The unfortunate news regarding the potential fates for High Wycombe and Aylesbury is incredibly saddening, both professionally and personally. Most of the responses in thread take a balanced view on external factors that are outside of Arriva's control, as well as some fair critique of how things could have been improved. Having spent close to 18 months working closely with both teams at the respective locations, they effectively became second homes whilst we looked to reinvigorate both networks which did meet the commercial ambitions for boosting ridership and improving on time performance. Relinquishing these two depots at the end of last year as part of an internal restructure was regrettable, as we were just about making significant inroads on the business' transformation. This does mean that I haven't been close to the detail for some time. Naturally, first thoughts are with the great teams at both locations who will certainly be well taken care of during this difficult time. The announcement definitely does not reflect the efforts of everyone at both locations, who've championed doing things differently and rethinking the status quo.
Sadly, increased costs and a challenging labour market is going to present difficulties in both mid-sized towns, with close proximity to London where higher wages are an attractor. In the case of High Wycombe, a few have spoken about the days of London Country's difficulties several decades ago - in a post-COVID world, spreading an already reduced pool of talented prospective employees across two mid-sized operators means that there's absolute sense for consolidation in a more concentrated market. Having worked for Go Ahead in the past, and seeing the achievements made in Bournemouth, the town's bus network and its customers will be in safe hands despite this not being the desired outcome if the proposals do come to fruition. The £2.5m+ figure quoted by Go Ahead into a refreshed fleet of 35 buses, and £4k new drivers' bonus clearly articulates the scale of investment required - naturally this'll be recouped through synergies in the mid/long term. Genuinely wish them the best and look forward to their seeing their energy, hard work and enthusiasm focus on ridership growth; I'll certainly visit to see the good work continue.
There's also the geographical issues in High Wycombe - every route leaving the town centre always has a steep incline to endure. This does put increased wear and tear on major units operating on a marginal network, where investment in new vehicles isn't going to be commercially viable - a problem shared by Carousel, a point to which Luke has spoken on. Where mid-life or fully depreciated vehicles have benefits to the balance sheet, the trade-off is in an older age profile with a requirement for more mechanical intervention - again, difficult where the skilled labour needed to sustain this is in a nationwide shortage.
Have no issue with targeting some of the above criticism at me personally, there's full entitlement to do that and convey your view, but to correct some assumptions that have been stated before on this forum:
- To achieve growth in patronage, it must be promoted effectively. The leaflets and campaign costs were relatively inexpensive and the take-up was huge; we had several compliments from customers and industry commentators on reinstating this long-lost publicity medium. Some of the growth we experienced was directly attributed to an increase of visibility across a wider demographic for where the network serves.
- There were no service cuts in September 2023. In High Wycombe, all but one route saw a maintenance of frequency (with punctuality improvements) or an enhancement, all within the same resources. Following the January changes at High Wycombe and the Aylesbury re-write, we introduced and refined:
- Doubling of frequency to Penn
- 50% increase of buses per hour to Downley, including double the number of buses on Sundays.
- 50% increase of buses per hour to Booker
- 50% increase of buses per hour to Micklefield
- Doubling of buses on Sundays to Bourne End
- Aylesbury's changes in January 2024 was reshaping the network around interurban connectivity, but we also doubled the buses from Aylesbury to Oxford on Sundays
- High Wycombe is not run from Leicester. The Leicester Head Office is, unsurprisingly, the home to some centralised functions, an operating model that is shared by the other major big groups.
- You'll be pleased to know that the Network Manager was looking at data from a computer less than 1 mile away. Yes, commercial teams do need to be visible, experience the nuances of their respective patches, speak to customers and drivers which was plentiful at the time of rethinking High Wycombe's network and as part of the cyclical review of performance - but there's also some work around data and the significant amount of efforts in implementing/mobilising to complete.
- The repaint programme has no relation to the depot footprint.
There are plenty of learnings that have come from the respective Buckinghamshire network reviews - the principles employed in both towns worked in terms of boosting ridership and promoting connectivity. Some routes went beyond our expectation and others where feedback from customers were vital in implementing further refinements that led to their success. Others may have a different perspective or experience, and certainly acknowledge some of the service delivery challenges which had its impact in delivering the network benefits introduced.
It's not the absolute end of Arriva's involvement in Buckinghamshire, and look forward to seeing how things pan out in the future.
