Yeah as far as I’m led to believe edinburgh CC are a 90% shareholder, with the remaining 10 divided amongst, East, Mid and West Lothian councils.
Tax Money is what pays for your emergency services, your bins to be emptied, not every kid has wealthy parents to send them to private schools, Tax pays for everything local or country wide, its called a “public bus service” service(concession cards are a massive example of where tax money goes), Needless to say many times over and over again, over many years first and stagecoach were very aggressive in there tactics and take in tax payers money everyday, who can blame Lothian for attempting a better service, East Coast Buses is by far a great example of Lothians Success, if there managers feel that its the right, next logical step, then fair be it all bus companys are just the same in many respects.
Simples, would you rather be greated with a Friendly-Hello or a grumpy fart bag who could’nt be bothered to move out of his seat to help people! One area first lack is customer or employee involvement, I can say beyond a shadow of any doubt First group would come out one of the worst for its customer service.
Funds where it is required? Compare Lothians Fleet to First Glasgows Fleet and you soon get the picture of how First think in terms of requirement(or lack thereof)! In an industry that constantly endures falling pax numbers Lothian have constantly put that into perspective and kept there fleet as Clean as possible, on-time, relatively new and cheap...we are talking £1.70, musselburgh to clovenstone, the equivalent journey with FiG would cost £2.30.
The fares arent massively different I agree, comparing Glsgw and Ednrgh, put into plain terms, people get more for there money with Lothian than first can really muster, against my own views its a pitty lothian havent undercut First on Weekly tickets and of course lothian still havent got Contactless fares on the go city wide yet! Something most others had well over a year ago!
