Expect franchising in provincial England to become a reality today, as the West Yorkshire integrated transport authority considers its future bus strategy. ITA members will weigh up the merits of greater partnership working as proposed by the Association of Bus Operators of West Yorkshire against plans to develop a full quality contract scheme. The report reads,
“On balance, it is recommended that the Quality Contract option should be adopted as the preferred approach…”and, if endorsed, could see the start of franchised operations as soon as April 2015.
Metro, the PTE, has to date not entered into any partnerships. Instead, it asked operators to present their proposals to the ITA. In a spirited defence, ABOWY has done just that but it fails to get full endorsement.
“Whilst (sic) the ABOWY partnership proposal has considerable merits and constitutes the lowest risk option in the short-term, it does not meet the Authority’s requirements in full”
What the public thinks of West Yorkshire bus services, following an online newspaper poll. Mind you, with a poorly phrased question like that, what other result might anyone expect?
ABOWY is very much a lone voice. The ITA, the public and the media are all for the greatest possible control of bus services. This is largely the result of mileage reductions and fares increases, principally by one West Yorkshire operator, one who is perceived by the public to be doing very nicely out of West Yorkshire, in spite of it all.
And the ITA already has cross-party support for QCs. The previous Conservative-Liberal colalition together with the current Labour-controlled seem staunchly in favour of franchising.
“The primary reasons for [QCs] are the impact of simplified integrated ticketing, the ability to promote and market a stable, integrated network with consistent standards and the ability to re-deploy some buses to enhance accessibility rather than duplicate other services”ABOWY won’t give up without a (legal) fight. But its partnership approach seems doomed because of a specific failure, perceived or otherwise, to address integrated ticketing. Operators currently individually undercut Metro PTE’s Metrocard prices. In response, ABOWY states, “The West Yorkshire operators are keen to be allowed the freedom to offer lower prices and other innovations if they are able.”
38 comments:
Some background: over the last decade Metro has exaggerated the First WY profits margins by up to 10% and exaggerated its support of bus services which it always calls a subsidy to the bus industry. Until recently revenue it included concession compensation and Metrocard ticket sales as part of the subsidy until yours truly pointed this out. They still link in the concession payments as though they would not have to pay them with QCs!
Under a sustained hostile press campaign by Metro it has been hard for bus companies to grow passenger numbers to replace those lost by natural wastage, and this has led to cuts, especially as congestion and lack of bus lanes has meant over 40 extra buses, at £00 per day) in the network just to keep time. Metro bus support is £22m, but £72m is spent on local rail, keeping fares artificially low, reducing bus income directly by unfair competition, and increasing passenger perception that bus fares are too high.
Metro gets about one complaint per 7000 return bus trips, about half are due to late buses which is due to congestion.
Passenger Focus found high satisfaction amongst WY bus users which contradicts Metros claim of poor service. Passenger Focus also backs the idea of operator only tickets to give bus users freedom of choice which Metro does not believe in.
Metro refuses to follow the lead shown by Nottingham and Brighton and many other places by developing partnerships.
Metro will fund QCs by getting smaller bus operators with low wages and also thinning out high frequency services so the buses can be used on subsidised services. Of course this will drive many bus users on busy services back to cars, especially where they replace a 7 minute single deck service by a 15 minute d/d service.
I think Metro will get knocked back in the courts or by the government, but they will have wasted millions by then.
And they have soured relations with bus companies so when they get forced back to partnerships it will be tough going.
I reccommend that readers visit the West Yorkshire ITA website and download the report to the ITA. It contains this gem:
2.32. However, it should be noted that transport authorities across the developed world manage the risks of specifying and contracting local bus services. It is considered that these can be well managed and do not in themselves expose the Authority to unmanageable financial risk; the Authority would ultimately be able to adjust service and fare levels to manage expenditure within approved budgets.
In other words, when the ITA faces a budget problem, services can be cut and fares go up to overcome any reduction in public spending!
I have yet to find any example of any area-wide scheme anywhere in the developed world where political meddling in bus services hasn't resulted in a huge increase in public subsidy.
Yet the PTEG members seem to think they can do it!
Good luck to them, I say!
And to the council tax payers of West Yorkshire: I hope you've got deep pockets!
@ Anonymous 0834:
Oh diddums.
Metro has spent more money than most on bus priority measures and bus infrastructure improvements. The shiny new bus stations your company uses in Bradford, Leeds, Halifax, Cleckheaton, Dewsbury, Keighley and Huddersfield were paid for by Metro. The BRT guided lanes in Leeds and Bradford were paid for by Metro. Most of Leeds city centre is now a bus-only zone.
So how anyone can sit there and say that Metro don't support the industry is beyond me.
The simple truth is that the operators in West Yorkshire have seen bus services as a cash cow for far too long. The network First operate has contracted massively since Yorkshire Rider days, as anyone trying to get by bus from Keighley to Halifax or from Bradford to Harrogate, Otley and Ilkley will trll you. Late evening buses are but a distant memory, with the last Halifax to Bradford bus leaving at 10.30pm.
It's a similar story down the road at Arriva, who really are no different from the days of West Riding and Yorkshire Woollen, except for the loss of express buses from Bradford to Dewsbury, Wakefield and Sheffield.
Passenger Focus surveys are always misleadingly high because of the questions, just as newspaper surveys are always low. PF only ask about the bus you've just been on, not your wider experience. Wghen I've been surveyed I've had to grudgingly say the service was OK because the bus was on time and fairly clean, but that's not my typical experience with the hopeless First West Yorkshire.
At the same time the commercial industry is not able to offer stakeholders a realistic vision for development of the bus industry that contributes to wider held aspirations for greater connectivity and economic growth.
The best the bus industry appears to be able to deliver is stagnation or "registering five minutes in front of an opponent".
There is a widespread feeling that buses are impotent, useless and irrelevant.
The bus industry is not challenging this viewpoint.
I fail to see how comparing First's current network with that of "Yorkshire Rider" is relevant. It's the same company, of course, albeit under different ownership - is that relevant, though? How has the world moved on in the last 25 years? Is that relevant? Was YR running some journeys or routes at a loss 25 years ago? Prior to 1986, of course, that was legal and in many cases the norm, particularly for PTEs and the NBC. You can't do it these days.... so of course, services have to change. Not just for that reason but many others too.
I just love the way that organisations like ITAs and local authorities always make it sound so easy to do a better job of what commercial companies have to do (to a budget just to survive) - and to do it all cheaper and more comprehensively. Part of me wants to see them try.... and find out what life is like in the real world and then come back down to earth with a bump. But that would be unfair to the good residents of West Yorkshire or wherever. The *one* certainty, were it to happen is that costs *all round* will rise.
Since deregulation of bus services there has been a steady deline in service whilt at the same time steep increases in fares.
Most operators have also pretty much washed their hands of providing proper timetable information as well as closing bus stations. Information on fares and tickets is almost none existant and it is almost a black art trying to obtain information
Non interchangerbility of tickets is another big problem.
With bus companies it is all about how much they can rip their customers off for and how poor a service they can get away with
Cordinating and franchising services is a very sensible move and will fix many of the problems as well as ensuring passengers get a better deal
Wow, I'm glad I don't live where Anon 12:01 lives, I don't recognise any of his problems, so probably not "Most operators", then. How about "A few"?
"Most operators have also pretty much washed their hands of providing proper timetable information as well as closing bus stations. Information on fares and tickets is almost none existant and it is almost a black art trying to obtain information"
Black art indeed. Not west-yorks granted but point your web browser at www.norfolkgreen.co.uk and tell me you can't find all of thier timetables and all of thier fares? Indeed from today you can do this from your mobile phone as well (m.norfolkgreen.co.uk). Shameless plug but it counters the original poster's (Mr Glum?) opinion that such information is harder to come-by these days.
Service maps are quite hard to come by. It took an almighty faff to find that the Lancaster 555 ran down a certain road in Carnforth.
Neil
By the way these:-
http://www.norfolkgreen.co.uk/services/index.aspx
are pretty useless because they don't tell you that sort of information.
This:-
http://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/transport/documents/MK_Urban_Map.pdf
is the sort of thing that's useful. Kudos to MK Council for producing it.
It might be trendy to have a Tube style map, but it is really not a fat lot of use unless you are heading for a very major destination or know your local service for when to board.
Neil
I'm old enough to have worked in West Yorkshire before deregulation. Every year the PTE would have a shortfall on its budget, & at the start of March the word would come down from on high to 10 buses out of the network by April. No stability agreements & registration notice in those days. The buses were just cut. You couldn't leave communities unserved so the answer was to see frequencies on main profitable routes cut back. That is exactly what you will see if the QC comes in.
Yes the big groups in West Yorks aren't angels. They are business men. They relieved the PTE/NBC of their requirement to fund capital & pensions. The huge liabilities involved in the latter were the main reason many MBO companies bailed out. I can see lengthy litigation on this alone not to mention the confiscation of businesses without compensation (see Chris Cheeks excellent article on the TAS blog).
This story has got a long way to run yet!
@ Anonymous 11.19
The bus poperators ahve made and excellent offer to Metro and all stakeholders which met almost all Metro's needs
On bus stop info Transdev Blazefield do a great job in N Yorks but Metro forbid them to do this in W Yorks as Metro wants its own inferior tts instead
@David. Our WY bus lanes are not enforced much and have crucial gaps. Hull, Nottingham and Brighton do better.
First & Arriva contributed to the guideways.
The bus statiosn are good but mostly blocked off from the public by high speed traffic on dual carriageways
see http://www.wyita.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/EEE87522-04D0-4B7B-937C-D82EF0D48DF8/0/EB23March2012Item8.pdf
I just can't help thinking that many of these issues might not have arisen if the major operator was of better overall quality.
"By the way these:-
http://www.norfolkgreen.co.uk/services/index.aspx
are pretty useless because they don't tell you that sort of information.
This:-
http://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/transport/documents/MK_Urban_Map.pdf
is the sort of thing that's useful. "
- Agreed Neil, however as far as street level mapping does the giant PDF really beat an interactive Google Map?
http://www.norfolkgreen.co.uk/services/service.aspx?serviceid=1598
There's a school of thought that says the former PTE bus operations should have been broken up into units with no more than two depots each, and sold off that way.
It might have turned out differently to the situation in some cities with a dominant but half-hearted principal operator such as FWY or NXWM
I hope that if this QC gets formal approval that someone, somewhere, has all the right data that will enable others to objectively monitor the results - in particular if extra funds get pumped in from the taxpayers.
There's little point in this going ahead if the basic statistics that create the start point aren't agreed upfront.
"- Agreed Neil, however as far as street level mapping does the giant PDF really beat an interactive Google Map?
http://www.norfolkgreen.co.uk/services/service.aspx?serviceid=1598"
That only appears to show one service nicely. The MK map gets a bonus mark for making connections clear as well. But the Google map is no bad thing.
Neil
Fact.since dereg urban passenger use has halved.Yet all the major companies ARE MAKING LOADS OF MONEY!!. Think about it!!! Bring back regulation.
@ Anonymous 17.41
Bus use was plummetting before dereg. The drop has slowed down since except in London and about a dozen places where good quality partnerships have been established, in these places bus use has doubled since dereg.
It fell most in ITAs where ITAs went to war with bus comanies, but in some ITAs, SY, Mersey and G Manchester, bus use is now on the up due to partnerships.
There is a huge gulf between what the passengers actualy need and what the bus companies think they need.
Just look at the massive backward step with bus stop timetables. They are now almost totally useless and leave you scratching your head as to where the buses gho and when they get there which is not very usefull if you are trying to make a connection.
Again if you are in an area you are not familur trying to find usefull information on bus services will be an imposibility. You may find the odd printed timetable but that is of no help at all if you dont know the area
Mot timetable information has been so reduced as to be pretty near useless. They may look pretty but they don't serve the basic function they are supposed too
You get the same lack of information with real time displays. Frequently they will show for example the desination as City Centre. Not a lot of use if you dont know the area and even dafter when routes run between two city centres
So, where's the competition element in this then? Glad we all wasted money on an enquiry!
An absolute catastrophe for marketing bus services in West Yorkshire! This decision basically says that "hey, we don't think bus services are very good here" even though I guess most would grumble that they probably aren't as bad as what people make out. Arriva Yorkshire recently won UK Bus Operator of the year? Do the PTEs not notice these things?
First has recognised its shortcomings and is attempting to reinvent itself. Surely pteg are forcing this!
Genuine question, why do ITA's exist?
@buscms
Ideally, I would like to have both a network map showing all routes, such as the one produced by MK and WY Metro (ideally this would be produced by the council, PTE or some other impartial organisation showing all operators' routes), and an interactive Google-based route map of the sort that Norfolk Green and Transdev have.
But if it's one or the other, I would go for the network map. Otherwise it's all too easy to get fixated on a route that doesn't give you the best option, because you're not aware of other services that will be better for you.
There is a key issue which supporters of QCs need to face. At present bus companies own assets (mostly garages and buses) from which they can make revenue. They borrowed the money to buy the assets on this basis. If, big if, Metro can implement QCs, those assets can no longer be used in the way planned and become liabilities. Especially since these WY companies mostly pay £9=£10 per hour and have pension scheme. They will be undercut by companies which are undercapitalised, pay low wages and have no pension scheme.
So will investors invest in bus and train companies in the future when they see that on a political whim their assets become worthless? No they won’t, unless you believe in fairies!
So then all future investments in buses and trains has to come from the Treasury. The Treasury is in debt, over-borrowed with billions of pounds worth of liabilities in pensions, healthcare and education.
In this situation do you expect the Treasury to fund buses as well as First etc?
If your answer is yes continue reading here http://www.fairiesworld.com/
Anonymous 29 June, 2012 19:20 said...
Genuine question, why do ITA's exist?
...and answers there came, none!
They're a hang-over from the days when PTEs ran buses. Their functions could (should?) be carried out by the local councils as happens everywhere else or by the bus companies (information provision). Because ITAs exist, they tend to want to empire-build to justify their existence.
Neil said...
"By the way these:-
http://www.norfolkgreen.co.uk/services/index.aspx
are pretty useless because they don't tell you that sort of information.
This:-
http://www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/transport/documents/MK_Urban_Map.pdf
is the sort of thing that's useful."
Comparing Milton Keynes with the area served by Norfolk Green is not really a like-for-like comparison. The NG solution is fine for the type of area they serve - it loads quickly, and so do the detailed maps for individual services. I would say that it is "fit for purpose" - the service I clicked on also mentioned possible connections to other routes.
By comparison, the network map from here:-
http://www.rvf.de/Liniennetzplan.php
takes time to load when you want to view it at 100%. Nice, informative map, but the NG solution somehow seems slicker and more convenient to use.
@1834 it's a myth to suggest timetable information would be any better under ITA/local authority control. Just about every ITA I have visited recently produces some pretty sub standard information given the quality some operators achieve. In the city I live in I recall the timetables pumped out by the local municipal, they gave the departure times from the origin point a list of road names, you had to guess the rest like what time it would arrive at the destination or the departure time from intermediate points! It also had a horrendously complex network of low frequency routes from everywhere to everywhere, yes you could catch a bus without changing if you don't mind waiting up to an hour for the direct bus and yes I'm sure some of the routes offered combined frequencies to common destinations but this was never explained to the public. Every year the municipal made a loss, the loss grew bigger year on year and the network shrunk accordingly whilst the tax payer picked up the tab for the loss. Bus usage dramatically declined during this period. The municipal sold to it's staff who inherited an ageing fleet, declining patronage and a horrendous pension liability. They sold out to one of the big groups who immediately invested in the fleet, simplified the network and accordingly patronage has stabilised and I understand recently shown signs of growing. The contribution from the local tax payer to the bus network has significantly declined in real terms since the early 80's.
Another local authority near me produces a comprehensive timetable book of all operators services, unfortunately it's always riddled with errors from sloppy proof reading and production and therefore consigned to the fiction section in the local library whilst the local operators produce their own comprehensive publicity.
Anonymous said...
"I have yet to find any example of any area-wide scheme anywhere in the developed world where political meddling in bus services hasn't resulted in a huge increase in public subsidy."
I'm sure you're right, but I must say that the bus operators appear not to have made their case in the best possible light here. If the sticking point is multi-operator ticketing, then it would surely make sense for the operators to setup a scheme, to test the water so to speak? It's not rocket science any more, and such schemes exist in other areas, even including rival operators, so why could they not do the same in West Yorkshire? It would not have to replace existing fare scales/schemes, but could be a complementary add-on, to the benefit of those passengers who require it.
To my mind, that would be a potential win-win situation for the bus operators. If the scheme were to be widely accepted (thereby justifying the ITA's position), then the operators would also benefit from more satisfied customers. That would, of course, be subject to an acceptable distribution of the revenue, and avoiding any significant reduction in revenue. If, on the other hand the scheme proved to be little used, or caused significant overall losses of revenue, then the bus operators' current position would be justified, and the ITA's requirements would have been demonstrated to be unjustified or unrealisable, or both. The operators would have demonstrated a willingness to try to meet the ITA's requirements, thus putting themselves and their arguments in a better light.
The other alternative, a legal fight with the ITA, will be costly and time consuming, even if the operators do have right on their side. The political consensus makes the situation more difficult, even if unanimity by politicians doesn't necessarily mean that they are right!
RC169 @ 12:49
"If the sticking point is multi-operator ticketing, then it would surely make sense for the operators to setup a scheme, to test the water so to speak?"
I'm afraid the whole point seems to be that although there has been such a scheme since around 1975 (the MetroCard) it has a major deficiency as far as Metro is concerned because fares are agreed between the bus operators, rather than being set by Metro. This results in a premium for the multi-operator ticket, as shown below.
Day Tickets:
Metrocard £5.20 all day
Arriva £4.40 all day
First £4.60 before 09:30, £3.80 after
Transdev £4.60 before 09:30, £3.60 after
Monthly Tickets:
Metrocard £80
Arriva £64
First £63
Transdev £66
As a result, passengers do not see the bus network as a single entity, as they do in London. For example, commuters from Wakefield to Leeds with an Arriva monthly ticket are unlikely to make ad-hoc trips in Leeds on First buses during the day as they would need to pay again. In contrast, this would not be a constraint for commuters from Otley to Leeds on First buses.
I have a certain amount of sympathy for this view, as if you make a regular multi-leg journey, it is a bit of a postcode lottery whether you are able to use a single operator or pay the 20% premium for a Metrocard.
Not surprisingly, take-up of bus-only Metrocards is fairly low, if only because most bus users only make a single return journey each day, and even if they do are unlikely to make use of more than one operator. For example, people who live and work in Leeds have little reason (or opportunity) to use any bus service other than First on a regular basis.
This situation would apply as long as the Metrocard has a premium price associated with it – so would only really be resolved by setting it to the same price as Arriva (say) and abolishing the separate operator tickets. It is the latter which is presumably the sticking point, as even the Competition Commission envisages multi-operator and single operator tickets co-existing in their "ideal" world after their remedies have been implemented.
I hope that Arriva and more so Rotala cash in on firsts sales....would love to see Rotala take on more work at wessex and would love to see them take on Reddich and kidderminster. Fingers crossed!
One point which doesn't seem to get a mention much in these regular arguments over re-regulation / Quality Contracts / franchising is the current mish-mash of responsibilities in providing bus networks and infrastructure.
It's been well observed before here that many people still seem to think that 'The Council' run the buses. We all know that is not the case any more but actually it's not that simple is it. Complaints for example - do you want to make a complaint about the number 5 bus? OK madam - was it about the 0900 journey or the 2100 journey? If it's the 0900 you need to call X bus company, but if it's the 2100 you need to call us (County Council) as it's an evening contract. You want to report a problem with the bus stop? Well, is it about the pole (call us (County Council)), the shelter (call the District Council, or maybe the Parish Council), the timetable information in the case (call X bus company)? It's hard enough for employees of the above to understand let alone the bus user, and is a recipe for buck-passing - I'm sure there's been many examples of the operator blaming the council and the council then blaming the operator?
At least franchising would clear up much of the above and remove the ability for each partner to blame or pass the buck to each other.
NMcB said...
" have a certain amount of sympathy for this view, as if you make a regular multi-leg journey, it is a bit of a postcode lottery whether you are able to use a single operator or pay the 20% premium for a Metrocard."
Thanks for your detailed response to my comment. I can understand the point about a 'postcode lottery', however there is another side to the argument. Somebody living in Bradford (or Otley as per your example) who works in Leeds may be perfectly satisfied with the First season ticket, and may not wish to pay for the possibility to travel to Wakefield on an Arriva bus that they may well, in practice, never, or only very rarely use. Similarly, somebody from Wakefield who also works in Leeds may nonetheless be adequately catered for by Arriva for the vast majority of their travel requirements - so why pay for the facility to travel on First services that they hardly ever need or require? Naturally, the single operator tickets buy access to less services than the multi-operator variants, so it is reasonable that they should be priced slightly lower.
This raises the question of how WYITA see their multi-operator tickets being priced. If the price is to be dropped to the level of the single operator tickets, then I am sure the passengers will be happy, but the tickets will need a significant subsidy if the network is to be maintained. If, on the other hand, the single operator tickets are to be dropped, then a lot of season ticket holders will have a significant price increase - the only comforting factor being that they will, presumably, largely be members of the electorate who voted for the politicians with that policy! Either way, they will be paying for facilities that may well be largely unused.
Comparisons are difficult, but I would suggest that the £80 multi-operator monthly ticket offers reasonable value. The Verkehrsverbund (tariff/traffic union) in the area that I live in charges €48.50 for an all operators ticket, which does include rail, but the area has only one major city (population of 220,000) at the centre, and a large rural hinterland with a few small towns and villages. West Yorkshire is obviously significantly different, with several larger cities and a much more intensive network, and given that many of the rail routes will have parallel bus services, the Metrocard undoubtedly buys access to significantly more travel opportunities.
It is also worth pointing out that some Verkehrsverbunds (to use a mix of German and English!) with areas with several major centres have fare systems based on a web-like pattern (e.g. http://www.vrn.de/vrn/tickets/tarifsystem/wabenplan/index.html) rather than a single set of concentric zones, as WYITA uses for its rail tickets. I imagine that many people in Bradford would not need to travel to Wakefield on a regular basis, so, again, why should they have to pay for the facility to do so? WYITA could make the Metrocards more attractive to a wider range of people without the need to setup a Quality Contract. The current setup suggests to me that the bus operators are, in fact, rather more in tune with the passengers' requirements than the ITA. I hope the electorate of West Yorkshire are prepared for yet another instance of politicians meddling, but failing to deliver any improvements!
As I understand it Metro's main complaint against the bus operators suggestion was that they wanted to retain the opportunity to sell operator specific tickets alongside a revamped MetroCard range (which since 2 of the main operators have extensive connected networks in neighbouring counties would seem reasonable) which may or may not be retained depending on the price of the new Metrocard range.
Some of the opposition could be reduced if Metro would just come out and say:
a. how are the going to pay for it? - not just the day to day better service but the initial purchase costs of private businesses assets as if they don't they will have no depots to run from and no vehicles to run (can anyone see any major operator leaving their best vehicles to be seized without compensation they will be off as soon as it looks likely though older vehicles may be brought in to maintain services to the end).
b. What exactly they are going to do to make things better? - all Metro have said is they intend three levels of service:
Metro 10 - High frequency services of 10-mins of better
MetroConnect - services connecting communities into rail lines or major high frequency bus routes
MetroLocal - local minibus services in small towns/communities.
All well and good but since a large proportion of the West Yorkshire bus network is medium frequency interurban services (hourly/half-hourly/20-mins) that are strategic links but couldn't financially support higher frequencies. By not even referencing these important services it leaves you wondering if Metro have really thought this through and understand the network outside Leeds & Bradford where there proposals may actually make sense.
If one accepts the argument that bus operations in WY are 'poor', then a WY QC becomes a dangerous precedent for local authorities to impose similar models in areas where bus operations are 'good'.
Anonymous (2 July) - No one's going to haev their vehicles seized with or without compensation. Metro with issue a contract for a route which First can bid for - if they don't win they can use their buses somewhere else - be that Leeds or Bristol.
Anonymous (3 July) - why would somewhere be more likely to change a system which is seen as "good" than "poor". Metro's argument is that the buses are seen as "poor" and need improving - if they were good nothing need be done.
Anonymous (3 July) - why would somewhere be more likely to change a system which is seen as "good" than "poor". Metro's argument is that the buses are seen as "poor" and need improving - if they were good nothing need be done.
03 July, 2012 09:48
That does assume that this is purely an altruistic exercise by WY and not some populist guff to enable them to play buses/empire build!
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