Arriva has announced it has bought Ambuline. Who? Yes, I wondered about that. They employ 240 people on health service transport in the midlands and Yorkshire. Add this to the January contract win to undertake East Midlands non-emergency health transport—that will now transfer to Ambuline—and purchases such as Wardle Transport, a bus operator but also a specialist school transport provider (including wheelchair services) and you get a sense of how this is developing. As more and more health service ambulance trusts look to contract out all but its emergency provision, expect the market to grow considerably.
Whereas Go Ahead has been looking for expansion recently through a more traditional bus service route (pardoning any pun), is Arriva on the right track? No messiness in terms of collecting fares. No need to take too much revenue & cost risk. Contract payments regularly every month. A pool of work that’s likely to expand and, as in East Midlands now coming under the Ambuline wing, the possibility of regionalisation and economies of scale.
On the other hand, the Go South Coast expansion beyond its means in Dorset to include local buses. School transport by bus & coach, school transport by taxi & minibus and social care—everything bar the kitchen sink—has a considerable amount of short-term pain though with the prospect of long-term gain.
And the greatest possibility of all potentially for Arriva: community transport. This seems to be a subset of all this fringe transport. Wouldn’t community transport go together well with other specialised transport provision such as non-emergency health services and social care? Surely an opportunity for those who can spot it, as local transport authorities look towards this sort of thing as a bus service replacement.
It’s interesting that Stagecoach isn’t testing the waters (unless you know differently).
Ambuline. Not to be confused with Amberline.
9 comments:
Only thing I'd question here is can Arriva/Stagecoach/First get the quality/price ratio right for community transport?
The majority of providers of this at the moment are smaller social enterprises with a quite small profit margin compared with the big groups. And I'm not convinced economies of scale are quite as pronounced here.
Look at Council contracts in areas that do "cheapest tender" - it's almost never the big groups...
Neil
Or Amber-Lee. Who I'd trust far more to get me to hospital than Arriva!
It looks as if the renments of what was Veolia Wales aka Crossgated coaches is jacking it in.It appears to have deregistered allits routes
It will be interesting to see how Arriva cope, but all credit to them for trying another source of revenue.
Particularly interesting to note that the acquisition of Ambuline should bring with it a management who have the specific skills necessary for this new direction.
@ Anonymous 09:09
Amber-Lee went out of business several years ago so you might wish to place your money on Arriva getting you to hospital in a timely manner instead!
Interesting. I believe Wellglade have also been doing some community transport through their Midland General company, having taken over a small operation in Derby when it got into financial difficulty a few years ago.
With reference to Ambuline being purchased by Arriva is a very shrewd move.
Working for an NHS ambulance service, the provision of patient transport services are very big money spinners. This is due to the health care climate that causes prices related to medical supplies, equipment and transport to be high by the nature of the work.
They will do very well out of this I can assure you! With the Tories trying to privatise parts of the NHS this will put Arriva in a strong position to bid to run NHS ambulance services in the future and believe me this is the direction it is all going in!
DoH stats suggest that the number of outpatients may have been increasing in recent years, but those using non emergency PTS has decreased. Reasons? Car parking provision at NHS sites (an easy form of cash revenue). So, in short, Arriva DB appears to be joining a market in decline!
Neil
I think you're a bit confused that many of these are smaller social enterprises.
This is big business, and the major groups are well placed to get through the bureaucratic process. Things like financial stability and ability to source investment are often part of a balanced scorecard that is employed to select contractors. That's why you get major organisations such as Serco partnering with Wincanton to undertake prison transport.
I know people who have worked on NHS tenders before and often the need to avoid any embarrassing instances of businesses going under means that large corporate organisations are preferred.
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