Thanks for your interesting feedback.
Is it possible to update signs showing bus predictions when services are cancelled? I visit High Wycombe with work and was there a few weeks ago. It'd be good when services are just showing a predicted time to know if they're just not tracking or are actually cancelled - I seemed to always go for a service 2 that didn't exist.
Absolutely; we'll raise this with the local transport authority who own the RTPI infrastructure.
If Arriva cannot comply with the new rules in Merseyside without transferring out the few remaining decent buses elsewhere they need to makes cuts in service levels in Merseyside so that the current number of newer vehicles is sufficient and come out and tell Merseyside exactly why their services are being cut (because the council are implementing rules that aren’t compatible with the efficient running of buses which requires older and therefore usually less reliable vehicles to be split equally across an entire operation so that the reduction in reliability of such vehicles can be compensated by slotting them between newer more reliable vehicles significantly reducing the risk of consecutive cancellations and spreading the strain on maintenance teams
To go back to the poster's point of cutting services to harvest older buses will just cause further contractment and retrenchment leading to an even more shrinking business. Business needs to look for careful, calculated opportunity to expand and more importantly survive. Without sounding too controversial, the ANWW unit isn't just cut to the bone but eroding the marrow now. It needs a massive overhaul and investment both in the fleet and infrastructure to survive. The latest accounts show a massive £48 million pounds write off on the fleet causing an astronomical loss and a bid to survive and I presume to make the accounts more palatable for a future buyer- whom we now know is I Squared.
Hopefully over the next 2 or 3 years they will invest in 3 to 400 buses and the routes to revive the business.
So in conclusion the idea of scrapping routes and frequencies is an absolute non starter for me and these vehicle transfers from Yorkshire and the Midlands are a temporary, quick and necessary move to comply with vehicle age requirements.
It would be good if our new friend ArrivaMatt has an opinion on this but, in the most respectful way, I daresay he'd cross the line by commenting on such a political subject.
This isn't necessarily about politics, it's about economics. To quote the updated
passenger statistics to quantify a non-bus analogy, if a homeowner's household income reduces by 15% at the same time bills increased by 20%, they are not likely to invest in a new car if the one already owned is still usable. This is probably the most cost effective option to extend the life of a vehicle than replace it entirely, knowing that in the mid-term, any future investment made will have greater confidence that there will be a financial return, particularly in a rapidly-evolving and steadily recovering marketplace. This presents its own challenges, particularly as specialist parts are more difficult to procure and lead times are increasing, however this is mitigated by a very committed, hard-working Engineering team and the fluidity of fleet to allow for balance of depot age profile.
Much like other large groups in the industry, Arriva has a healthy mix of new, mid-life and fully depreciated assets; each fulfilling their requirement within the business. Investment in the Arriva fleet has continued despite the challenges of the last few years, both through commercial investment and through supported schemes. Leicester, as an Arriva Midlands example, has included the commercial purchase of 28 ADL E400MMCs and 8 ADL E200MMCs in late 2022, which is being complimented by 24 Wright Streetdeck Electroliners funded through ZEBRA being trickled into service this autumn/winter. It's no industry secret that commercially-funded new bus injections are often placed on the busiest, most popular corridors - both to maximise the customer benefit of new features and so on, but also to withstand the cost of purchase.
As a note, ZEBRA tops up 75% of the cost increase between a diesel and an electric vehicle, therefore a business case must still be evaluated to measure both the savings generated by electric propulsion but also the capital cost of the remaining 25% uplift
and the original commercial investment.
The idea of investing in up to 400 buses to revive the business isn't a sustainable suggestion as a circa ~£200k per bus investment would put astronomical cost pressures on any business, just in depreciation alone. Acquiring the capital would attract significant interest. The TCO would have to be recovered through an increase in bus fares, which would return to the earlier point of the unattractiveness of higher fares, and thus the cycle of unsustainability commences - which has clearly been the case in some notable examples in recent years. There's also the pending shift to the franchise model in Liverpool City Region from late 2026, which'll inevitably change strategy by virtue of the shift in market and business model. Whole life cost must be considered about finding a new home for assets if, for example, franchise requirements differ from the specification of vehicles purchased commercially.
As alluded to by
@F262YTJ , the necessary move to comply with age restrictions is one that any other big group would do, using scalability of resources to best advantage to bolster demands or pressures on fleet. Moving assets from other parts of the business is a far quicker and sustainable option than buying buses at significant lead times or unnecessary cost. Go South Coast wisely used assets from every corner of the group to prop-up the fleet in Bournemouth after the demise of Yellow Buses - so why wouldn't they buy a brand new fleet to replace half of the inherited network's PVR?
The change in ownership of Arriva signals a scaling up of the strategic transition towards sustainable, net zero-emission fleets. It's my personal view that to bridge the gap in the fleet profile, which is a byproduct of pause in investment caused by the pandemic, an opportunity is presented that allows time for manufacturers to improve range and lower the cost of production of zero emission vehicles. We're still in an evolving transition of these vehicles being presented to market, so this will mean more confidence in the ROI for an asset that'll be in service for 12+ years in the future.
Cutting services in Merseyside has been their main aim. When they took over MTL back in 2001 they acquired approximately 1000 buses with the operation plus they had their own existing Aintree, Bootle and Skelmersdale depots with 3-400 buses.
The combined fleet for the unit, including Wales is around the 750 mark. Service slashing has been their hobby. The network is less than skeletal 23 years latest with routes culled and frequencies slashed.
People's habits have changed and moved to other forms of transport. In my own experience a major route which was the most profitable during MTL days and when they took over filled Leyland Nationals/Atlanteans/Olympians/Volvo B10Bs on a 10 minutes frequency is now just half hourly carrying less than half a bus in the main. The reason for this is that they priced the routes out of the market and here is why :-
Before Rishi's £2 adult flat fare it would cost £2.30 adult and £1.20 child single, daysaver was £4.50 and child was the Merseytravel £2.10 MyTicket. A private hire taxi was around £3.50 single from into the town centre. Now, ph taxi fares had not particularly risen substantially for many years thus a woman with a child could get a door to door service for much the same price as a bus which is more direct and faster than the bus.
Flexing and tailoring service levels is a necessity for network sustainability in reaction to rapidly changing travel demands, an industry-wide issue to contend. The market is significantly different to that in 2001; an inevitability considering that bus mileage in England is down 28% since March 2005, in the same period that local authority spend on public transport is down by 46.7%. Working from home and the changing structure of the High Street has been a pressure on the industry for decades, with COVID exponentially compounding this trend. The bridge in off-peak demand has also shifted with ENCTS usage dropping more than any other customer group. That said, shoots and leaves are emerging in year-on-year comparison as we emerge away from reactive changes into growth, sometimes commercially and sometimes through subsidy. A 12.3% uplift in network funding and a 19% increase in patronage between March 2022 and March 2023 is encouraging, but still far from pre-2020 levels. Contributing to this growth includes the flattening of the peak through continental shift patterns and flexible working patterns allowing operators to better utilise their assets across a wider span of the day, as well as an increase in travel for leisure.
Change in the market is not primarily about price, though this is a considered demand factor that the £2 fare cap has assisted with. Transport Focus has some great publications on drivers of customer demand, which include purpose, convenience, frequency and journey time. All of these must be delivered with a balance of attractivity to new and existing bus users whilst remaining commercial viable. A tricky balance to achieve.
Competition from other modes will always be challenging, though individual and some group journeys in app-based private hire bookings such as Uber or Bolt are, in our experience, often significantly more expensive when compared with a similar journey at the £2 fare cap. That's not to say that this isn't true in other markets and it'd be insightful to know where a £3.50 private hire cab exists. More importantly, in my opinion, the real competition is car, and conveying the real costs of ownership and/or a comparative journey is something that perhaps the industry could better voice together which might help shift perception of bus, and what value it offers.
Updating my recent post on High Wycombe things seem better today - all four boards running on the 10/13 and five of seven on the 2/12. I have now seen the bus purporting to be 3007 - it is 3007, so its good to see that out after so long off the road.
I hadn't realised how useless the App is! I had thought that if Arriva say their own bus is cancelled then it is. But no, BusTimes shows the 11.30 from Wycombe to Reading and the App also showed it is cancelled. But it isn't, I've seen it - it is 3920, which hasn't tracked since Tuesday! Also the App says the 800 from Marlow to Wycombe due at 12.49 is cancelled, but BusTimes shows it as running, it is one of the vehicles tracking as 3029, I think 3010. This does cast doubt on my assertion that three consecutive boards were missing on the 11/800/850 yesterday, it is likely that one was 3920 at least. BusTimes also shows the last journey to Reading and back as having not run, whereas the App definitely said it did run. Buses also drop off the App after the due time even if they are running late and the App previously told you of this - bizarre.
As previously mentioned, bustimes isn't always reflective of what is happening on the ground, as has been referenced in other threads for other operators. The app issues outlined are currently being investigated. Some long-term VOR vehicles at High Wycombe are now being returned to service, following a short period of parts delays for major unit repairs.
