Rising costs & falling revenues, staff retention problems, we also hear a lot about 'Zombie' companies, heavily indebted and only able to service their debts due to very low interest rates etc etc, from what I am hearing, Yellow buses may have fallen into that category?Within this week :
Yellow Buses (Bournemouth) ceased
Powells/CT plus (West and South Yorkshire, ) ceased
Midland Classic (taken over by Rotala)
Could we see more consolidation/closures within the bus industry?
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I suspect there is more to come, both closures and sell-offs, a lot will depend on available public funding which will vary from area to area.
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twitter.com/AndrewWickhamGo/status/1555088849671528449
It isn’t so simple as that. Publicly owned companies have also failed - Halton Transport, owned by the council failed in 2020 before Covid. Fact is that higher fuel, wages and other costs, and a reduced number of travellers post Covid means that weak operators may not survive…
… I fear there will be more from all types of ownership over the coming months.
I suspect a Labour run coalition of some sort in 2024 and a form of nationalised bus network after that.
It was always said that when Souter gets out, the game is up. Souter is out.
I suspect a Labour run coalition of some sort in 2024 and a form of nationalised bus network after that.
Surprised they were still around as I thought they had expired years ago.Nothing dire regarding the closure of Discount Travel Solutions.
Can GB learn anything from the funding models and organisation of bus networks in any other European nations? Serious question.
It's a fair question.There’s a good quote today from Stockport councillor and Greater Manchester Transport Committee member David Meller:
“By not supporting bus routes fully, and effectively asking operators to ‘pick and choose’ the routes they can operate for profit, it not only makes a mockery of this government’s plans to boost buses nationally but, during this cost of living crisis, means people will be forced into cars many are struggling to fill with petrol.”
Can GB learn anything from the funding models and organisation of bus networks in any other European nations? Serious question.
Thank you for your detailed reply. For clarification, how did govt restrict authorities from raising funds from taxation?It's a fair question.
One of the usual questions is why can't the profitable routes' profits be employed to cross-subsidise those routes that are commercially unviable. In the current UK competitive environment, operators are precluded from running services in that manner on the basis of breaking competition law. It is so you can't compete on a route by swamping it with buses by using your profits from other routes. However, it is fair to say that there is a limited amount of low level cross-subsidy in the industry - the retention of that early evening service that might cover its direct operating costs but doesn't bear any of the central overheads is an example of this.
However, extensive cross-subsidy was the model that didn't work during the 1960s/1970s. It began to divert resources and investment from good services to prop up a selection of increasingly unviable basket cases.
The deregulated model was supposed to reduce the cost to the taxpayer whilst competition would make firms raise their game. The first bit happened, the second less so. Of course, there was the concern that unviable services would simply be lost. Therefore, there was to be a safety net in the form of tendered services for local authorities to specify and procure. That, as a concept, worked ok until the coalition government and austerity. Central govt cut the grant to local authorities and also restrict their ability to raise funds from taxation. As bus services are not a statutory requirement (unlike schools) then they were an easy cut.
There is also the view that there is a swathe of duplication of bus services that can be removed. Probably a fair view 20 years ago or more but now, there are few examples of on-road competition; the more usual criticism is that operators have a cosy world of mutually respected boundaries, so this bonfire of duplication isn't really the case.
The fact is that bus services need funding to provide, and the ability to level the playing field a bit with the private car. How that is created and then administered is the tricky bit. I'd sooner see some moves such as removing tax implications on free bus passes but also a means of linking investment to operators with passenger growth.
For upper and single-tier authorities, council tax increases are capped at 2.99% comprising a 1% social care precept and 1.99% for general council tax.Thank you for your detailed reply. For clarification, how did govt restrict authorities from raising funds from taxation?
There is a story on the BBC news app this week about a public meeting in Yate in South Gloucestershire discussing bus funding where a vote was taken asking the council to levy a small precept on next year’s council tax specifically to save threatened routes. Do you think that approach has any legs?
Nottingham City has its workplace parking levy and Leicester City is planning to do the same to raise funds in absence of BSIP money, but this isn’t an option in counties with small towns which are the very places under the most threat of collapsing networks.
I think you've answered your own question:But will funding provide the answer? In so many places operators are reducing services due to a lack of drivers.
Unless funding can be found to provide a significant pay rise for drivers to attract more in to the industry
Well yes, because higher funding could mean higher wages for bus drivers and therefore more people would be attracted to the job. So before putting more services on, we've first got to fund the existing ones.But will funding provide the answer? In so many places operators are reducing services due to a lack of drivers. I dealt with two such Registration variations, submitted under the short notice procedure, at work today alone.
One has to be careful with the submissions to the Traffic Commissioners - operators submit Cancellations or revisions and then LTAs (local transport authorities) make plans to re-instate fully or partially the services - the process of which often eats well into the six week window and results in many 'short notice' applications.Is there any way of find details of bus service changes at the point when they are submitted to the Transport Commissioners?
If there are going to be widespread service cuts from 5th October (the day after the final round of Covid support has run out), then I presume that these changes will have to be submitted to the Transport Commissioners six weeks ahead, ie by 24 August. But are those submissions of any help to those wanting the maximum advance notice of changes? (For anyone wanting to publish any new timetable, or at least a note warning of substantial changes if that is indeed the case, in a monthly community publication, even six weeks ahead could be pretty tight).
Looking on the Transport Commissioners site (eg listing here for Hulleys of Baslow), all I can see for previously-submitted changes is a very brief text descriptor. While "Cancellation" of a route is pretty clear, "To amend timetable" could be anything from a minor retiming to a savage thinning-out.
Am I missing a way of finding the detail at the point of submission? And if the detail isn't public at that point, when (and where) does it first become evident? Waiting for a local government Public Transport unit to publish details can result in only discovering changes very close to the day that the service changes.
If you email [email protected], you can request the registrations. You then have to call them at some point and pay £3 for each registration that you want. (The Office of Traffic Commissioners hasn't moved into the 21st century yet with an easy way for people to get the registrations)Is there any way of find details of bus service changes at the point when they are submitted to the Transport Commissioners?
If there are going to be widespread service cuts from 5th October (the day after the final round of Covid support has run out), then I presume that these changes will have to be submitted to the Transport Commissioners six weeks ahead, ie by 24 August. But are those submissions of any help to those wanting the maximum advance notice of changes? (For anyone wanting to publish any new timetable, or at least a note warning of substantial changes if that is indeed the case, in a monthly community publication, even six weeks ahead could be pretty tight).
Looking on the Transport Commissioners site (eg listing here for Hulleys of Baslow), all I can see for previously-submitted changes is a very brief text descriptor. While "Cancellation" of a route is pretty clear, "To amend timetable" could be anything from a minor retiming to a savage thinning-out.
Am I missing a way of finding the detail at the point of submission? And if the detail isn't public at that point, when (and where) does it first become evident? Waiting for a local government Public Transport unit to publish details can result in only discovering changes very close to the day that the service changes.
And here we come to the Commonwealth Games and Chaserider situations. Operators chasing contract revenue and shafting normal passengers. Bath Uni contract could go to somewhere else in few years. Then what will they do as they will have killed the core network by then.First West of England, for example, are apparently withdrawing the 126 Wells to Weston-super-Mare service. It seems that the real problem isn't a lack of revenue on the 126, although I'm sure it could be, and has been, better but given the driver shortage they are choosing to re-deploy drivers from the 126 onto the Wells - Bath corridor to release Bath's drivers to work on Bath University services where huge numbers of passengers can be moved. Of course, as a business, First will run where the best money is to be made.
Higher wages mean higher fares to cover the costs which means less people travel by bus and therefore less buses needed, less drivers needed. Ooop, jobs gone all because people want really high wages, often with conditions which significantly reduce the amount that they work.Well yes, because higher funding could mean higher wages for bus drivers and therefore more people would be attracted to the job. So before putting more services on, we've first got to fund the existing ones.
The deregulated model failed from day 1. Certainly where I was living the council companies were profitable, so the local councils lost their surplus on profitable routes, but still had to pay for loss-making routes they wanted to keep (and to ensure anyone was interested in running them, there needed to be an element of profit in the amount paid).However, extensive cross-subsidy was the model that didn't work during the 1960s/1970s. It began to divert resources and investment from good services to prop up a selection of increasingly unviable basket cases.
The deregulated model was supposed to reduce the cost to the taxpayer whilst competition would make firms raise their game. The first bit happened, the second less so. Of course, there was the concern that unviable services would simply be lost. Therefore, there was to be a safety net in the form of tendered services for local authorities to specify and procure. That, as a concept, worked ok until the coalition government and austerity. Central govt cut the grant to local authorities and also restrict their ability to raise funds from taxation. As bus services are not a statutory requirement (unlike schools) then they were an easy cut
Except the Bath University services are commercial, and the students are as much "normal passengers" as anyone else, although they probably buy high value season tickets rather than travelling just once a week on an ENCTS pass. Then, out of uni term time, the buses turn up on all sorts of "special" work, such as at concerts, air displays and on rail replacement which can be done at no detriment to the "normal passengers". Linking the villages between Wells and Weston is, in comparison, very marginal work, even if it contributes to the overall position. I'm sure First want to do both, but at present they don't have the driver resource to do so and have made a choice based on the best financial result for the business.And here we come to the Commonwealth Games and Chaserider situations. Operators chasing contract revenue and shafting normal passengers. Bath Uni contract could go to somewhere else in few years. Then what will they do as they will have killed the core network by then.
Many were, on the surface, profitable but benefited from all sorts of subsidies, overt or otherwise.The deregulated model failed from day 1. Certainly where I was living the council companies were profitable, so the local councils lost their surplus on profitable routes, but still had to pay for loss-making routes they wanted to keep (and to ensure anyone was interested in running them, there needed to be an element of profit in the amount paid).
It's not a contract - they're commercial services.Bath Uni contract could go to somewhere else in few years.
Don't what you mean by that, nor what you're proposing to stop wage growth?Higher wages mean higher fares to cover the costs which means less people travel by bus and therefore less buses needed, less drivers needed. Ooop, jobs gone all because people want really high wages, often with conditions which significantly reduce the amount that they work.
They certainly were not. Read Jim Soper's books on Leeds City Transport. Year after year LCT posted deficits and it got far worse when the PTE took over.The deregulated model failed from day 1. Certainly where I was living the council companies were profitable, so the local councils lost their surplus on profitable routes, but still had to pay for loss-making routes they wanted to keep (and to ensure anyone was interested in running them, there needed to be an element of profit in the amount paid).
Operators chasing contract revenue and shafting normal passengers. Bath Uni contract could go to somewhere else in few years. Then what will they do as they will have killed the core network by then.
Indeed.Except the Bath University services are commercial, and the students are as much "normal passengers" as anyone else,
If wages rise as significantly as some of the demands from workers, you'll have no passengers left with the spiral I've mentioned above.Don't what you mean by that, nor what you're proposing to stop wage growth?
Do First pay money then for access to the university or some kind of exclusivity contract going on? That is what most unis which are off the main road seem to have. Money gets exchanged one way or another in some kind of partnership.Except the Bath University services are commercial, and the students are as much "normal passengers" as anyone else, although they probably buy high value season tickets rather than travelling just once a week on an ENCTS pass. Then, out of uni term time, the buses turn up on all sorts of "special" work, such as at concerts, air displays and on rail replacement which can be done at no detriment to the "normal passengers". Linking the villages between Wells and Weston is, in comparison, very marginal work, even if it contributes to the overall position. I'm sure First want to do both, but at present they don't have the driver resource to do so and have made a choice based on the best financial result for the business.