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Any flaws in my plan?

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neilmc

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Bus services in Cumbria are patchy to say the least. For example, the A6 corridor between Penrith and Kendal only has one return service per day on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

But all that is to change when Neilbus arrives on the scene with my skanky old single decker. I'll be running a DAILY service over a similar route (I'll vary it slightly to ensure a separate service number.)

Now here's the catch - there will be a cash fare of £100. However as my service will leave Penrith at 09:31 I don't expect to actually take any cash fares, but of course the ENCTS pass will be valid and Cumbria Council will have to pay me the appropriate percentage, just as they do for Stagecoach who don't even provide a daily service.

I think my service may well terminate at a fish and chip restaurant where a huge discount may be obtained on production of a valid bus ticket, so I am confident of attracting pretty full loads. If that won't wash, I'll run through to Oxenholme station and claim I'm providing a through transport link which neither the council nor the existing operators will provide.
 
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Bayum

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I barely carry small amounts of cash with me, let alone £100 in notes.
 

pemma

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Is this a serious idea or a hypothetical idea? I'm guessing the latter.

I don't think a full bus where every passenger is an ENCTS holder is guaranteed to make to profit or that the fare you charge passengers has to relate to the level of compensation the council will give you.

You'd also probably appear in the local media as a rip off merchant for having the £100 fares and I'd be concerned about your driver's safety if they were to ask people for £100 to go a mile or two down the road.
 

Busaholic

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Bus services in Cumbria are patchy to say the least. For example, the A6 corridor between Penrith and Kendal only has one return service per day on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

But all that is to change when Neilbus arrives on the scene with my skanky old single decker. I'll be running a DAILY service over a similar route (I'll vary it slightly to ensure a separate service number.)

Now here's the catch - there will be a cash fare of £100. However as my service will leave Penrith at 09:31 I don't expect to actually take any cash fares, but of course the ENCTS pass will be valid and Cumbria Council will have to pay me the appropriate percentage, just as they do for Stagecoach who don't even provide a daily service.

I think my service may well terminate at a fish and chip restaurant where a huge discount may be obtained on production of a valid bus ticket, so I am confident of attracting pretty full loads. If that won't wash, I'll run through to Oxenholme station and claim I'm providing a through transport link which neither the council nor the existing operators will provide.

You say Cumbria Council will have to reimburse you the appropriate percentage; I respectfully suggest that this will be the millstone around your neck. If you think CC will just pay up as they do to Stagecoach, in a timely fashion and based on the same percentage, you are deluded (I suspect you aren't deluded, and realise it will never happen). CC can just wait a few months, or even years, before reimbursing you, and, even if and when they do, it may be a fraction of what you think is right. I'd commend a look on the internet under Western Greyhound and read the receiver's report on that benighted firm and the six figure sum which Cornwall Council had seemingly failed to reimburse for passholders without giving reason.
 

edwin_m

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Someone tried to do this a few years ago, North Wales I think, although to the extremity of charging £100. I'm pretty sure they didn't get away with it but I don't recall why. Could be that the councils would declare at that price it must be a premium service like Red Arrow between Derby and Nottingham, and exclude it from the list of services ENTCS is valid on.
 

overthewater

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Citylink Gold just gets away with a £40 cash fare and there only get £23 from Transport Scotland for the OAP Passes? If you think your going to get Anywhere to cover the cost of that service it's pie in the sky, and I bet the council will class it as a premium service.
 

AndyW33

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Bus services in Cumbria are patchy to say the least. For example, the A6 corridor between Penrith and Kendal only has one return service per day on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

There's a reason why the A6 corridor between Penrith and Kendal has hardly any bus service. As sheep aren't issued with ENCTS passes I doubt if you'll make your fortune out of this scheme, even if CCC actually pay up promptly for those few humans with passes who turn up.
Way back in the 1970s the through stopping bus service vanished in favour of short workings out of Penrith and Kendal that provided the villages with minimal links for work, school, and shopping. Through stopping journeys were instead provided for by Ribble's regional express services, X21 Liverpool-Preston-Lancaster-Kendal-Penrith-Carlisle, and even by the Manchester-Glasgow and Liverpool-Edinburgh non-motorway journeys. This of course made the routes stage carriage, useful for fuel tax rebate and bus grant. But there was no need to extend the running time to cover the extra stops, because nobody used them anyway. To balance crew duties, at one time a Preston driver exchanged buses with his Carlisle equivalent in the layby at Shap Summit on the first bus of the day. Not much fun in a snowstorm in February, I remember.
 

pemma

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Reading the above post reminds me of when Midland Red sent some Birmingham drivers to cover in Hereford and one spoke to a TV reporter and said something like "Why do Midland Red even serve this one horse town?"
 

neilmc

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It wasn't a serious suggestion of course. I think that if anyone tried to charge enormous cash fares purely to get a huge rebate from the council for ENCTS passengers the council would just refuse to pay and let the operator take them to court, after all Cumbria CC just lost MILLIONS in an unfavourable court judgement (not related to public transport) and don't really seem to care.
 

PeterC

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Technically you don't get paid for the number of ENCTS journeys, you get paid for the number that card holders would have been made at the published fare if the scheme had not been in place.

So take the receipts from journeys that pensioners would take at £100 a go. Divide that amount by the number of free trips taken and that is what you should get paid per card holder. In such a case I am sure that the LA would be careful to observe the sprit of the scheme.
 

RT4038

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It wasn't a serious suggestion of course. I think that if anyone tried to charge enormous cash fares purely to get a huge rebate from the council for ENCTS passengers the council would just refuse to pay and let the operator take them to court, after all Cumbria CC just lost MILLIONS in an unfavourable court judgement (not related to public transport) and don't really seem to care.

I think your scheme would, in first principle, fail the test of 'no better, no worse off' part of the 1985 Transport Act. In general terms, if your adult fare was £100, then you would carry no passengers. Therefore, no matter how many ENCTS holders you actually carried, any re-imbursement would leave you better off, so you wouldn't get anything!. [This is not quite true, as an empty bus would be marginally cheaper to run than one with a weight in it, so you could legitimately claim that difference in cost]
The re-imbursement calculations are devised in such a way to stop operators doing exactly what you suggest, otherwise it would have been done by now!
 

MotCO

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I'd commend a look on the internet under Western Greyhound and read the receiver's report on that benighted firm and the six figure sum which Cornwall Council had seemingly failed to reimburse for passholders without giving reason.

I've tried googling this report but could not find anything. Can you provide a link?
 

overthewater

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Technically you don't get paid for the number of ENCTS journeys, you get paid for the number that card holders would have been made at the published fare if the scheme had not been in place.

So take the receipts from journeys that pensioners would take at £100 a go. Divide that amount by the number of free trips taken and that is what you should get paid per card holder. In such a case I am sure that the LA would be careful to observe the sprit of the scheme.

Is that how the ENCT operators? its bonkers and people still make the claims its better run that the other scheme? :lol::lol::lol::lol:

At least else where you would get X amount for every pass.
 

robbob700

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I do remember Wilts and Dorset ran a town service in Christchurch for a while that charged £4.00 for a single, but only £5.00 for a weekly ticket. I always assumed this was so that they would get a higher reimbursement for ENCTS passes. However the service did not last long.
 

PeterC

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Is that how the ENCT operators? its bonkers and people still make the claims its better run that the other scheme? :lol::lol::lol::lol:

At least else where you would get X amount for every pass.
The way it works in my LA is that they determine what travel would be made at current fares, put that money in a "pot" for the year and distribute it to operators on a pro rata basis depending on the number of passes touched in. (I think there is a weighting so that longer routes aren't disadvantaged)
 

beermaddavep

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Your skanky old single decker is not gonna come cheap either...........to work on service it'll have to be DDA compliant, which pretty much rules anything out under around 20-30 grand. Plus u need premises, repair facilities, a back up and I believe a certain amount in yer bank account before u even get your O licence.....?
 

neilmc

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Joined
23 Oct 2011
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There's a reason why the A6 corridor between Penrith and Kendal has hardly any bus service. As sheep aren't issued with ENCTS passes I doubt if you'll make your fortune out of this scheme, even if CCC actually pay up promptly for those few humans with passes who turn up.
Way back in the 1970s the through stopping bus service vanished in favour of short workings out of Penrith and Kendal that provided the villages with minimal links for work, school, and shopping. Through stopping journeys were instead provided for by Ribble's regional express services, X21 Liverpool-Preston-Lancaster-Kendal-Penrith-Carlisle, and even by the Manchester-Glasgow and Liverpool-Edinburgh non-motorway journeys. This of course made the routes stage carriage, useful for fuel tax rebate and bus grant. But there was no need to extend the running time to cover the extra stops, because nobody used them anyway. To balance crew duties, at one time a Preston driver exchanged buses with his Carlisle equivalent in the layby at Shap Summit on the first bus of the day. Not much fun in a snowstorm in February, I remember.

Funnily enough I was in Shap today - by car, of course - and I noticed there's a forthcoming coffee morning in aid of - Air Ambulance? Mountain Rescue? Macmillan nurses?? No, in aid of the 106 bus service between Penrith and Kendal. I think it will be the first time I've seen a coffee morning the proceeds of which go (maybe indirectly!) to Stagecoach!
 

Busaholic

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I've tried googling this report but could not find anything. Can you provide a link?

Probably a year or more since I read it, so it could have disappeared. Memory can be fragile, but the figure of £160,000 comes to mind: no reason given for its non-payment e.g. Cornwall Council disputed it.
 
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