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Transdev Blazefield

RustySpoons

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Transdev started an express route between Harrogate and York every 2 hours. It was so successful they made it every hour.

But most of the passengers were on ENTCS passes and NYCC paid less that the cost of running the bus for a full load.
They're not allowed to take paying passengers in preference to people with passes, so they withdrew the route.

I do genuinely believe that unfair operator reimbursements for ENTCS passes are responsible for a lot of the lost links across bus networks, the Harrogate to York you mentioned is a perfect example. I also think that operators would be more willing to experiment with new routes if they could get fair ENTCS payments, otherwise they're effectively just throwing money away.
 
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TheGrandWazoo

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Transdev started an express route between Harrogate and York every 2 hours. It was so successful they made it every hour.

But most of the passengers were on ENTCS passes and NYCC paid less that the cost of running the bus for a full load.
They're not allowed to take paying passengers in preference to people with passes, so they withdrew the route.
I do genuinely believe that unfair operator reimbursements for ENTCS passes are responsible for a lot of the lost links across bus networks, the Harrogate to York you mentioned is a perfect example. I also think that operators would be more willing to experiment with new routes if they could get fair ENTCS payments, otherwise they're effectively just throwing money away.

Indeed, I do recall the X54 (?) and I guess that's the issue. There's demand and there's sustainable demand. NYCC are famously parsimonious with remuneration but it's a problem that we all know about. Geoffrey and Marjorie would happily get on if it's free and time is less of a consideration but people paying fares?

@RustySpoons is on the money. Once upon a time, operators could experiment more but with margins so thin anyway, the balance of risk vs reward has really tipped.
 

markymark2000

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I did read your posts. It's all well and good saying "if demand is there" and "it's easier than you think". Perhaps you could explain, based on your experience, how you accurately establish demand?

MK is an interesting point. It does have a route network but it's got nearly 250k people. It should do and yet it has relatively few high frequency services; fewer than towns with half the population and reflecting it's a tough place to operate. A problem that afflicts many of the new towns especially the later tranches that were much more car or cycle focused.

Getting this back on topic, it's easy to slate Transdev but compared to many firms who were simply managing decline, they have at least tried to introduce new routes (and have been criticised for doing so). Many firms simply haven't bothered. If it's easier than we all think, what routes should they be operating?
I don't think you did read my posts properly. I've never said 'if demand is there it will work' so again you are twisting my words to make it fit your agenda.

My way for working out demand is finding densely populated areas and linking them to work, retail and leisure nearby, that is a good starting point. Linking as close as possible door to door (not serving all the streets but don't drop people off too far away from the main workplaces and retail areas). To add to the demand, you find school and college services which you duplicate or can easily divert to to try and replace some buses in full or part to increase demand and possible funding opportunities. Work with big employers and get as much information as you can on shifts to try and link up with shift times (generally achievable by googling). Finally look at tendered services and see for their passenger numbers and revenue if you duplicate an area to try and claim extra funding by replacing a tendered route. By doing this, you have 2 potential funding sources and demand from day 1 (Admittedly stolen from other routes but it helps while the route builds up.
You then keep in contact with the passengers to adapt to the shift/school times.

For brand new areas where you can't get any of the above, you will struggle a little bit more since you have little funding opportunities and demand from day 1 so it will take time for passengers to discover the route and change their habits.

I will not criticize Transdev for trying new routes but more criticize what should have been done differently. Much like we both did with CityZap MCR earlier in the discussion. Had potential to work and a good idea, didn't work out due to many factors.

For specific routes I think Transdev should be doing, that is more difficult in that they have a lot of areas served where they operate, they are the dominant operator and any potential expansions would be competing with other operators.

Housing estates are difficult places to serve. Council estates of the 50s, 60s and 70s weren't that different. The 50s estate my grandparents lived on had narrow roads and didn't get a bus service into the heart of the estate until the bread vans of the late 80s. The 70s privately-developed estate my mother in law lives in is the same. Older estates were often built with a "main road" through them, ironically because it was the age of the car. Those roads help bus services penetrate more into the estate, but away from that main road penetration was and is low. Estate buses in most conurbations now only survive on local authority subsidy.

The big council estates of the 50s and 60s had one advantage, though: they were built on the edge of town, and so were a natural terminus for city buses. Think Chapel House or Walker in Newcastle, Greengates or Holme Wood in Bradford, Seacroft in Leeds, Easterhouse in Glasgow. They were big too, far bigger than the private estates getting built these days, so you had a ready-made critical mass. Even the biggest of the new "garden villages", at Long Marston, has 3000 or so properties planned. It sounds a lot, but not really, not enough to maintain a critical mass for an intensive bus service.
The difficulty with new estates is they need to work with existing routes (or at least some existing demand on route for local travel) and as you say it's not normally enough for them to be standalone routes. It's all possible but just made a little bit more difficult. One of the issues however is that when funding is put aside for buses into the estates, bus operators are so scared of serving the sites that the money ends up going towards an unviable standalone route meaning not only is the money wasted quicker but possible journey opportunities (which could be very popular) are not made possible.

Transdev started an express route between Harrogate and York every 2 hours. It was so successful they made it every hour.

But most of the passengers were on ENTCS passes and NYCC paid less that the cost of running the bus for a full load.
They're not allowed to take paying passengers in preference to people with passes, so they withdrew the route.
Put an open top bus on it and call it a sightseeing route haha
 

Deerfold

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Tetchytyke

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My way for working out demand is finding densely populated areas and linking them to work, retail and leisure nearby, that is a good starting point.

Do you not think that operators already do that? If there's demand, operators will run.

One of the issues however is that when funding is put aside for buses into the estates, bus operators are so scared of serving the sites that the money ends up going towards an unviable standalone route

In many cases the new estates can only be served by standalone routes, because they are not actually on the way to or from anywhere. And where the estates are on the way to or from somewhere, operators have to balance the potential revenue generated against the potential revenue lost by the diversion.

There are a number of new estates between Blyth and Cramlington where Arriva stop on the main road and don't divert into the estates. The main road is served by the express Blyth-Newcastle bus. Arriva could go up into every estate, turn around and come back out again, but it would add 10 minutes to the journey time in each direction, putting off existing customers, and would almost certainly need at least one bus added into the rotation, probably more. Would a new estate full of £350,000 detached houses generate sufficient income to replace the lost Blyth-Newcastle passengers, and to pay for the increase in PVR? Very unlikely.

There are other dilemmas too. Near where I used to live a big estate has been built parallel to a mining village dating from the 1800s. The commercial Arriva service runs along the parallel main roads that link into the estate, but doesn't go into the estate itself- because it goes to the mining village instead. The estate gets a standalone tendered bread van to the local Metro station. Do you divert the commercial bus away from the mining village with an existing customer base on the off-chance that people in £350,000 detached houses will replace the existing customers? Do you serve both, add 10 minutes to the journey and have to fund an increase in PVR?

if you duplicate an area to try and claim extra funding by replacing a tendered route.

That's really not how it works.
 

TheGrandWazoo

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I don't think you did read my posts properly. I've never said 'if demand is there it will work' so again you are twisting my words to make it fit your agenda.

My way for working out demand is finding densely populated areas and linking them to work, retail and leisure nearby, that is a good starting point. Linking as close as possible door to door (not serving all the streets but don't drop people off too far away from the main workplaces and retail areas). To add to the demand, you find school and college services which you duplicate or can easily divert to to try and replace some buses in full or part to increase demand and possible funding opportunities. Work with big employers and get as much information as you can on shifts to try and link up with shift times (generally achievable by googling). Finally look at tendered services and see for their passenger numbers and revenue if you duplicate an area to try and claim extra funding by replacing a tendered route. By doing this, you have 2 potential funding sources and demand from day 1 (Admittedly stolen from other routes but it helps while the route builds up.
You then keep in contact with the passengers to adapt to the shift/school times.

For brand new areas where you can't get any of the above, you will struggle a little bit more since you have little funding opportunities and demand from day 1 so it will take time for passengers to discover the route and change their habits.

I will not criticize Transdev for trying new routes but more criticize what should have been done differently. Much like we both did with CityZap MCR earlier in the discussion. Had potential to work and a good idea, didn't work out due to many factors.

For specific routes I think Transdev should be doing, that is more difficult in that they have a lot of areas served where they operate, they are the dominant operator and any potential expansions would be competing with other operators.

I don't know how I can convince you that I have read your posts.

What I can say is I don't know which companies you've worked for. I don't work in the industry but a couple of my friends are commercial managers.... this is what they do. You seem to believe that for Transdev or whomever, it's all a no brainer. Simply put the ingredients in and it just happens.

Let's look at what you say.... Finding densely populated areas? Ok, what constitutes dense or large? You can work out schools from catchment areas but how do you know where people work? Remember, this is a new development. And also, you're talking about diverting routes.... I thought the point was that these are new services? In some places, companies have been able to convert tendered routes to commercial operation but again, I thought these were new services?

You believe it's easy for Transdev or any other operator simply to look at a map, look at where people might travel, chuck all the publicity etc you want at it and all the good stuff and it just will happen. Knowing two commercial managers (albeit not in Transdev), it really isn't that simple. It really isn't. And what you say doesn't come cheap... I don't know what Transdev burnt through on CZ Mcr in terms of marketing and running costs but it isn't a small amount. That's why operators tend to adopt lower risk strategies.

As for potential Transdev expansions and competing with other operators, again these are new services forging new links so there wouldn't be competition, and most certainly not in East Lancashire where, as you say, they are the dominant operator.
 

Swimbar

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It appears to be under Harrogate rather than Keighley. Bit of a surprise.

I wonder how the fares will work (day and season tickets)? Harrogate's tend to be rather more than Keighley's.
Keighley is in the WYMetro area, Harrogate is not.
This affects any fare structure.
 

markymark2000

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I don't know how I can convince you that I have read your posts.
By not finding a few words and attempting to rip it to shreds. The few words you pick out mean nothing on their own, the rest of the sentence added the context.

What I can say is I don't know which companies you've worked for. I don't work in the industry but a couple of my friends are commercial managers.... this is what they do. You seem to believe that for Transdev or whomever, it's all a no brainer. Simply put the ingredients in and it just happens.
Not quite, a lot of work needs to go into it and many operators have holes in their services which are big reasons as to why they didn't make as much money as hoped. We've listed some and there are many non Transdev examples out there which I won't post here for obvious reasons. If your friends are commercial managers, what do they do, manage a declining network, stick to the routes they have because it's easier or just put random routes on and hope there are passengers. Clearly what the many commercial managers are doing right now isn't working. If it was, more people would be on buses and there wouldn't be such a decline in bus usage.

Let's look at what you say.... Finding densely populated areas? Ok, what constitutes dense or large? You can work out schools from catchment areas but how do you know where people work? Remember, this is a new development. And also, you're talking about diverting routes.... I thought the point was that these are new services? In some places, companies have been able to convert tendered routes to commercial operation but again, I thought these were new services?
What do you think constitutes dense? Lots of people in an area. Sparsely populated areas don't tend to make money or they are areas which have more elderly residents so that would be a waste of time. You can look at many areas like UKCensusData to see density.
Schools you can find the catchment area and look at existing bus routes. Finding out where people work from a new development is difficult as it will vary widely. My comments about 'finding out where people work' is a more sparse term for any new route and not specifically a new development as it would be impossible to work that sort of stuff out without asking each resident which isn't viable.

Clearly, you don't understand my posts since I am having to keep explaining it all. Perhaps if it makes no sense to you, just scroll past since it's boring for other forum users to sit here watching me explain things so much because 1 person doesn't understand what relates specifically to new development routes and what relates to new routes altogether.

You believe it's easy for Transdev or any other operator simply to look at a map, look at where people might travel, chuck all the publicity etc you want at it and all the good stuff and it just will happen. Knowing two commercial managers (albeit not in Transdev), it really isn't that simple. It really isn't. And what you say doesn't come cheap... I don't know what Transdev burnt through on CZ Mcr in terms of marketing and running costs but it isn't a small amount. That's why operators tend to adopt lower risk strategies.

As for potential Transdev expansions and competing with other operators, again these are new services forging new links so there wouldn't be competition, and most certainly not in East Lancashire where, as you say, they are the dominant operator.


Lower risk generally also means lower returns and very little benefit. CityZap may have lost a lot yes but it would always be very difficult on such a route to make money straight away and more so when there were issues with prices. The route has 4 buses and the stops are quite spaced out with little potential for local travel. This meant that potential to recoup costs was vastly reduced.
For potential expansions, I think the main opportunities would be Burnley and Rochdale routes. There is some potential in Blackburn but they have discounted that since having their fingers burnt from when they took over from Blackburn Transport. Some potential for Harrogate and Keighley as well and while they would be new links, there would be some competition with other companies and Transdev don't seem to like that so it would be silly suggesting them.

Do you not think that operators already do that? If there's demand, operators will run.
Running where there is demand can happen but generally they just keep running routes which used to run and slowly adapted them little by little by requests. Not many customers voice new demand for routes since they rarely happen by customer requests (at least at bigger companies). Demand isn't all the reason why routes run since demand also depends on who is asking for such a route and what use the route has. You have to look in detail at the service slightly more than actual end to end demand and look at the demand for local travel which is normally what keeps a route going.

In many cases the new estates can only be served by standalone routes, because they are not actually on the way to or from anywhere. And where the estates are on the way to or from somewhere, operators have to balance the potential revenue generated against the potential revenue lost by the diversion.

There are a number of new estates between Blyth and Cramlington where Arriva stop on the main road and don't divert into the estates. The main road is served by the express Blyth-Newcastle bus. Arriva could go up into every estate, turn around and come back out again, but it would add 10 minutes to the journey time in each direction, putting off existing customers, and would almost certainly need at least one bus added into the rotation, probably more. Would a new estate full of £350,000 detached houses generate sufficient income to replace the lost Blyth-Newcastle passengers, and to pay for the increase in PVR? Very unlikely.

There are other dilemmas too. Near where I used to live a big estate has been built parallel to a mining village dating from the 1800s. The commercial Arriva service runs along the parallel main roads that link into the estate, but doesn't go into the estate itself- because it goes to the mining village instead. The estate gets a standalone tendered bread van to the local Metro station. Do you divert the commercial bus away from the mining village with an existing customer base on the off-chance that people in £350,000 detached houses will replace the existing customers? Do you serve both, add 10 minutes to the journey and have to fund an increase in PVR?
I would argue some estates need standalone routes. Not all though. It all depends on a case by case basis. As with everything in the industry, nothing is a 1 size fits all and there is a lot more to look into. Generally I would judge new estates by how much of the estate is within the 400m of a bus route (or how easily could the bus stops be installed to bring the majority of the estate within 400m of a bus stop). Also by how easy it is for a bus to serve the estate. Many estates could do with bus gates through to main roads to allow 'through' routes instead of going in, turning around and back. With each development based on it's own merits, it's difficult to say what I would suggest doing.
Cramlington to Blyth developments that I can see are generally close to bus stops or as you say it would be impossible to serve with a through route (unless bus gates were installed). Cramlington is also very difficult since it is like a small Milton Keynes with the area being made for cars with lots of dead end roads with paths to the main road for buses so to serve many areas closely, you will need a lot of additional time or a standalone route.


That's really not how it works.
Well, it is. Work with the right people and if you duplicate routes, you can negotiate the funding or if you know a specific area makes money, you can claim the tendered route is extracting revenue. You can get funding though from schools/colleges if you can guarantee getting the students to the place on time and have enough capacity since it reduces the amount of funding the schools/colleges (or councils) spent on dedicated buses. As long as you can provide a cheaper service without jeopardising the student punctuality, you can negotiate.


It's funny going through this thread since you both keep saying that my way won't work but you have put forward no alternatives. It's easy to criticize, not so easy to come up with solutions (which I have done). My timetables have been praised by many bus operators and they have all been worked off my above tactics so they can't be that wrong can they. It's no wonder people refrain from posting on forums when if your opinions/way of working doesn't fit the masses, you just get criticized by others who are too busy trying to find holes in posts to put forward a viable alternative or find anomalies despite you saying in all posts 'generally' meaning it will not be for all circumstances!
 

Stan Drews

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It's funny going through this thread since you both keep saying that my way won't work but you have put forward no alternatives. It's easy to criticize, not so easy to come up with solutions (which I have done). My timetables have been praised by many bus operators and they have all been worked off my above tactics so they can't be that wrong can they. It's no wonder people refrain from posting on forums when if your opinions/way of working doesn't fit the masses, you just get criticized by others who are too busy trying to find holes in posts to put forward a viable alternative or find anomalies despite you saying in all posts 'generally' meaning it will not be for all circumstances!

I’d be really interested to hear about one of your new timetables, praised by many operators, that would illustrate the points you’ve made and demonstrate the successes alluded to. If you’re able to provide one, perhaps we can all learn from it.
 

markymark2000

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I’d be really interested to hear about one of your new timetables, praised by many operators, that would illustrate the points you’ve made and demonstrate the successes alluded to. If you’re able to provide one, perhaps we can all learn from it.
Sent via DM (since this thread is not the place)
 

NorthOxonian

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I thought the Harrogate line now came under WYMetro?

It does (for some season tickets at least), however this does not apply to buses outside the county boundary. So things like the WY Bus Daysaver don't apply, meaning there's effectively no upper cap on day tickets.
 

TheGrandWazoo

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Not quite, a lot of work needs to go into it and many operators have holes in their services which are big reasons as to why they didn't make as much money as hoped. We've listed some and there are many non Transdev examples out there which I won't post here for obvious reasons. If your friends are commercial managers, what do they do, manage a declining network, stick to the routes they have because it's easier or just put random routes on and hope there are passengers. Clearly what the many commercial managers are doing right now isn't working. If it was, more people would be on buses and there wouldn't be such a decline in bus usage.

Not if... they are commercial managers. Without wishing to identify them or their employers, both of them have worked in the North West and one of the major successes in the region was as a consequence of their focussing on an existing route and developing it. One of them is now a commercial manager in another part of the country and is busy trying to craft a network that is viable despite cuts and ENCTS remuneration and the overall collapse of the local retail trade (before Covid). So they are experienced managers with 20+ years experience..... so they know the realities of life.

There are many reasons why bus services aren't "working" as you would say. First of all, modern developments (as has been explained ad nauseum) are difficult to serve, especially with conventional vehicles. Once upon a time, you could send a van derived minibus there with a driver paid less but these days, it is difficult to make it pay with higher driver wages and PSVAR requirements. Stagecoach tried in Ashford with "little and often" but the extra resources needed for higher frequencies didn't result in sufficient additional revenue. Then you have, as I point out, the collapsing footfall on the high street. More internet shopping has reduced high street footfall massively - what's a bus commercial manager supposed to do about that?

As for serving out of town locations, that is not straight forward. Once upon a time, you would have masses of workers in major factories or other sites (e.g. collieries) living close to them. Nowadays, that is more disparate and people now travel further to work than they did in 1992 and in many places, there simply aren't the numbers of people. There are some distribution parks that will have large warehouses that will have sufficient mass of possible punters and indeed, some bus companies do try to serve such markets, sometimes supported with developer funding.

Other large out of town locations are hospitals (for both workers and employers), universities and the larger shopping centres. And indeed, the bus companies DO seek to target those markets. The growth in higher education has seen many firms develop their route networks to exploit this. This can be via a tie up with the university and/or Student Union. There are many examples of this across the UK

These are things that bus companies actually do. You just don't actually realise that they do it, and I'm unclear as to where your assertion that it's easier than you think comes from? Is this based on your professional experience?
 

Deerfold

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Keighley is in the WYMetro area, Harrogate is not.
This affects any fare structure.

I realise that.

But when Transdev Keighley ran to Harrogate from Keighley, K-day tickets were accepted throughout. I'm guessing that if Harrogate are running this service, they won't be. Perhaps they'll be accepted for part of the route, or perhaps they'll only accept the Bradford 7 ticket.
 

Tetchytyke

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Well, it is. Work with the right people and if you duplicate routes, you can negotiate the funding or if you know a specific area makes money, you can claim the tendered route is extracting revenue.

It really isn't. You can't use the registration of a commercial route to attempt to steal a competitive council tender. You can, of course, claim the tender is abstracting revenue from your commercial service, but then you're on your own. And if a tendered route was so amazingly profitable it wouldn't be on a tender.

Some potential for Harrogate and Keighley as well

What potential? As explained above, they tried Harrogate to York and it didn't make money. Harrogate to Skipton? Sheep don't usually take the bus. Keighley to Halifax? Maybe, but it's interesting that Transdev haven't ever stepped in when First withdrew their commercial service over ten years ago. They did to Hebden Bridge, even improving the service from a couple of buses a day to hourly. Transdev expanded the Ilkley service through to Otley and then the airport.

Demand isn't all the reason why routes run

Routes with no demand don't run because they don't make money.

You can get funding though from schools/colleges if you can guarantee getting the students to the place on time and have enough capacity since it reduces the amount of funding the schools/colleges (or councils) spent on dedicated buses.

Bus companies are already good at the student market, especially in cities like York and Lancaster where the uni is on the edge of town. But look at what happened in York in 2015, First did what you suggested, Transdev tried to keep going on a commercial basis but Transdev eventually had to back down. It turns out the demand is finite after all.

It's no wonder people refrain from posting on forums when if your opinions/way of working doesn't fit the masses

I thought we were having a mature conversation. I'm not going to say I think an idea is good if I think it isn't, I'm going to explain why I disagree.

Most of your ideas appear to be more about abstracting numbers from existing services than developing new links and creating new demand. Running a college or council tender off the road doesn't stimulate demand, it merely transfers the demand.

There are some distribution parks that will have large warehouses that will have sufficient mass of possible punters and indeed, some bus companies do try to serve such markets

An excellent example is Cobalt business park in Newcastle. Whrn it was small and starting out it was served by Route19, on developer funding, and Arriva and GNE local buses. As it has expanded bus companies have run more and more services to it, GNE diverted their Newcastle-Coast Road-Blyth buses via the park. Stagecoach extended several existing services (both from Newcastle and from Jarrow via the tunnel) to serve it. Now Arriva, GNE and Stagecoach all serve the park, all even running express buses to the park from Newcastle in the peaks. Likewise at Doxford in Sunderland.

If there's demand the services will run. If not, well...
 
Last edited:

Andyh82

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I expect it'll be seen as a separate operation and the licence it is on will be irrelevant

Burnley & Pendle ran the Cityzap Manchester but Burnley tickets, fares etc were not applied
 

Deerfold

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Sheep don't usually take the bus. Keighley to Halifax? Maybe, but it's interesting that Transdev haven't ever stepped in when First withdrew their commercial service over ten years ago. They did to Hebden Bridge, even improving the service from a couple of buses a day to hourly. Transdev expanded the Ilkley service through to Otley and then the airport.

I think the problems with Halifax to Keighley were it didn't fit in well adding an hourly service with their half-hourly service between Keighley and Denholme on the way to Bradford - and then competing with First *and* TJ Walsh as soon as they were back in a populated area with their one bus an hour.

The Hebden Bridge increase was a tender (the increase over the hills actually resulted in fewer buses between Oxenhope and Keighley as the tendered 500 used to be in addition to the standard hourly service on the 663. The new tender coupled the commercial service to Oxenhope to a tendered extension). Otley to the Airport is also tendered, though Ilkley to Otley is commercial.
 

markymark2000

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Not if... they are commercial managers. Without wishing to identify them or their employers, both of them have worked in the North West and one of the major successes in the region was as a consequence of their focussing on an existing route and developing it. One of them is now a commercial manager in another part of the country and is busy trying to craft a network that is viable despite cuts and ENCTS remuneration and the overall collapse of the local retail trade (before Covid). So they are experienced managers with 20+ years experience..... so they know the realities of life.

There are many reasons why bus services aren't "working" as you would say. First of all, modern developments (as has been explained ad nauseum) are difficult to serve, especially with conventional vehicles. Once upon a time, you could send a van derived minibus there with a driver paid less but these days, it is difficult to make it pay with higher driver wages and PSVAR requirements. Stagecoach tried in Ashford with "little and often" but the extra resources needed for higher frequencies didn't result in sufficient additional revenue. Then you have, as I point out, the collapsing footfall on the high street. More internet shopping has reduced high street footfall massively - what's a bus commercial manager supposed to do about that?

As for serving out of town locations, that is not straight forward. Once upon a time, you would have masses of workers in major factories or other sites (e.g. collieries) living close to them. Nowadays, that is more disparate and people now travel further to work than they did in 1992 and in many places, there simply aren't the numbers of people. There are some distribution parks that will have large warehouses that will have sufficient mass of possible punters and indeed, some bus companies do try to serve such markets, sometimes supported with developer funding.

Other large out of town locations are hospitals (for both workers and employers), universities and the larger shopping centres. And indeed, the bus companies DO seek to target those markets. The growth in higher education has seen many firms develop their route networks to exploit this. This can be via a tie up with the university and/or Student Union. There are many examples of this across the UK

These are things that bus companies actually do. You just don't actually realise that they do it, and I'm unclear as to where your assertion that it's easier than you think comes from? Is this based on your professional experience?
I can understand you not wanting to identify who you are talking about.
I don't know why you keep going on about modern developments being difficult to serve. Each development obviously should be treated on their own merits so yes, some are difficult to serve, some aren't.
Distribution parks can be well served if there is a will to make them work. Omega in Warrington now has a commercial works bus linking to the many different shift times. You can often find a full decker on the route. This was given funding to start with but was then made commercial because of the uptake. Distribution parks are difficult to make money normally because the bus stops are no where near the staff entrances and/or buses do not serve all shift patterns (IE no point trying to pick up at 2pm if you don't drop them off at 6am (based on a normal industrial shift time). There aren't many worker buses out there though which proves that these markets are not always looked into. Also some distribution parks have huge usage but only to 1 area so the other surrounding towns despite having many workers residing but working on the distribution park. I'll use Omega again as an example having no link to St Helens because no one will trial it.
Out of town locations can be served and with the growing popularity of them, more time should be taken to serve them. There are plenty of retail parks which buses run alongside but do not stop inside or close to.

Universities, almost always have good buses, I do not dispute that (and have never brought it up before). Colleges, an example of good practise is Truro I think it is with Kernow sending most buses into the site. A bad example would be Deeside College which duplicates many commercial bus routes with their college buses. By negotiating with the college, there will likely be some leeway if you can guarantee no reduction in the quality of service but can provide a reduced cost.

I can confirm from experience that many bus companies do NOT try to serve these new areas unless there is funding in place and can't negotiate with colleges that well as it is proven with the amount of college bus routes which duplicate bus routes (both commercial and tendered). Your friends might do it but it isn't the 'norm' in the industry.


It really isn't. You can't use the registration of a commercial route to attempt to steal a competitive council tender. You can, of course, claim the tender is abstracting revenue from your commercial service, but then you're on your own. And if a tendered route was so amazingly profitable it wouldn't be on a tender.
It is not an automatic right no but it can always be negotiated. If you can save money on the tender by not serving an area, the council could provide deminims support to the new route to a lower sum. Ie, if the change means that the tender cost is reduced by 50k, the council could then provide 30k deminims support to the new service to 'divert' to the new area. Councils pay quite often for buses to 'divert' into an area that they would serve anyway without the funding.

What potential? As explained above, they tried Harrogate to York and it didn't make money. Harrogate to Skipton? Sheep don't usually take the bus. Keighley to Halifax? Maybe, but it's interesting that Transdev haven't ever stepped in when First withdrew their commercial service over ten years ago. They did to Hebden Bridge, even improving the service from a couple of buses a day to hourly. Transdev expanded the Ilkley service through to Otley and then the airport.
Oh sorry, I didn't know you had to post all your route suggestions on a forum. The route suggestions I keep to myself to send to the relevant people rather than post them on here for you to needlessly attempt to find holes in them.

Routes with no demand don't run because they don't make money.
I've never disputed that so once again, you are trying to find a hole in my post for no reason but to cause an argument.
In many cases, you do not know the full demand though when you start up. You have people who ask which can help give an idea but the only time you find out the full demand is when you trial it and people slowly start using it. What was meant by the statement was that end to end demand isn't what matters since there are lots of local travel opportunities and also if the demand is for elderly, it won't make money so you have to establish more than just overall demand but specifically the demographics of that demand.


You have to abstract numbers from some existing services somewhere. Every single new route does that. You abstract passengers to start with while you try to encourage newer passengers onto the bus. If someone goes from A to B five days per week to shop and they change to go from A to B three times per week and go from A to C twice per week, you are abstracting passengers from other routes.
While you can transfer demand, you also provide links from these areas into other areas which can stimulate more demand. Someone might use their local tendered bus once per week. A commercial route with new links might be used twice per week though (once to justify their existing journey and an additional journey to another place which the new bus links to). That is stimulating demand. Also if a person uses the bus once per week into town, the new route might link them to their workplace so they then use it for work and then for their existing shopping journey. With the new links, it links to more workplaces and some people will then use the bus when currently they can't.


Similar to what you say, there are only finite amount of people who want to use the bus and getting new people onto a bus takes years. Do you 1, spend years on a loss making route hoping people change their travel habits or 2, abstract some revenue/passengers while you build up the route for the longer term. No route is successful from day 1 and it will certainly not be successful for a long time unless you abstract some revenue from other routes and try to stimulate demand that way.
As Deerfold has said, the 62 as an example was taking over a tender between Otley and the Airport which is exactly what I was suggestions should happen more regularly. Take over in part or in full tenders to help subsidise new routes.
 
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Tetchytyke

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I think the problems with Halifax to Keighley were it didn't fit in well adding an hourly service with their half-hourly service between Keighley and Denholme on the way to Bradford - and then competing with First *and* TJ Walsh as soon as they were back in a populated area with their one bus an hour.

There's some truth in that, it makes a tendered extension to a commercial service harder, and Denholme-Keighley probably wouldn't support 3bph commercially, especially with an odd frequency. In Calderdale you'd be reliant on ENCTS and single fare passengers too, as season pass holders would wait for First. TJ Walsh have closed down due to Covid. I think we're in agreement that it isn't as simple as it looks to develop new services.

Unis are VERY different to schools and colleges as you might know if you spent more time living rather than trying to interpret my posts way off what they actually say and mean!

Universities and FE Colleges are a similar market, with less clearly defined start and end times.

I'm not sure what point you were trying to make with schools traffic. Schools services are increasingly run commercially- GNE run several on a commercial basis. Operators will run marginal estate or town services during the daytime with off-duty schools vehicles. Were you intending to combine normal service buses and school buses? If that's the case, I'm not sure who you'd be hoping to attract with a bus full of schoolkids?
 
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Deerfold

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There's some truth in that, it makes a tendered extension to a commercial service harder, and Denholme-Keighley probably wouldn't support 3bph commercially, especially with an odd frequency. In Calderdale you'd be reliant on ENCTS and single fare passengers too, as season pass holders would wait for First. TJ Walsh have closed down due to Covid. I think we're in agreement that it isn't as simple as it looks to develop new services.

Walsh have closed now, but I was looking at the decision at the time.
Keighley have reduced Keighley-Denholme-Bradford to mostly hourly now.

Before the fallout from the current situation was obvious Metro were making noises about a new Keighley to Halifax service (and there is a 3-times a week service on the X22).


Campaigners have been pressing for years for a direct service between Keighley and Halifax, via Denholme, to be reinstated.

Now West Yorkshire Combined Authority could be in line for just over £1 million from the Government, including cash to resurrect the service.
The development follows the announcement of the Department for Transport £220m Supported Bus Services Funding.
The combined authority has drawn up a list of 11 possible routes, including Keighley-Halifax, that could benefit from the funds.

If a bid to the Department is successful, a service could be back up and running by the end of this year.
 

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GusB

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Just a wee reminder that while we may have robust discussion and disagree with what another poster is saying, we must keep it civil. Thanks :)
 

TheGrandWazoo

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Distribution parks can be well served if there is a will to make them work.

It really does depend on the types of employers on those sites. Take your point on Omega. They have a service from Warrington that is pump primed by the developer. However, Omega from its further occupancy to now they took time to achieve that critical mass over a number of years. Again, if it were your business, when would you go in? Day 1 and lose money immediately or wait and see how it develops (whilst risking that people will simply make other arrangements). It's difficult (as with large housing developments) to time the entry in which is why s106 funding is often used to pump prime operations, and is a condition of planning. It really isn't straightforward. As an aside, those sites with the biggest workforces and largest potential customer base are often the major grocery or eCommerce facilties that are headcount hungry yet have the greatest seasonality and variation in usage with agency labour.

If I take an example closer to where I now live, Severn Beach has some large employers but draws its workforce from across Bristol, South Wales, South Glos - it's a nightmare to know what you run, from where and when. At least there are some employers that are easier to serve in Bristol and yes, they have services albeit as contracts as simply, the revenue wouldn't cover the costs.

Out of town locations can be served and with the growing popularity of them, more time should be taken to serve them. There are plenty of retail parks which buses run alongside but do not stop inside or close to.
I take what you say and if an operator can easily do so. I don't know which Transdev examples you're thinking of but take St James in Knaresborough. That gets a half hourly service as part of the 1 (plus Connexxions X1). It's large but it's no White Rose Centre and I doubt that it's going to sustain anything more than that.

Universities, almost always have good buses, I do not dispute that (and have never brought it up before). Colleges, an example of good practise is Truro I think it is with Kernow sending most buses into the site. A bad example would be Deeside College which duplicates many commercial bus routes with their college buses. By negotiating with the college, there will likely be some leeway if you can guarantee no reduction in the quality of service but can provide a reduced cost.

My point was that Universities now have good services. That wasn't always the case and it's one area where bus companies really have been able to develop services in line with the increase in student numbers and in a related fashion, University campuses that had on site accommodation have lost on site facilities (space used for teaching) or have simply reached capacity. This is shown by more accommodation, either private or Uni owned in some way, off site and necessitating transport into the campus. Even with private provision, even that tends to be clustered in particular areas in a town or city so it's easy to connect those to the University.

Colleges are more difficult. Truro is a good example where they do divert some services but it also has to have a great number of dedicated services. There are some areas where a local bus can be diverted in but often you have a disparate number of locations running to a central point for 0900 and then the return at 1700. Such a network has to be underpinned by the college as a commercial venture just isn't sustainable. Again back to Yorkshire, York College has routes running in from Northallerton, Scarborough, Goole, Sherburn, Ripon, Filey, Kirkbymoorside - it's a nightmare. Operators are increasingly working with Colleges to have a network but speculative commercial punts are just not sustainable.

Each bus you put on the road needs to make >£100k a year. New services are a risk when you're only making £1.4m as Transdev did. If it were simple, wouldn't everyone be doing it and raking in the cash?

Walsh have closed now, but I was looking at the decision at the time.
Keighley have reduced Keighley-Denholme-Halifax to mostly hourly now

I was wondering about this the other day. What has happened to the Walsh work?
 

Andyh82

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257 & 258, E3/E5/E7 is now South Pennine Community Transport
504 is now Yorkshire Tiger
564 isn't anyone at the moment but the only unique part of the route is currently closed due to a landslip caused by the storms in Feb

525, 555, 600, 700 were all duplicated by First services
 

Deerfold

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I was wondering about this the other day. What has happened to the Walsh work?

Some of it has been retendered (short term, I think).

Most of the commercial routes are simply no longer running.
Illingworth and Ovenden are still fairly well served by First. That's the 525/527/600/700. The 527 was tendered to serve Round Hill which is currently unserved (though most of the route is served). Grove Avenue in Ovenden is no longer served. Ovenday Way has dropped from 14bph to 5bph.

The 555 simply duplicated First's services to Siddal apart from having a stop nearer Halifax station.

The 504 was registered commercially when another operator won the latest tender. It's being run by Yorkshire Tiger with a break in service for lunch.

South Pennine Community Transport are running the E3 and E5 Elland locals and the 256/258 with fewer trips than normal. The E7 is not running.

The 564 Barkisland to Brighouse is not running - this is probably the biggest gap as it leaves the Park Road route between Elland and Brighouse unserved and part of Greetland Road with only 1bp2h. Anyone travelling from Barkisland to Brighouse would have to catch 3 buses (Or on 2 routes via Halifax). There are about 1/3 of the normal daily number of trips between Elland and Brighouse.
 
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Tetchytyke

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Walsh have closed now, but I was looking at the decision at the time.
Keighley have reduced Keighley-Denholme-Bradford to mostly hourly now.

Is the Denholme-Bradford reduction a Covid thing, or more likely to stay do you know? Keighley-Cullingworth-Denholme-Bradford should be able to sustain 2bph, surely.
 

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