Question about bus service registration

[158756]

East Lancashire Hospitals Trust currently fund a free shuttle bus between Burnley and Blackburn Hospitals, operated I believe by Holmeswood Coaches. This service is to be withdrawn in March due to budget cuts. The trust have said they cannot attempt to reduce the costs by charging fares as to do so they (the trust) would have to become a licensed bus operator.

What is the truth here? Why would the trust need to become a bus operator? What prevents Holmeswood registering the service, given they operate it? There are contracted services all over the country, you don't see the likes of Amazon or colleges that fund their own services becoming licensed bus operators, they contract it out and the bus company deals with all that, no?

 

[Leedsbusman]

East Lancashire Hospitals Trust currently fund a free shuttle bus between Burnley and Blackburn Hospitals, operated I believe by Holmeswood Coaches. This service is to be withdrawn in March due to budget cuts. The trust have said they cannot attempt to reduce the costs by charging fares as to do so they (the trust) would have to become a licensed bus operator.

What is the truth here? Why would the trust need to become a bus operator? What prevents Holmeswood registering the service, given they operate it? There are contracted services all over the country, you don't see the likes of Amazon or colleges that fund their own services becoming licensed bus operators, they contract it out and the bus company deals with all that, no?

No they wouldn’t unless they wanted to take it in house.

 

[pjnathanail]

East Lancashire Hospitals Trust currently fund a free shuttle bus between Burnley and Blackburn Hospitals, operated I believe by Holmeswood Coaches. This service is to be withdrawn in March due to budget cuts. The trust have said they cannot attempt to reduce the costs by charging fares as to do so they (the trust) would have to become a licensed bus operator.

What is the truth here? Why would the trust need to become a bus operator? What prevents Holmeswood registering the service, given they operate it? There are contracted services all over the country, you don't see the likes of Amazon or colleges that fund their own services becoming licensed bus operators, they contract it out and the bus company deals with all that, no?

Absolutely nothing. If the Trust are subcontracting to a reputable, O licenced operator, which Holmeswood are, there is no need for the Trust to have any kind of licence.

Holmeswood would need to have Electronic Ticket Machines (ETMs) and be Bus Open Data Service (BODS) compliant and a few other faffy things associated with running local buses but nothing major.

Is there a link to the Trust’s press release at all?

 

[Stan Drews]

Transdev previously offered to operate it as a registered fast link between Burnley and Blackburn town centres that also extended to the two hospitals at either end, with financial support at least initially. The journey time between the 2 hospitals would have increased, but it would have potentially generated a good bit of revenue as a quick means of getting between the two towns, at a time when the Pacers on the Colne line didn’t exactly make the train a brilliant alternative.
However, the Trust didn’t want to do that and continued with their non-registered contract style operation.

 

[158756]

Absolutely nothing. If the Trust are subcontracting to a reputable, O licenced operator, which Holmeswood are, there is no need for the Trust to have any kind of licence.

Holmeswood would need to have Electronic Ticket Machines (ETMs) and be Bus Open Data Service (BODS) compliant and a few other faffy things associated with running local buses but nothing major.

Is there a link to the Trust’s press release at all?

The press release is here https://elht.nhs.uk/services/shuttle-bus The bus licence thing isn't mentioned but that's what they've been telling everyone on social media.

Transdev previously offered to operate it as a registered fast link between Burnley and Blackburn town centres that also extended to the two hospitals at either end, with financial support at least initially. The journey time between the 2 hospitals would have increased, but it would have potentially generated a good bit of revenue as a quick means of getting between the two towns, at a time when the Pacers on the Colne line didn’t exactly make the train a brilliant alternative.
However, the Trust didn’t want to do that and continued with their non-registered contract style operation.

This would make a lot more sense, though depending on how the passenger numbers and journey times worked out it might make more sense to serve Blackburn Hospital before the town centre. But I don't think the trust have ever been interested in attracting more passengers. It would fit with how clueless they seem to be not knowing they could charge fares. Not serving Burnley town centre in particular has been a massive missed opportunity for the nearly 20 years the service has operated. You see in the press release they mention "a number of ‘others’ who appear to be using the bus without any connection to the Trust or its services." Is it a bad thing that people found the bus useful?

And the thing is that basically any other arrangement would have required less subsidy.

 

[RT4038]

Absolutely nothing. If the Trust are subcontracting to a reputable, O licenced operator, which Holmeswood are, there is no need for the Trust to have any kind of licence.

Holmeswood would need to have Electronic Ticket Machines (ETMs) and be Bus Open Data Service (BODS) compliant and a few other faffy things associated with running local buses but nothing major.

Is there a link to the Trust’s press release at all?

Holmeswood would need to operate PSVAR vehicles too (if they don't already). Aside from ETMs, they would also need arrangements to count and bank the cash (if they don't do this already)

 

[WibbleWobble]

Holmeswood would need to operate PSVAR vehicles too (if they don't already). Aside from ETMs, they would also need arrangements to count and bank the cash (if they don't do this already)

Holmeswood have run registered bus services for years, doing so on Lancashire County Council's behalf.

 

[RT4038]

Holmeswood have run registered bus services for years, doing so on Lancashire County Council's behalf.

Ah. I've little knowledge of the area and its operators.

In which case, I suspect the Health Trust 'merely' wants to get out of any responsibility to fund a bus service (presumably started a time ago due to facility reorganisation, or unreliability of public buses???), concentrating its funding on health services. Which has certainly happened at other Trusts across the country.

 

[Leedsbusman]

Ah. I've little knowledge of the area and its operators.

In which case, I suspect the Health Trust 'merely' wants to get out of any responsibility to fund a bus service (presumably started a time ago due to facility reorganisation, or unreliability of public buses???), concentrating its funding on health services. Which has certainly happened at other Trusts across the country.

As the page shared says it was introduced in 2007 for a five year period so has well outlasted its initial purpose by some margin. I believe it was due to centralisation of some services at one of the two Hospitals and a need to get relocated staff to work within them quitting.