This is a guest post by Oneman. Omnibuses welcomes contributions
Premiere Travel of Nottingham has gained something of a reputation across the industry, particularly for their “attacks” on Trent Barton services. We’ve seen Red1, 2, 4, 5 and 8 all competing with “the really good bus company”, with varying results. Despite Trent Barton’s best efforts, Red 1 and Red 5 seem to do pretty well (although it will be interesting to see how direct Nottingham to Long Eaton journeys on Skylink will affect this). This is in spite of competing against top class services: Trent Barton’s Indigo and Xprss, both run with leather-seated buses on high frequencies. Indigo also runs 24 hours a day, with the additional comforts of air conditioning and wood laminate flooring.
Premiere has announced that it will be offering a direct replacement for the loss of the Nottingham City Transport Skylink service, following Trent Barton’s commercialisation. The Red Flyer will operate 24 hours a day, via Clifton and will be quicker than Trent Barton’s
So how is Premiere doing so well? This simple answer is price. Despite Trent Barton offering Mango fare promotions, Premiere does offer very good value. A standard single on Xprss from Bingham to Nottingham is £3 and on Red 1 it’s £2. And the Xprss fares are also soon set to rise, fuel and insurance cost increases being blamed.However, no Premiere fares are set to increase, until at least April. Instead, Premiere’s come up with a novel idea, a campaign known as “Fair Fares”. It works on the basis that if more customers use their services, there won’t need to be any fare increases. It effectively says to the customer “get more people to use our buses and you get to pay less”, turning every one of their customers into a free advertising campaign.
Perhaps this is something other bus companies should note? Motorists are feeling the same financial squeeze and if they find a cheaper alternative, are they likely to make the conversion to the bus? Do they need an existing user to show it can be done?
In a recent survey, Trent Barton (yes, them again!) found that 75 per cent of people find the bus to be a cheaper form of public transport. Is the viral promotion of this fact what we need to entice people onto buses?
So, what will the result be? Will Premiere find that their fares will inevitably have to go up? Will Premiere simply take passengers from Trent Barton? Or will more people make the move towards buses? Only time will tell.
A nice idea, though.
16 comments:
Amazing that the NCT Skylink service to East Midlands Airport is coming off. The buses were bought with public money and the service has been subsidised for several years by public money. That's government money from EMDA the regional development agency.
But Premiere are commencing the Red Flyer two days before Skylink comes off in it's current form, to get passengers familiar with the new service. They are using two 54 Reg Volvo Plaxton coaches between Nottingham, Clifton, Kegworth and East Midlands International Airport every hour, 24 hours a day, with additional services running at peak times every 30 minutes.
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Anon at 15.41 seems a bit behind the times as it was announced yesterday!
Leather seats and air conditioning are of little use if your frequent buses simply bunch up together in traffic jams (Indigo), leaving gaps for Premiere - or you need to make every penny count and won't pay higher fares if you don't need to.
Regarding the 24 hour Nottingham Skylink. Personally, this time I feel Trentbarton may well have bitten off far much more than they can chew. (& exactly how they've done it may be their just deserts)!
I'm sure NCT must be very offended that Trentbarton suggested to the airport & City Council about withdrawing the current subsidised route in favour of their ammended indigo service (former route 10,310 with additional disruption for Beeston, Chilwell, Castle Donnington & Kegworth).
Fortunately for passengers along the current route of Skylink, NCT are increasing service levels of the South Notts bus co.'s "the one" route to every 15 minutes, the same level before Skylink, as far as Clifton Pastures & the new N1 nightbus will fill the gap of the current skylink journeys to Clifton too. (interestingly only 6 nights per week. Non in the small hours of monday mornings).
Then comes the news Trentbarton wasn't expecting I'm sure.
Premiere are lunching their own hourly, (mostly) RedFlyer. With lower fares & still cutting journey times by anything from 10-20 minutes, following the faster A453. Adding insult too by running into Kegworth Square, ending once again tb's monopoly of the village.
The whole reasoning behind this situation, I'm sure is indigo 24/7!
An interesting set of comments on the Facebook page: East midlands Transport Advice, & some analysation of the poor loadings though the night on the 24/7 service. (& remember, skylink will add an extra journey per hour, on top of already 2 per hour towards Long Eaton after hours).
What better way of insuring extra passenger growth by way of forcing the stoppage of the current NCT skylink, forcing those passengers on to the seats of trentbartons! Another twist in stopping the failed LEX service & going head to head with Premieres red5 in the daytimes along the A6005 corridor. With, I'm certain, many changes & amendments to both indigo & the new Skylink timetables, without a doubt to the nightbuses schedules all to follow.
A cunning plan by TB perhaps? But unfortunately for them, it's not looking like it could all fall into place.
Nobody has to explained how the existing NCT Skylink could continue. It is taking £350k each year in subsidy paid by Nottingham City Council and EMA. That would not have continued and NCT Skylink would have been axed or greatly reduced. TB has only come to the party at the request of the authorities when looking for affordable alternatives.
"Anonymous said...
Leather seats and air conditioning are of little use if your frequent buses simply bunch up together in traffic jams (Indigo), leaving gaps for Premiere - or you need to make every penny count and won't pay higher fares if you don't need to.
01 March, 2012 19:14"
Except that there are 8 Indigos per hour but only 3 Red 5. And if Indigo gets held up in traffic, then Red 5 is likely too as well. In those circumstances, Indigo is more likely to pick up passengers who are waiting for a delayed Red 5.
@ anon 10:54
TB didn't come to that party at anyone's request. They instigated it as from what I have read just about everywhere.
Further evidence, I'm sorry to say, of bad decision making at TB. We've had Bargain Bus, Kinchbus 9 and now this all backfiring (or I assume it will).
Before anyone points out that BB and Kinch 9 are 'separate' companies, I'm afraid that the fact is they are all controlled by the same strings. TB uses this to justify certain decisions. They always insisted that Bargain Bus was a separate company and therefore they could not comment on it. But make a compolaint about it, and it's handled by the smae people in the same office! Also, Skylink, run by Kinch, is advertised on the TB website as if it is their service (because it is really isn't it), but they direct you to kinch with complaints. Then you get an email back from trent about a complaint!
Things there are getting messy I'm afraid which is a shame because I have always admired them so much!
"TB didn't come to that party at anyone's request. They instigated it as from what I have read just about everywhere."
I read elsewhere that the world is flat so must be true. Why allow the facts to get in the way of gossip?
@ anon 23:42
Sorry, should have been more specific. So, from the NCT press release:
"Nottingham City Council and East Midlands Airport have given notice to NCT that they are terminating the Skylink contract from 25th March 2012, following the announcement by trentbarton that they will be running a service to East Midlands Airport commercially.
As another operator is registering a commercial Nottingham Skylink service, it would not be viable or lawful, under the Transport Act 1985, for Nottingham City Council to fund the current Nottingham Skylink service, as a subsidised bus service should not duplicate commercial provision."
TB definately set the wheels in motion.
No. Trentbarton made the first approach. & who said the funding was due to be cut?
EMA made the first approach to trent barton as they contribute some of the £300k funding to NCT for a service with declining passenger numbers.
East Midlands Airport made the first approach as they were keen to get out their cut of the £300,000/year funding to NCT for the current skylink service (which was showing passenger decline and therefore likely to need an increase in funding).
The new trent barton service will serve more people, however the journey from Nottingham to the Airport is no longer direct.
Late into this, but one thing has been missed.
There is a reason why TrentBarton's Skylink goes the way it does. It is to AVOID the A453.
Why? Because the A453 is due to be dualled all the way from the M1 to the A52 ring road. This project, due to start in early 2013 and take around two years to complete, will result in a lot of traffic management, disruption and delays.
So 13 minutes longer in a timetable may become considerably shorter on the ground when the works commence!
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