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Bus operations in a rail franchise area

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robertclark125

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If a bus firm bids for a rail franchise, is it a condition of the franchise that if a bus firm wins the bid, it MUST have bus operations in at least part of the franchise area?
 
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No, it is just unlikely they won't. But if they are too dominate they may be required to reduce operations as national express did when the had Scotrail and a large share in city-link
 

robertclark125

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Cheers. On another forum, someone suggests DBS (owners of Arriva) may be bidding for Scotrail, or have won it, and the claim was they can't bid as they don't have bus operations in the area. I didn't think it was true, but wanted to double check.
 

trentside

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It's certainly proved helpful for EMT during the recent disruption - as Stagecoach East Midlands have been providing a large number of buses and coaches to replace the trains. As others have said, not a requirement though!
 

Failed Unit

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Cheers. On another forum, someone suggests DBS (owners of Arriva) may be bidding for Scotrail, or have won it, and the claim was they can't bid as they don't have bus operations in the area. I didn't think it was true, but wanted to double check.

Transport Scotland have not put the tender out yet, first group still have it until 2014. Rumours were that it would not be re-franchised.

However Arriva do (did?) have operations in the Glasgow area.
 

90019

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Cheers. On another forum, someone suggests DBS (owners of Arriva) may be bidding for Scotrail, or have won it, and the claim was they can't bid as they don't have bus operations in the area. I didn't think it was true, but wanted to double check.

That all sounds distinctly like bollocks.
I'd be curious to know where the person who said that is getting their information from - that's if they actually have any.
 

tbtc

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That all sounds distinctly like bollocks

Agreed - apart from FSR's dominance of Scottish buses (they had 55% of the market last time I heard a figure) I can't think of any example of a bus company's operations having any bearing on its rail services (either running lots of buses or running no buses).
 

Failed Unit

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Agreed - apart from FSR's dominance of Scottish buses (they had 55% of the market last time I heard a figure) I can't think of any example of a bus company's operations having any bearing on its rail services (either running lots of buses or running no buses).

National Express needed to see of some of their shareholding in City-Link when they held Scotrail, but that is the only example I can think of.

I have heard an urban myth that first can't increase the frequency of some routes they operate parallel to the railway, but this make no sense, if they increase a bus route that is in competition to the railway they will either get a net increase of passengers or steal from the railway and make it less profitable for themselves.

I can see why they are not allowed to reduce frequencies on routes that run parallel with the railway.
 

michael769

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As I understand it the Competition Comission imposed a minimum bus service requirement on First as a condition of being allowed to take on the Scotrail franchise. This requires that they get OFT permission before they reduce certain services. This was done to ensure that adequate competition between train and bus was maintained.

clicky
 

transmanche

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Services within London is hardly in LM's remit, though. Being as they only regularly serve two stations in London anyway.
And in any event these aren't commercial services in the same sense as elsewhere, as (thankfully) the London bus market operates in a substantially different way. So (for example) there are no competition issues between Go-Ahead's extensive south London bus operations and Govia's Southern & South Eastern rail franchises.
 

island

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That all sounds distinctly like bollocks.
I'd be curious to know where the person who said that is getting their information from - that's if they actually have any.

Agreed. There aren't any Virgin buses, for a start!
 

tbtc

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In the back of my mind, wasn't there a restriction on National Express cutting back the 900 (?) from Birmingham to Coventry when they ran Central Trains?
 

thelem

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Why would there be a requirement to run local buses in the area? The only benefit I can see is being able to provide rail replacement buses more easily, but that could easily be contracted out to a totally independent company.
 

tbtc

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Why would there be a requirement to run local buses in the area? The only benefit I can see is being able to provide rail replacement buses more easily, but that could easily be contracted out to a totally independent company.

Hence Fraser Eagle becoming the big organisation that they were
 
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