Reductions to services prior to an eventual withdrawal

[Martin2012]

Something I've always been curious about. I've been aware of several instances where services have been withdrawn and in the months leading up to the withdrawal the service has been reduced in frequency and/or had its route altered so it serves fewer places. For example it was noticeable that the withdrawal of the former Y2-Y5 routes between Bristol and Yate were preceded by a reduction in the frequency and in the case of the Y4, the service got truncated back to Yate Park and Ride in the months leading up to its withdrawal. I seem to recall the former 16 Hanham to Bristol Parkway route had its frequency reduced and got truncated to UWE for several months before being outright withdrawn. I also remember D&G running a short lived Sunday service between Crewe and Leighton on (I think) the route that had previously gone all the way to Shavington and withdrawing it not long after due to lack of usage.

Is it often the case that the withdrawal of a service is preceded by the operator changing the route and/or reducing the frequency and then using a decline in passengers as a reason for finally withdrawing the service or is a withdrawal mainly used as a last resort when the operator altering the route/timetable fails to improve the viability of the service?

 

[peterblue]

It's just a vicious cycle a lot of the time.

Decline in passengers -> Reduction in service -> fewer people find a bus service useful as a result -> Decline in passengers

 

[freetoview33]

It's just a vicious cycle a lot of the time.

Decline in passengers -> Reduction in service -> fewer people find a bus service useful as a result -> Decline in passengers

Then withdrawal

 

[markymark2000]

Is it often the case that the withdrawal of a service is preceded by the operator changing the route and/or reducing the frequency and then using a decline in passengers as a reason for finally withdrawing the service or is a withdrawal mainly used as a last resort when the operator altering the route/timetable fails to improve the viability of the service?

I don't know about it often being the case as I have seen some routes which run every 20-30 minutes or so be put up for withdrawal (First Cymru Bridgend routes for example which Bridgend council recently put up for tender). There are 100% instances though of the vicious cycle. The phrase 'Death by 1000 cuts' comes up a lot in some areas, mostly in relation to Arriva.

 

[Lewisham2221]

Despite what some of the resident doom and gloom merchants may try and suggest, it's extremely unlikely that any operator is going to deliberately make a service unviable before withdrawal - they're under no obligation to operate any commercial service, so if they really want to give up a service there's absolutely nothing stopping them from just deregistering the service anyway, never mind deliberately operating at a loss for months beforehand.

What actually happens is that an operator identifies a service that is very marginal. They will then look at ways to try and improve that margin. Usually (but not always), this will involve some sort of cost reduction. This might mean removing lighter used journeys at the extremities of the day, or reducing the frequency, or shortening or "straightening" the route to require less vehicles to operate the same frequency. Of course, these changes often make a service less attractive and thus some patronage is lost. In some cases, the lost patronage will be low enough that cost savings still outweigh it. In other cases, the lost patronage is high enough to lead to the downward spiral of cuts, more cuts, and withdrawal. For example, removing early morning services may mean that all of those passengers then find alternative ways to and from work, thus no longer using the core daytime service and therefore rendering some of those journeys unviable too.

Alternatively (but much less often) operators may try to boost the margin by trying to increase the popularity of the service with frequency increases, earlier/later buses, lower fares and route branding. In these cases, the extra patronage gained by increasing the popularity obviously needs to outweigh the cost of providing the improvements.

What needs to be noted is that different operators will have different ways of measuring and judging these margins. For example, if you purely looked at cash (or, these days, card as well) revenue "on bus", there would be an abundance of services operating on a Monday morning and very few operating for the rest of the week! (Obviously the Monday morning service would rapidly become unviable and be withdrawn!) Similarly, a bus consistently running at maximum capacity does not necessarily equal a bus running at a profit.

 

[GusB]

Despite what some of the resident doom and gloom merchants may try and suggest, it's extremely unlikely that any operator is going to deliberately make a service unviable before withdrawal

Are you 100% sure about this? I'd suggest that it's relatively easy to sabotage a route in such a way that it doesn't appear to be viable. I can think of a local example where the route was diverted to the extent that it felt longer; while the overall journey time was the same, I really couldn't be bothered with going round the houses and I deliberately chose to take the later (last) bus home, rather than go around the houses.

Fast forward a few years and there is no evening, nor Sunday service. Quelle surprise!!

Make your service unusable and people will seek alternatives.

 

[Lewisham2221]

Are you 100% sure about this? I'd suggest that it's relatively easy to sabotage a route in such a way that it doesn't appear to be viable. I can think of a local example where the route was diverted to the extent that it felt longer; while the overall journey time was the same, I really couldn't be bothered with going round the houses and I deliberately chose to take the later (last) bus home, rather than go around the houses.

Fast forward a few years and there is no evening, nor Sunday service. Quelle surprise!!

Make your service unusable and people will seek alternatives.

If the journey time was the same, then the service didn't become unusable (unless it diverted away from areas where a significant number of people were actually travelling to/from). I imagine the bus was diverted "round the houses" in an attempt to drum up additional custom ("Oh, the bus goes past the end of my road now, I'll jump on the bus instead of getting a taxi").

It may be relatively easy to deliberately sabotage a route, but why would you waste the money doing so, when you could just withdraw the service anyway, without going through months of deliberately losing money? And more to the point, if the service was healthy and profitable in the first place, why would you even want to sabotage or withdraw it? It makes absolutely no sense.

 

[GusB]

If the journey time was the same, then the service didn't become unusable

It's all about perception. It felt like the journey took longer, even though it didn't in actual fact.

It may be relatively easy to deliberately sabotage a route, but why would you waste the money doing so, when you could just withdraw the service anyway, without going through months of deliberately losing money?

Because that's the way it works these days - threaten the local authority with withdrawal of the service because the evening and weekend services don't work.

It doesn't work because Monday to Friday there's an operator running a commercial service and people who use that operator to get to work midweek are unable to go anywhere with that ticket at the weekend, or in the evening if they're lucky enough to have an evening service.

This is how bus routes die. I watched my own local route die because the evening and Sunday services were detached from the midweek and Saturday daytime services.

 

[Lewisham2221]

It's all about perception. It felt like the journey took longer, even though it didn't in actual fact.


Because that's the way it works these days - threaten the local authority with withdrawal of the service because the evening and weekend services don't work.

It doesn't work because Monday to Friday there's an operator running a commercial service and people who use that operator to get to work midweek are unable to go anywhere with that ticket at the weekend, or in the evening if they're lucky enough to have an evening service.

This is how bus routes die. I watched my own local route die because the evening and Sunday services were detached from the midweek and Saturday daytime services.

I'm not disputing any of that. But that isn't deliberately running a service down because they can't be bothered to operate it. That's getting rid of the unprofitable bits of the service and unintentionally making the whole thing unprofitable, which is exactly what I described.

 

[m79900]

It's just a vicious cycle a lot of the time.

Decline in passengers -> Reduction in service -> fewer people find a bus service useful as a result -> Decline in passengers

Exactly what I've written to my council numerous times regarding the little sixes service near me!

 

[markymark2000]

What needs to be noted is that different operators will have different ways of measuring and judging these margins. For example, if you purely looked at cash (or, these days, card as well) revenue "on bus", there would be an abundance of services operating on a Monday morning and very few operating for the rest of the week! (Obviously the Monday morning service would rapidly become unviable and be withdrawn!) Similarly, a bus consistently running at maximum capacity does not necessarily equal a bus running at a profit.

Arriva don't fully take into account day/weekly etc pass usage, or least they never seemed to. That is why when you look at almost all Arriva operations, evening trips were almost all funded by the local authority (see Shropshire, Telford, . Arriva run very few evening services commercially because the actual trips don't take much revenue, it's people using day tickets or returns. By contrast, Stagecoach did/does look at the evening trips and cross subsidise from the core daytime service and acknowledges overall usage including return/day ticket use using the logic that without the evenings, people are less likely to use the main daytime trips. It's no coincidence that in almost all Arriva stronghold areas, evening buses would be almost none existent if it wasn't for council funding.

Arriva use the same logic that Peoplesbus use in Merseyside for schools (and subsequently now Stagecoach do it but only because they bought out Peoplesbus operations). They run the morning school bus commercially, get all of the fares (which is all Merseytravels multi operator MyTickets), then the afternoon trips to get the kids home using their return/day ticket, those trips are all tendered as the operator has their money and ran with it.

Spoiler: Source links

I shan't post all examples of Arriva being funded for evening trips but Denbighshire Council gave this list in 2021 which shows that the 5 and 51/51B have funding for some evening services https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/requ...OI 8224 Bus Services.pdf?cookie_passthrough=1

Flintshire released this list in 2021 as well which shows the 4 and 11 being given funding for evenings. Both very busy core routes which without the evenings, would have a much poorer daytime service. https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/requ...attach/html/3/Copy of FOI F00019556.xlsx.html

For the school bus comments,
Timetable link: https://web.archive.org/web/2021110...ocdn.dev/timetables/Bus/Deyes-High-School.pdf Note on the 722, the morning doesn't show 'Merseytravel service operated by' it just shows 'Stagecoach', this means it is commercial. It was shown much easier when it was under Peoplesbus.
The registration: https://bustimes.org/registrations/PC1080261/64

Supported by subsidy?
No

Maghull High is another good one: https://merseytravel.adidocdn.dev/timetables/Bus/Maghull-High-School.pdf
Registration link: https://bustimes.org/registrations/PC1033334/569

Supported by subsidy?
No

All of the morning trips are commercial, afternoon trips all tendered. All of these routes are Ex Peoplesbus which is how they have ended up in this way. Registrations don't show it very well because Stagecoach have the AM and PM on one registration whereas Peoplebus used to split them

They will then look at ways to try and improve that margin.

This may be the aim but some operators have a very funny way of showing this by often cutting out the part of the route which people want. Arriva North West did it with the Chester-Runcorn 21. The busier parts were Frodsham and Helsby to Chester but what Arriva did was make it run just Runcorn to Helsby (via Frodsham) to push everyone onto the X30 (which the route duplicated in full between Frodsham, Helsby and Chester). The 21 only lasted 6 months after this change. Saved them 1 bus but the route lost so many passengers because the passengers were travelling to/from the section which got withdrawn.

There are many examples around where operators have deliberately killed off routes. You may call it improving the margin but the reality is trying to kill off routes. Arriva Wales has a habit of trying it in Chester (I'm not going to go through the many changes they made for the 3 and 12 services in 2017/18/19 as that's a whole story). For some time though, they had the Chester-Broughton 3 run from Delamere Street rather than the bus station. The bus would then drive past the bus station (but wasn't allowed to stop), then stop on Foregate Street. This was to avoid paying the bus station departure fee but in reality, not serving a key bus interchange means passengers can't make their connections and passengers lose a safe place to wait and consequently, you put people off using the service. Even now, the 3 stops at the far end of Foregate Street but now this is because the timetable is too tight to extend to the bus station. The terminus does put people off using the 3 though because people waiting for buses along the corridor towards Saltney and Broughton wait at the bus stop 150m down the road where they have upto 9 buses per hour rather than 1 bus per hour where the 3 stops.

Spoiler: Source links/notes

For the 21/X30 comments, the registrations show you the 21 being removed from the registration and the second registration shows the 21 being reregistered to run Runcorn to Helsby and it only lasting 6 months.
https://bustimes.org/registrations/PC0002598/271. Variation 6 has the 21. Variation 7 on the 22nd Jan 2017 is when the 21 got moved to it's own registration (https://bustimes.org/registrations/PC0002598/410) which shows the service only operating for 6 months as the short journey.

For how the 3 ran in the past, all that shows it is the registration which shows it started at Delamere Street. The fact it didn't stop at the bus station but would drive past, there is nothing online about that (that I can find). Web archives are missing this time period from the councils website for the maps/stand finders and Arrivas timetables don't seem to save on archives.
The registration link is here though, https://bustimes.org/registrations/PG0007245/260 variation 33 shows the services as starting at Delamere Street.

For how the 3 runs now, you have bustimes.org which shows as the bus using Foregate Street stop GG https://bustimes.org/services/3-shops-to-shops. The other stop which most other buses use is stop BB (4, X4, 11 and T8 combined 5 buses per hour) and the Saltney 16 which goes off stop CC (3 buses per hour). A check on Google Maps or even using the bustimes map you will see the 150 metre difference.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

In my experience @Lewisham2221 is on the money.

One of my friends is a commercial manager for a major bus group, and has been round the industry for many years. The idea that operators deliberately sabotage a good service is simply not the case.

What you have is a service that is either marginal or loss making. If it's making a loss on direct operating costs, that's simply untenable. However, services will need to contribute to the wider fixed costs - the depot costs, the back office and supervision. Even if you decide to allocate these to other services (aka marginally cost a service), they still need to be recovered. In other words, route A picks up a disproportionate amount of cost whilst route B doesn't pick up it's fair share. If we assume route B is picking up it's fair share of central or fixed costs, then again, managers will know this, and that if a service is withdrawn, those fixed costs will need to be spread over other routes.

All firms understand the issue of how patronage on uneconomic individual journeys or portions of route contributes to the overall patronage and performance of a route. It's how much they are prepared to have some "loss leaders" for the greater good, and how great those losses are.

So taking an example that @Martin2012 will know... the 36 from Bristol city centre to St Annes. It has been progressively shortened and in the post Covid world, it was half hourly from Bristol via Barton Hill, St Annes and finally through the back streets of Brislington. Not the strongest service in the good days (it was often worked by the city's oldest vehicles), it required three vehicles to Brislington. However, the vast bulk of the passengers are nearer the city in St Annes and Barton Hill. So First decided to cut the service back to St Annes. They will have calculated (or gambled) that they can still serve the majority of the passengers, saving 25%-30% of the cost but only losing about 10% of the revenue, so that a loss making or marginal route might now be sustainable. Doesn't help those who've lost their service but that's what happens.

Ah, but what about if you deregister early morning, or evening services? Of course, that is a greater gamble. If the local authority wish to put in a replacement tender, there's no guarantee that you will win it. Nor is there the guarantee that any replacement will resemble what was there (i.e. a like for like replacement) and that the overall attractiveness of the service will retain the existing patronage. Again, managers know that by withdrawing those journeys, you will reduce the attractiveness of the service and preclude some people from travelling during the day if they can't then get home. It's not an exact science even if management information systems provide raw data that shows travel patterns and financial performance by journey. Put bluntly, if you're going to spend £100 to run services for three hours from 2000 to 2300 but overall farebox revenue is only benefited by £50, why would you do it?

Of course, the issue is that some firms have different criteria for running services and, in some cases, will continue to operate routes that aren't commercially viable in order to stop tenders being issued and protect market share.

 

[Martin2012]

Thanks to those who have taken the time to respond. I'd like to say I now have more of an understanding as to why alterations to service such as the 36 might have occurred over time. It did feel a bit at the time as though for former routes such as the T2 and and the Y2-Y5, the operator used Covid as an excuse to reduce the frequency (for all of these services the 'temporary' frequency reductions that were implemented in March 2020 became mostly permanent) and then in the months leading up to their withdrawal there were a number of instances where First cancelled journeys at short notice due to a lack of drivers. Would it maybe have been the case that rather than Covid being used as an excuse to withdraw these services, it was the case that the reduction in passengers brought about by Covid was enough to tip these services over the threshold into being non commercially viable? I find it hard to imagine that any operator would have deliberately steered passengers away from certain services by regularly cancelling them and deterring passengers that way. Am I probably correct there?

I know that D&G have previously been touted as an operator who have taken over services commercially from other operators or which were previously being supported, made a mess of running them by altering the route and timetable and in some cases putting on lower capacity vehicles and then eventually withdrawn their service citing lack of usage. Does anyone with more knowledge of D&G confirm whether that has indeed been the case?

 

[A0wen]

Despite what some of the resident doom and gloom merchants may try and suggest, it's extremely unlikely that any operator is going to deliberately make a service unviable before withdrawal - they're under no obligation to operate any commercial service, so if they really want to give up a service there's absolutely nothing stopping them from just deregistering the service anyway, never mind deliberately operating at a loss for months beforehand.

Are you 100% sure about this? I'd suggest that it's relatively easy to sabotage a route in such a way that it doesn't appear to be viable. I can think of a local example where the route was diverted to the extent that it felt longer; while the overall journey time was the same, I really couldn't be bothered with going round the houses and I deliberately chose to take the later (last) bus home, rather than go around the houses.

Fast forward a few years and there is no evening, nor Sunday service. Quelle surprise!!

Make your service unusable and people will seek alternatives.

I think @Lewisham2221 is right on this - why would an operator bother to "sabotage" a route so it doesn't appear viable ? If it isn't viable, then they can simply submit a cancellation request to the Transport Commissioner 42 days before withdrawing the service. Continuing to run the service costs them money - so "sabotaging" it is entirely counter-intuitive.

And if an operator is wrong, then either another operator will step in to run the service or the Local Authority will issue a tender for it.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Thanks to those who have taken the time to respond. I'd like to say I now have more of an understanding as to why alterations to service such as the 36 might have occurred over time. It did feel a bit at the time as though for former routes such as the T2 and and the Y2-Y5, the operator used Covid as an excuse to reduce the frequency (for all of these services the 'temporary' frequency reductions that were implemented in March 2020 became mostly permanent) and then in the months leading up to their withdrawal there were a number of instances where First cancelled journeys at short notice due to a lack of drivers. Would it maybe have been the case that rather than Covid being used as an excuse to withdraw these services, it was the case that the reduction in passengers brought about by Covid was enough to tip these services over the threshold into being non commercially viable? I find it hard to imagine that any operator would have deliberately steered passengers away from certain services by regularly cancelling them and deterring passengers that way. Am I probably correct there?

I know that D&G have previously been touted as an operator who have taken over services commercially from other operators or which were previously being supported, made a mess of running them by altering the route and timetable and in some cases putting on lower capacity vehicles and then eventually withdrawn their service citing lack of usage. Does anyone with more knowledge of D&G confirm whether that has indeed been the case?

The Covid era had several issues going on. The initial cutting of operations to bare minimum for key workers and the furloughing of staff, then the increase of operations to having more vehicles to aid social distancing, back to more lockdowns (with all the challenges of communicating all the changes to bus services).

Once you came out of the 2021 lockdown, you had a perfect storm. Patronage at 80% of pre-Covid levels, was allied to a shortage of drivers for a range of reasons

• Drivers and maintenance staff who had stopped working in their late 50s/early 60s who then thought...why go back?
• Other drivers who left for other driving jobs
• Some people who had returned to their home country in 2020 weren't able to return because of Brexit ending the freedom of movement
• A backlog of training as that had been paused by lockdowns - the regular loss of staff wasn't being reflected by the usual training of staff#

Lockdowns affected both production and imports - older vehicles would have to work longer (more breakdowns) and when they did, spares took longer to source and maintenance staff were also sparser - more vehicles off road = more cancellations.

The idea that operators were simply cancelling services to sabotage the viability of them is simply not true.

As regards D&G, certain posters have a problem with them. They're not the best operator in the world. However, Julian Peddle is a very experienced and successful bus man and businessman. He's probably seen that Arriva and First aren't able to make certain operations/services pay so why would he then replicate that?

One thing that is often ignored too is that, sometimes, services' shelf life simply diminishes. There was an article I remember reading about the decline of a particular service in Wales. It was long established but the market had changed and it was lost making. So the managers made successive changes where the service lost its Sunday service, then it was rerouted as part of another route which increased journey times, the southern terminus was altered. Each change was aimed at maximising the patronage and reducing the cost. Staying the same wasn't an option, with the changes positively impacting costs but unfortunately affecting the patronage. By the way, this case study was in the 1960s and 1970s - the service was finally axed in 1986 at, but not caused by, deregulation.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Does anyone with more knowledge of D&G confirm whether that has indeed been the case?

There is a certain poster on here who never has anything good to say about D&G, but in my opinion most of their contributions can be safely ignored.

The simple truth is that D&G have taken on commercial work in thin bus territory. Arriva shut their entire operation in Macclesfield for a reason. The consequence of that is that some commercial operations that D&G attempt will succeed and some will fail. And, as @TheGrandWazoo rightly points out, the things D&G attempt will be different to what failed with Arriva.

One of my friends is a commercial manager for a major bus group, and has been round the industry for many years. The idea that operators deliberately sabotage a good service is simply not the case.

I suppose there are two categories here: good services, and services that wash their face.

No operator is going to deliberately sink a good service.

The more marginal services? I think certain operators do routinely attempt to manipulate timetables to make evening and Sunday services less attractive, with a view to then justifying their commercial withdrawal. I am quite certain that First West Yorkshire do this, regardless of what their managers protest otherwise, hence why the idea of franchising has gained such popularity. And Stagecoach Newcastle pulled similar tricks in the late 2000s, trying to persuade Nexus that certain journeys required subsidy and the most appropriate solution was to provide subsidy under de minimis provisions. Where this didn’t work and it went to full tender, Stagecoach then re-registered the services as commercial in cases where they did not win the tender.

I don’t think such cynicism is widespread though. In most cases it really is as it seems: operators trying to tweak things to keep a dying service alive. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

 

[LeylandLynx]

I read that the ridership-frequency elasticity is somewhere around an average of 0.5% in the short-term (of course, this varies from route to route, but the effect is more dramatic on less frequent services). In other words, this means that every 1% increase in frequency increases demand by 0.5%. This also works both ways, with every 1% decrease in frequency resulting in 0.5% decrease in demand. Therefore, if you cut the frequency of a service in half, this results in a 50% decline in demand, leading to even further cuts, leading to even further decline.

So the quickest way to ensure that a service gets withdrawn is to cut frequency.

Note though that productivity does not equal ridership demand.

 

[markymark2000]

I know that D&G have previously been touted as an operator who have taken over services commercially from other operators or which were previously being supported, made a mess of running them by altering the route and timetable and in some cases putting on lower capacity vehicles and then eventually withdrawn their service citing lack of usage. Does anyone with more knowledge of D&G confirm whether that has indeed been the case?

From my observations, the issues are D&G were mostly around school times. My experiences on the 82 proved it, it was sorted after about a week but whether that was a college decision or operator decision, I don't know (as it's a very big college flow though, I'd say the College probably had words somewhere). There have also been reports of overcrowding (on the local Facebook groups) on the Winsford 37 but can't confirm if this is still the case. D&G do seem to underprovide capacity when they start up commercial routes (possible lack of research?), people are put off travelling and consequently the after a week or so, the demand ends up matching the vehicle capacity (still a net loss though overall). I don't think that I can think of an example where D&G has amended the route of a commercial service and 'made a mess' which led to it being withdrawn, I think all of their commercial withdrawals would have had other reasons for being cut. I'd be interested to hear your examples though.

I think @Lewisham2221 is right on this - why would an operator bother to "sabotage" a route so it doesn't appear viable ? If it isn't viable, then they can simply submit a cancellation request to the Transport Commissioner 42 days before withdrawing the service. Continuing to run the service costs them money - so "sabotaging" it is entirely counter-intuitive.

Simple answer. To protect a core corridor and as such protect the rest of the business.

As an example,
Bus routes 1, 2 and 3 run on corridor A-B then branch off to various places. Bus route 2 doesn't perform very well but the operator doesn't want another company to run route 2 because that means competition between A-B and the other operator could put on cheap fares and therefore take all of the passengers off routes 1 and 3, or once established, the other operator may amend route 2 to compete on routes 1 and 3 because they have seen the number of passengers using those routes, both of which could potentially risk the viability of those routes.
Anti competitive things are done in most industries because no one likes competition. As people have said here, companies are here to make money and what doesn't make business sense to anyone is opening the door for a competitor. If you want to stay in business, you just don't do it, you have to protect as much of your profits as possible and opening the door to competition does quite the opposite. This explanation certainly doesn't work for all instances but there are many where it does apply.

I don’t think such cynicism is widespread though. In most cases it really is as it seems: operators trying to tweak things to keep a dying service alive. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

I agree. I don't think it's the 'norm' but it certainly happens where operators kill off routes. Also some operators have a very strange way of 'trying to keep a dying service alive' (the strange ways tend to end up not working and are cut or reverted not long after introduction).

 

[AB93]

I'd like to say I now have more of an understanding as to why alterations to service such as the 36 might have occurred over time. It did feel a bit at the time as though for former routes such as the T2 and and the Y2-Y5, the operator used Covid as an excuse to reduce the frequency (for all of these services the 'temporary' frequency reductions that were implemented in March 2020 became mostly permanent) and then in the months leading up to their withdrawal there were a number of instances where First cancelled journeys at short notice due to a lack of drivers. Would it maybe have been the case that rather than Covid being used as an excuse to withdraw these services, it was the case that the reduction in passengers brought about by Covid was enough to tip these services over the threshold into being non commercially viable? I find it hard to imagine that any operator would have deliberately steered passengers away from certain services by regularly cancelling them and deterring passengers that way. Am I probably correct there?

I think you've partly answered your own question!

 

[Martin2012]

Maybe I was exaggerating about D&G 'making a mess' of services but am sure I did hear an example on this forum of a route where D&G ran lower capacity vehicles than the previous operator and as such that route suffered a decline in passengers to the point where the frequency got reduced. Not sure which route that was though

 

[Megafuss]

As somebody that has worked in a commercial department for two decades I can say with with high confidence that I've never been party to any action which has deliberately led to the withdrawal of a service. There has never ever been any discussion along the lines of "let's cut it a bit and then get the begging bowl out in 6 months". It's simply not like that - or maybe I've been lucky...

There have certainly been times when there very difficult decisions to made about routings due to the cost of running a service (most operators offer evening pay enhancements and there are fewer passengers around to pay for it...) you know that changes may affect long distance patronage, which is pretty low (such as diverting a marginal direct route via an estate to save resource on a local service), but that is because the choice is either a) do something to keep a service for most of the existing users and hope marketing do a good job or b) withdraw it

A prime example of this is what Stagecoach have done with the 104 between Penrith and Carlisle replacing a local service within Carlisle

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I read that the ridership-frequency elasticity is somewhere around an average of 0.5% in the short-term (of course, this varies from route to route, but the effect is more dramatic on less frequent services). In other words, this means that every 1% increase in frequency increases demand by 0.5%. This also works both ways, with every 1% decrease in frequency resulting in 0.5% decrease in demand. Therefore, if you cut the frequency of a service in half, this results in a 50% decline in demand, leading to even further cuts, leading to even further decline.

So the quickest way to ensure that a service gets withdrawn is to cut frequency.

Note though that productivity does not equal ridership demand.

I don't know where you get your stats from but I don't recognise that.

The general rule of thumb is that anything with a 15 min headway or better reflects "turn up and travel" with no need for a timetable. So dropping a service from every 10 to every 12 mins has little impact other than the ability to actually cater for all the passengers.

For less frequent services, then the impact is much more pronounced e.g. dropping from every 30 mins to every hour but many people are simply dependant on the bus (as they're non car drivers, or pass holders). If the rule worked as you state, then operators wouldn't cut frequencies or else you'd have a situation where you save 40% of your costs but lose 50% of your revenue.

 

[greenline712]

I've been following this discussion with some interest . . . in a career spanning 45 years, I've never seen, heard of or been involved in a deliberate "running down" of a bus service. Strangely enough, busmen actually quite like running buses, especially with passengers on board . . . it always gave me a buzz watching a bus arrive with a full load of passengers, or even driving said bus!

Bus companies will monitor usage of their routes, and will seek out underused journeys. If they carry very few passengers, then they shouldn't run, unless there are very good reasons (positioning for another trip, for example), or if it is felt that withdrawal might affect the overall financial viability of the route. However, sometimes the usage of, for example, evening journeys is so low that any passenger loss earlier in the day will still be outweighed by the reduction in cost.

On Route 84 (New Barnet-St Albans), it was determined in 2019 that revenue was being overtaken by costs for the first time in decades. There had been a timetable change in 2017, where reliability had been wrecked by a series of roadworks along the route, and passengers could no longer rely on buses running close to time. Various scenarios were tried to match cost to revenue, and it was decided that a reduction to 2 BPH throughout the route (a reduction from 4 BPH along two-thirds of the route) would have the best chance of succeeding. This was ameliorated by very good interworking with Uno's Route 602 at the St Albans end of the route, where the Colney7 ticket (available between all operators) already existed, so passenger perception was still of a 4 BPH service.

This was introduced on 28 March 2020 . . . of course, something else happened just before that date!! A year of DO NOT TRAVEL followed, and the financials, even with DfT support, meant that the route was withdrawn (and taken over by Sullivan Buses) in 2022. It may appear that the route was deliberately run down . . . far from it; simply that life got in the way!!

A final comment on this from me . . . we're seeing some frequency reductions on many routes across the land; the most recent is Route 28 (Taunton-Minehead) to take effect later this Spring. This will see the frequency reduced from every 30 minutes to every 45 minutes. I'd say this is accountant-led . . . here is the revenue . . . how many buses can we afford to run, assuming that revenue stays about the same? (And yes, of course an estimate of lost revenue would be built in to the calculations). Regrettably, the accountants have the upper hand at present, and charging £2 for a 25 mile journey won't have helped!

There is never a "one size fits all" . . . every route or network will be judged on its own merits.

 

[LeylandLynx]

I don't know where you get your stats from but I don't recognise that.

The general rule of thumb is that anything with a 15 min headway or better reflects "turn up and travel" with no need for a timetable. So dropping a service from every 10 to every 12 mins has little impact other than the ability to actually cater for all the passengers.

For less frequent services, then the impact is much more pronounced e.g. dropping from every 30 mins to every hour but many people are simply dependant on the bus (as they're non car drivers, or pass holders). If the rule worked as you state, then operators wouldn't cut frequencies or else you'd have a situation where you save 40% of your costs but lose 50% of your revenue.

The 0.5% elasticity variable is, as stated before, just a generalization. It also goes down as frequency increases, with a 15 minute frequency generally considered the threshold, after which productivity starts going down. Frequency is definitely one of the driving factors in ridership demand.

Of course there are other factors at play too. Perhaps people just don't find a particular route useful, or it serves sparsely populated areas.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

The 0.5% elasticity variable is, as stated before, just a generalization. It also goes down as frequency increases, with a 15 minute frequency generally considered the threshold, after which productivity starts going down. Frequency is definitely one of the driving factors in ridership demand.

Of course there are other factors at play too. Perhaps people just don't find a particular route useful, or it serves sparsely populated areas.

The concept of demand elasticity is well established. That a halving of frequency, in general, results in a halving of patronage (and so revenue) isn't a figure I recognise. As I say, if that were the case, operators wouldn't do it because whilst halving revenue, you're not going to save the same proportion of cost.

 

[LeylandLynx]

The concept of demand elasticity is well established. That a halving of frequency, in general, results in a halving of patronage (and so revenue) isn't a figure I recognise. As I say, if that were the case, operators wouldn't do it because whilst halving revenue, you're not going to save the same proportion of cost.

I think I must have made an embarrassing mistake with the maths. Halving the frequency would result in 25% reduction of ridership demand if the elasticity variable was 0.5, not 50%. My bad.

 

[Deerfold]

I think I must have made an embarrassing mistake with the maths. Halving the frequency would result in 25% reduction of ridership demand if the elasticity variable was 0.5, not 50%. My bad.

Even better - remove 100% of the service, reduce ridership by 50%.

(I realise you did say it can vary).

 

[LeylandLynx]

Even better - remove 100% of the service, reduce ridership by 50%.

(I realise you did say it can vary).

Removing 100% of the service would obviously have an elasticity of 1.0.

Well, maybe not quite as some of the ridership could just transfer to alternative services.

 

[Robertj21a]

Maybe I was exaggerating about D&G 'making a mess' of services but am sure I did hear an example on this forum of a route where D&G ran lower capacity vehicles than the previous operator and as such that route suffered a decline in passengers to the point where the frequency got reduced. Not sure which route that was though

In my view there are many comments on this forum which could do with far more facts and less guesses or biased views.
As far as I'm aware, D&G are making efforts to maintain services where others have given up. This is much in line with the regular policy at other operations run by Julian Peddle (Centrebus, Chaserider and 50% High Peak).

 

[howstaff]

Glad to see some industry insiders with relevant experience have arrived to dispel this all too common myth! I'll own up to less experience (c. 5 years) in a commercial team, but here's my take on things...

Firstly, as others have said - there is nothing to be gained by killing or damaging a profitable service. While many customers have said to me over the years "if it ain't broke don't fix it", they don't appreciate that whilst that route works for them it doesn't work for other (potential) customers, and indeed the operator. The whole industry is in well established and well documented decline, so sooner or later most routes fall into the "struggling and requiring action" category on the internal reports. In part this is of course the less a bus network offers, the fewer people are willing to use it, and therefore the less again it can afford to offer, but the decline of the industry is far far wider than that. Without going down that well trodden path of online shopping, out of town office/retail/industrial parks, perceptions of safety, pandemic era messaging, etc it's still very clear that what was once scraping by has become an issue needing resolution.

Secondly, the right solution is often outright withdrawal of a route. Sometimes there's a good option to try, such as combining a pair of similar services to reduce duplication, removing a mid-route diversion to reduce the PVR (peak vehicle requirement) costs, or refocusing around a potential growth market such as timing around a college or distribution centre along the route. But usually there just isn't. A lot of optioneering goes into these cuts, and quite often there's somebody fighting hard to try to find the right balance of cost & revenue to save the service - what is often seen as a service being run down to justify withdrawal is in fact a service where withdrawal is well justified but last-ditch attempts are being made to fix it. The industry has thankfully got better at working with the public sector, and quite often funding can be provided with minimal fuss and disruption for the passengers, but with the immense pressure on the public purse it's hard to justify bunging some cash to the incumbent to leave evenings alone when Dodgy Dave's Taxis will tender to the same spec at a lower cost even if it means a less attractive proposition.

Finally, consider the priorities of a bus company according to the Pareto Principle. Particularly in the case of town and city networks, the busiest few routes will provide a significant proportion of the revenue whereas the remaining few with the smallest amount of revenue are usually contributing a significant proportion of the challenges! A planner's time is more often than not better spent maintaining the performance of the fast, frequent & direct core urban network, with buses allocated to one route only than a rural or secondary urban complex interworking where a mix of requirements and restrictions hamper any meaningful changes. Letting the revenue of the best services slip by a few percent could easily have a similar impact on the bottom line as the outright removal of some secondary services, so from a business survival point of view the secondary services are...well secondary...and so allowed to decline until they can't be ignored.