1953 onwards.

Another consequence was our ability, at last, to divorce where we live from where we work. We had choice beyond a walk, a cycle or a bus ride. The motor car suddenly broadened our horizons. No bad thing, in itself. But cars were still relatively expensive and would either rust away or the big end would go at 50-60,000 miles or there’d be some other major problem. At first, their impact was modest.

Cars got more & more reliable and could cope with longer distances & higher speeds. We began building fast roads to accommodate them (and none more so than in Dorset & Hampshire). Cars became more comfortable. Out went car blankets the day we had mass-market cars with rudimentary heaters. Now, of course, we have air-con.

Just as we were beginning to travel further for work, we suddenly discovered we no longer needed to travel to town centres to shop. Woolco outside Bournemouth at the Hampshire Centre was one of the first off-centre retail superstores, in 1968.

Ten years later and we had begun to see a revolution in out-of-town retailing, with huge edge of town retail parks. Nowadays, it’s difficult to find town centre shops selling food, DIY or electrical goods, for example. They’re all relocated.

What effect does this have on bus use? It’s a market that’s largely impossible to serve. Whereas traditional bus networks radiate outwards from a town centre, this cannot happen with an out-of-town development. Anyone within easy walking distance of a bus route has access to their local town centre. There’s no way that can happen for other locations, without changing buses, something that brings both a time and a fares penalty.

Over the years of this blog, there’ve been a number of comments that suggest that bus operators will not serve this market. They simply ignore it.

Let’s put this into perspective. Bus operators will never ignore a market. There are countless examples where bus routes have bent, diverted or extended to serve a supermarket or retail complex. This is probably true in every medium or large town. But, what an operator cannot economically do is operate from many locations to out-of-town sites. Not only are there retail parks but business parks, industrial estates, hospitals and much else besides, all now in scattered locations. Buses operate on the Many to Few principle and not Many to Many.

To blame buses for not exploiting these newer markets is as unfair as it is absurd. The problem for operators here has been England’s planning system that, rightly or wrongly, has since the mid-1970s allowed an explosion of off-centre sites, on the back of increased car-based mobility. By bus, it’s incredibly difficult to link everywhere with everywhere. Off-centre facilities were created for cars and no one gave any thought to public transport.

But it’s the bus operator that gets the blame, in the public’s eye. There’s an expectation but it cannot easily or readily be filled.

Mind you, bus operators could help themselves by offering cheaper through tickets (or any through ticket that’s cheaper than a day ticket). And group tickets, too. I rather like the way Southern Vectis very publicly promotes it’s A to B to C fares where “you only pay once”.

We’ve allowed ourselves to become dominated by out-of-town shopping. May be we had no choice, because town centres cannot easily expand. Those fortunate to own cars can benefit from the greater choice and convenience these retail parks offer and that’s great. But the car-less minority suffer again, because they cannot partake of this retail luxury. And it affects town centres that increasingly house nothing other than pound shops, charity shops, card shops and building societies. A self-fulfilling spiral.

Perhaps no one is to blame for this phenomenon. It is, after all, what we all want. We vote with our feet (on the accelerator pedals of our cars). But to blame the bus service is illogical.

There’s an accompanying case study regarding out-of-town developments on today’s the Dorset Bus Blog

Defining an Enthusiasm

This is a guest post by Country Bus. Omnibuses welcomes contributions

Someone asked recently in these hallowed columns ‘what is an enthusiast’? Not an easy question to answer as bus enthusiasts come in many guises and are not that easily defined.

He (or she) may be a transport enthusiast whose interests range beyond rubber tyres to steel wheels, be they trams, trains, or even tram-trains. It has even been known for some to profess an interest in exotica such as airliners, ferries, ocean liners, canals and paddle steamers.

Returning to buses, an enthusiast may be interested in vehicles, or fleet numbers, registration numbers, body styles, seating capacities, chassis numbers, engine numbers. Or route numbers, fare stages, timetables, schedules, passenger loadings.

Busy buses, quiet buses, urban buses, rural buses. Commercial routes, subsidised routes, dial-a-ride, community transport.

Some of us work in the industry, have worked in the industry or hope one day to do so. Some have no such ambition and are content to observe and report.

And we share that knowledge with our compatriots through societies, associations, meetings and magazines. Apart from national bodies like the Omnibus Society (for routes) and the PSV Circle (for vehicles) how many local associations and clubs are there around the country?

Publications: here we have four regularly bus magazines catering for our interest. Pity then our colleagues across the Channel in France with only two national societies numbering less than a couple of hundred members each, who publish society bulletins four or five times a year (but they are good to read and very welcome).

The enthusiast may carry pencil and notebook, camera, timetable, lunch box. Some take pleasure from driving a bus, be it preserved at a rally or in daily public service.

I spent many a pleasant hour pursuing the latter course, and in recent years with the luxury of pure enjoyment that can only come from being an occasional weekend driver, not reliant on the wage.

But one thing is sure through the pursuance of our hobby and interest many enthusiasts will know as much as, or even more, than those who own and run the buses!

Well despite having written these words I haven’t really answered the question that I posed above. It is unanswerable I suggest, because it means something specific, special and individual to each one of us. Long may it be so.

i Countrybus, a website highly recommended by Omnibuses