Coast certainly believe there's more value in the UK ops by keeping them than selling them off on the cheap. As I've said before, there are operations (like First Essex) that seem to have real potential and could do with learning what places like FSW and FWoE have done.
I'll cause yet more apoplexy, but my twitchiness has finally got the better of me. It isn't just (or even mostly) "learning what FWoE or FSW have done". Half of it is the transport investment in the road network and bus priority measures, and the different geography of Cornwall. (One of the reasons I holiday there is to get away to something different from the Essex suburbs). The incompetence of Essex County Council in transport, even exceeded by that of the regional Government transport office at Bedford, over decades, has to be seen to be believed. Even now the consultation A12 growth strategy fails to accommodate existing planned growth; and the A13 is even worse.
I agree that many First ops are now benefiting from strategies developed five years or longer ago (not least including FEC under two previous MDs). Waiting tried our patience, but we could see that one coming. (We even thought that EC had "had it" when chunks of their operations went to private operators who promptly doubled passengers before starting to grow themselves; whilst Essex were fattening). These things don't happen overnight. What were First Essex doing? Expanding, copying London, when with austerity everyone else in the Shires was pulling in their horns. First even gave them the ex-London management, to help the process along. They can't simply go into reverse by a click of the fingers. Indeed another poster really I think hit the nail on the head when they said something is wrong corporately throughout First. A strategy of "do as you please, but watch the bottom line" is, I think, asking for trouble. By the time we realise, it's too late. But back to First Essex; we have, and have had for years, depots struggling to cope day to day, a local management whose strategy to cope with congestion and rising passenger expectations is to pour more and more buses into the mix; and an MD and Board anxious to cut pvr and raise margins. Three levels, three competing agendas. Dysfunctional, is the polite word for it. First Essex can't operate their "network" (for want of a better word). Nobody else could, either (nor I suspect would be stupid enough to try). A bit of trimming round the edges doesn't begin to deal with it. Indeed since that is exactly where the future growth is, it looks like the opposite. But First Essex can't cope with the present. So never mind the future. (Just, in passing, what sort of business strategy is that?) Not that others haven't made the same mistake, too many of them in fact; but they either learned quickly that the Home Counties aren't London (whatever the passengers think it ought to be) or in the case of smaller bethren, went bust and learned the hard way. Perhaps First just never learned at all, or never had to. I'm accused of always being negative, so I suppose we have that to be thankful for. (I think Stagecoach who used to be my local operator called it right, but don't they (almost) always?)
Just for amusement I counted up the number of buses registering for the shrunken Essex on BusTimes. 336. Compare that to neighbouring Shire Operators over a similar area (not the whole of Arriva south east, before anyone makes the comparison, though). It's not a metropolitan area, lovely as it may sound for everyone to have a bus route (well allegedly) within 200m, or to have two (or even three) services to each suburb, or a mimimum inter urban frequency of half-hourly, or more frequent. Look at the buses and they're half empty, or usually more empty. And still on here we call for more commercial buses. Obviously Moir's legacy is alive and well. Surely at some point we should consider matching resources and demand? Occasionally I have had the nightmare that if I worked in First Corporate HQ (it'd never happen fortunately, thanks to mutual hatred) would I allocate new fleet to Essex, either? I think Stagcoach East do compare in fleet size, but mid and south Essex have nothing like Cambridge, or its attraction.
It wasn't so long ago that we had the Colchester operations manager (proudly?) boasting that he had more buses at his depot than they had ever had. I'm sure they can all say the same across the First Essex operations. Is that all there is to it?
