Agreed on all points.
The problem is that passenger perception is that on their journey the bus is busy, so why are they not making money on it? Surely If I cant get a seat the company is making money on all of us and laughing in our faces while doing so?
Your average customer has no understanding of the following- and the list is not definitive
Drivers salary, NI contributions, Pension, uniform, sick pay, staff benefits etc.
Depot, depot running costs, fuel, road tax, tyres, electricity, bus washing, cleaners, mechanics, vandalism, wear and tear on buses, purchase of buses, depreciation cost of buses, even ticket roll and blank smartcards (not in Glasgow) is an expense. FirstWeek wallets (big expense in Glasgow). Do the people who empty the cash vaults in the depots and the people who pick the money up to take it to the bank work for free?
Provision of staff break facilities like at Clydebank. Motherwell Travel Shop. Lost Property office.
Bus station parking and departure fees.
Back office and supervisory staff, Inspectors/Service monitoring/Control Room, Customer Services (well Leeds!), marketing,
Pitiful rates of reimbursement of Concession fares (who has forgotten one year the money ran out in Scotland!?), BSOG (which for some reason is seen as a public subsidy)
Traffic congestion (pre pandemic of course)
Even the costs of making variations to services via the TC is an expense that isnt recognised but has to be accounted for.
The accounts for bus operators just now are going to be a total disaster and the consequences will be felt for years afterwards.
The actual figures and costs of running a bus service are rightly or wrongly kept discrete for commercial sensitivity reasons and your average Joe punter can't grasp the wafer thin economics of running a bus service before the pandemic.
All they know is that First are a bunch of greedy capitalist swindlers who have shareholders lining their pockets and laughing all the way to the bank and dont care thar wee Senga cant get her bus from to the Asda at Dumbarton and that First run the daytime service on one route and in the evening its someone else.
It was all lovely when it was publicly owned and for the people and at immense cost to the taxpayer. All the local rags and MSPs are preconditioned now to proclaim First to be a greedy company and totally ignorant of spiralling operating costs and harsh economics and this then fuels some of the sheer nonsense seen on the online local social media posts being shared about cut services.
The 208 in Dumbarton has died a consistent decade of slow cuts and was inevitable. If anything Im amazed it has survived this long. SPT have no option but to tender for the daytime journeys as it already subsidised the evening and Sunday service or the local Labour MSP will create absolute firey hell for SPT until a tender is issued.
The X1, I was actually suprised they even caved to the apparent "demand" and kept it going. While the marketing extended to some vinyls on buses and a standard branded page on the website, they must have lost a fair few quid on the reduced fares which resulted in probably a worse situation than they were in before they originally planned to take it off. First would have budgeted for the service coming off last time and then after caving would have had to budget for their efforts and having to reduce fares on a route haemorraging money. Ive said it before Stagecoach's X74 is there and the train service despite its faults knocks the spots off the X1.
The 31, while socially vital, is a total non starter to operate commercially south of Carmunnock village. It never has been the housing densities in Stewartfield, West Mains and Kirktonholme are too low to make a bus service work commercially and its East Kilbride- a new town that is specifically designed to be low density houses for car owners. Even north of Carmunnock other routes run on top of it and Crosshill and Mount Florida Stations offer a service that is more frequent and faster than the bus and the profitability of that is very questionable.
Rant over!!!
