Following his popular first post, Oneman continues his look at Premiere and Trent Barton. Omnibuses welcomes contributions
Nottingham’s infamous bus war between Trent Barton and Premiere makes its way to East Midlands airport from today. The exact reason is unknown (speculation is rife) but Trent Barton has registered a commercial Skylink service, resulting in the current subsidised Nottingham City Transport service being scrapped. 
Photo by Ginga Perry
All seemed good—Trent Barton would get all the passengers from two services, the Loughborough branch of Indigo and Skylink, onto one bus. But then Premiere decided to intervene. They will run “The Red Flyer” along the current Skylink route, using coaches on an hourly frequency, from the 23rd March, deliberately starting on a Friday, to overlap with NCT. So, who will win? Let’s look at the benefits of both services:Frequency
The last thing you want to do after catching a flight is to hang around waiting for a bus. For this reason, Skylink’s 30-minute frequency has the upper hand, although Red Flyer has a 30-minute frequency during peak times.
Journey Time
RedFlyer wins this time, with a journey time of 43 minutes compared to Skylink’s 55 minutes
Price
A bit hazy, owing to the variety of tickets on offer, but overall a RedFlyer win. A RedFlyer two trip is £3.50, which has no expiry date. A Trent Barton day return is priced at £5 and an open return at £8. Skylink will have an £18 ten-trip ticket and RedFlyer’s 7-day ticket will cost £14. £5 zigzags can be used on Skylink after 9am though, allowing connections from all around Nottingham and Mango will be available, giving a 25 per cent discount on those prices.
Branding
Purely opinion based here, but Skylink’s a clear winner. Skylink will use Scania/Wrightbus Solars in an attractive, Ray Stenning-designed blue livery. RedFlyer will use all over white coaches with quite basic branding; previous images suggest that the coach’s previous National Express livery hasn’t been properly removed. The fact that Skylink is a well-known name and is also given to the Derby/Leicester service will help.
Other Areas Served
Another Skylink win, fast buses to Long Eaton will compete with Red5, and special 10 trip tickets are available Long Eaton to Nottingham for just £10. NCT’s Skylink relied on trade from Clifton; people would catch the next NCT bus from Nottingham to Clifton, Skylink or Navy Line, owing to eligibility of tickets. This will no longer be the case; combined with NCT “sewing up” the gaps left by Skylink will make RedFlyer suffer.
Other Aspects
RedFlyer has a pre-booking service, good for peace of mind if you’re taking large groups to the airport. Skylink will be fitted with free on-board wi-fi, a major bonus for business travellers.
Overall, Skylink seems to be the more likely to thrive, in my opinion. East Midlands airport really isn’t that big, services need other areas to sustain them, hence why the last Skylink needed subsidy. Only time will tell, but if one service is to survive, I think it will be Skylink.
14 comments:
The Skylink buses were bought (and the service supported) by lots of public money from the East Midlands Development Agency. What happens now to that lost investment and the vehicles . . .
...That investment has paved the way to a subsidy-free service. That's a good thing.
Some corrections re prices on skylink... £3 single, £2.25 MANGO and £6 2-trip. Skylink also accepts euros
Not a very good couple of alternatives for anybody travelling to EMA.
The Premiere service will use coaches and be faster whereas Trent will use buses that dawdle around loads of other towns and villages on the way - does anyone really want this before or after a flight ?
The Trent service, surprisingly, misses out Beeston bus station but is still near enough for the many Uni students to get on.
The use of the phrase 'bus wars'in this piece sends all the wrong signals in my view...and one service is operated by coaches not buses.
The use of the word 'war' suggests battles and injuries...hardly what one wants the public to think of when considering nice, safe, travel options,or perhaps I'm getting old and soft.The media does enough damage to public conceptions of bus and coach travel without giving them any additional material.
We don't have 'supermarket wars' or 'mobile phone wars' do we ?
Surely,any airport links should ideally be frequent,dedicated, and direct services to the city centres etc,unless they are aimed at airport staff rather than air passengers.
It surprises me that any operator thinks they can make money serving a small airport such as East Midlands where volumes are so small. It's hardly worth the effort never mind fighting for it!
@anonymous 9.58
The EMA service is more frequently used by workers (both at the airport and in the industrial parks close by) than travellers.
The largest volume of users of the current (soon to end) NCT service were however people from Clifton and Nottm Trent Uni who get into the habit of taking the first NCT service that passes.
Out of peak hours the service between Clifton and the airport was lightly used.
"We don't have 'supermarket wars' or 'mobile phone wars' do we ?"
We do have "supermarket wars" - remember the loss-leading "value" products and the likes?
And I don't think safety has a jot to do with peoples' decision about taking the bus or driving, TBH. All 4 or more wheeled road transport is safe enough for most people.
Neil
the only thing thats surprised me is trents skylink dosent have luggage racks to put your suitcases on
I understand that this will happen - they were ordered from Wrights the moment the service wa registered.
Last time I travelled to EMA, I was planning to get the Midland Classic service from Burton... only to find out that this rather colourful company had been ordered to withdraw it by the local Traffic Commissioner. So I cycled instead.
A lot of passengers will be people who work at tha Airport. The NCT Skylink buses are now of an age when they would need replacing. Redflyer will be a big problem for people with luggage as the coaches are high floor so ypu strugto get on with luggage or the driver has to get off to open the luggage hold. Neither srvice stops at the rail station. Who is backing Premiere?
Speaking of Trent expansionism... is there something we're not being told? http://en-gb.facebook.com/arrivaderby/posts/209965362434536
If I was a betting man, I would say that the 'Arriva Derby and Burton' Facebook site is NOT official! So I would take the comments with the proverbial pinch of salt.
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