Certainly the metrobus services were not thought about in the context of how they would effect the existing network but also it wasn't just easy to cut services either as there would have been plenty of areas without a service. (Or a much longer walk to a metrobus stop)
No, that's not how it works. The government will, through Coronavirus Bus Service Support Grant (CBSSG), make up lost revenue on registered local bus services compared with that expected up to a maximum payment of £1 per km operated. The theory is that revenue for the year should be no better or no worse than if Covid hadn't happened, thus if the company was going a loss anyway, it should still make the same projected loss, and the same for profit.
The comment in the accounts was quite telling; certainly the provision in South Bristol didn't change as much as was expected.
What was the exact comment?
In the published accounts it says "Operating profit decreased from £5.4million to £2.2million despite the increase in turnover. The main driver of this was increased operating costs to generate sufficient capacity to cope with the additional demand and the launch of the new metrobus m1 service, which commenced in January 2019. This has led to significant levels of passenger attrition from existing services onto the new service which has reduced the profitability of these routes as we have not been able to reduce our cost base on them by similar proportions." (my bold)
Ah that makes sense. I think if anything it shows poor local authority planning. Than anything bad on Firsts part
What has Worcester lost for Heathrow & Uxbridge services?
Volvo B7RLEs from Southampton, I believe.
I was wondering the same. AFAIK, Slough received some ex Southampton Eclipses (via a short Weymuff sojourn) to release the Citaros to Worcester to release the StreetLites to Leicester.
Only on the commercials registered service parts of the business was my understanding. Tendered parts are subject to local authority support adjustments, is how it was explained to me.
Given that an emission zone was incoming for Leicester and the Heathrow area, I think moving the Citaros to Worcester was a good idea l, especially with Covid. Citaros are not that bad from a passenger perspective and the Euro 6 buses are needed elsewhere. At the moment you can't expect to throw investment at every depot
Yes, it only applies to commercial registered local bus services. And even then break-even is not guaranteed because CBBSG pays a maximum of £1 per km operated and on high revenue routes this may not be enough to cover costs. So we shouldn't automatically expect break-even in the next sets of accounts. I predict that some operators that principally rely on local bus services will report quite hefty losses.
I think the B7RLEs left Southampton a while back, Southampton has been an all Streetlite fleet.
As I mentioned on #11470, the Eclipses now at Slough were released from Southampton and had a spell in Weymouth to enable social distancing. They were then replaced there by Omnicities allowing them to be cascaded to Slough.
Exactly this. There are a great number of LEZs and CAZs either in place or imminent. What that means is that you will have operators using a blend of new vehicles, moving vehicles about or undertaking mods to achieve compliance. These are fairly complex moves and have been some years in gestation.
Probably not, the LR02 batch of Tridents are getting refurbs!
I too suspect refurbs, and why not?
Norwich gained £32million from the transforming cities fund late last year (https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/local-...schemes-to-get-cash-for-norwich-roads-3388008), and First Eastern Counties pledged £18 million of investment to come as "match funding", it seems.
Surely Covid must have put doubt into that £18 million investment. Hopefully Norwich will see those new buses though, they certainly need it!
I was going to point to that. I'd suggest that there's the likelihood that the 51 plates and a number of other vehicles will be dispatched soon enough. The ones getting repainted, albeit surprisingly, will be the ones that hang around for the next couple of years.
They've committed £18m match funding. They can't just pull out unless there's collective agreement by all parties to scrap the entire scheme.
Indeed, and the enhanced partnership model is the one that First would (naturally) like to pursue. Not least as they get a load of bus priority that will benefit their services. So a number of new vehicles (which are really overdue - don't think they've had new vehicles for anything other than excel since 2016) and refurbs will certain help deliver that. I'd draw attention to First Bristol's CNG fleet that took about 2.5 years from award to delivery so repainting some Tridents is probably an indication on possible timelines!
This is what I don't understand, why repaint them back into Olympia? Why not a local scheme for example Halifax could easily be repainted into a refreshed yellow/white/blue (Glasgow style) "Calderline mk2", with the Olympia style fleetname HALIFAX in light blue stuck to the sides. Meanwhile with Huddersfield, First needs to get rid of the failed "HD Connect" brand which didn't go anywhere and replace that with a red/cream/green livery (just not as bad as Kingfisher Huddersfield was) with again, the Olympia style fleetname HUDDERSFIELD being in light green. It'd stand out plus it'd make it appear that both Halifax and Huddersfield has been given a nice new fleet of buses, when in fact they've just been tarted up.
Probably because they have a pool of similarly liveried vehicles for Bradford, Huddersfield and Halifax for operational convenience (whilst Leeds has its own fleet to meet emissions/investment commitments) - I don't think it's right but it is probably the reason. Whilst I would like to see something more localised, I'm not convinced a harking back to Bradford Traveller is the way forward.
