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Post by Burnside on Aug 9, 2013 17:56:22 GMT 1
Metro just tweeted the following:
Are Sandla/AIS in trouble of some sort?
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Post by timelesstable on Aug 9, 2013 18:09:54 GMT 1
Does mean that Arriva Dewsbury's Enviro 200's 1061-1063 will be making a swift return to Selby!
Even better will a few more step Spectra be pressed back into service in Yorkshire.........
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Post by westyorkshirebus on Aug 9, 2013 18:54:19 GMT 1
It does look like Sandla have gone out of business?
More Spectras back into service? And then when they take over the Transdev York locals, even more back into service to back fill?
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Post by jabbott1987 on Aug 9, 2013 20:05:55 GMT 1
Any idea who will be doing Service 37 York - Catterton - Tadcaster as that hasn't been mentioned?
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Post by timelesstable on Aug 9, 2013 20:41:12 GMT 1
It does look like Sandla have gone out of business? More Spectras back into service? And then when they take over the Transdev York locals, even more back into service to back fill? Better still or Arriva have bought a dozen or so Volvo Eclipses from First West Yorks................. |
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kendall17
Forum Member
Justice for the 96!
Posts: 4,514
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Post by kendall17 on Aug 10, 2013 13:28:56 GMT 1
Hadn't they lost/given up the GSAL routes after 1 year?
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Matty
Forum Member
Posts: 5,615
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Post by Matty on Aug 10, 2013 18:36:09 GMT 1
They have gone bust as of Monday.
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Post by SCH117X on Aug 11, 2013 10:05:51 GMT 1
Press reports are that NYCC have yet to arrange a replacement operator for the 37.
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SF07
Forum Member
Posts: 3,216
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Post by SF07 on Aug 12, 2013 20:27:46 GMT 1
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Post by timelesstable on Aug 12, 2013 21:29:11 GMT 1
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Post by SCH117X on Aug 13, 2013 18:12:54 GMT 1
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Post by stevieinselby on Aug 14, 2013 22:35:34 GMT 1
Is it just coincidence that Sandla and Little Red Bus have both been hit by financial problems at the same time, or is there an underlying issue here? Both operators had built their foundations on subsidised services ... does that mean they underbid for those contracts? Have the council been too lax in simply accepting the lowest bid without making sure that it is deliverable ... or have the conditions changed so much since the contracts were issued that what was viable then is not viable now?
More worryingly ... are there any other operators who are in danger of going the same way?
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Post by dwarfer1979 on Aug 15, 2013 8:49:04 GMT 1
Is it just coincidence that Sandla and Little Red Bus have both been hit by financial problems at the same time, or is there an underlying issue here? Both operators had built their foundations on subsidised services ... does that mean they underbid for those contracts? Have the council been too lax in simply accepting the lowest bid without making sure that it is deliverable ... or have the conditions changed so much since the contracts were issued that what was viable then is not viable now? More worryingly ... are there any other operators who are in danger of going the same way? It is tough times financially at the moment and the operators most at risk are those that rely on subsidised services, not only due to reductions in income from direct cuts to supported bus services leading to reduced work & income but because those are the type of services which will have a higher proportion of free pass passengers where, often, the reimbursement is not as high as it really needs to be to make a viable service. The result is that you will have a lot of smaller operators teetering on the brink and it needs an experienced and/or skilful manager at the helm to keep the company going, it seems that they run in waves and you will often find where one operator is failing so are a number of others for similar reasons and they all hit trouble at the same time (Leicestershire had a couple fail and another couple sell out all in the space of 12 months 2 years ago, Surrey regularly gets waves where 2 or 3 operators will all fail one after the other over the space of less than a year). Outwardly they would appear to be separate instances, from the reports Little Red Bus simply couldn't service one large, long-standing debt (with little prospect of improvement with the upcoming NYCC cuts affecting them badly) and so closed down whereas Sandla would appear, to the uninvolved outsider, to be more of a typical cheap new operator not quite getting their sums right (there are many of them around many of which will fail but some survive to grow to strong businesses - Centrebus is one where a similar operator grew to be a successful and strong major operator). There will be a bit of both under-bidding and very changed circumstances between gaining contracts and now, all businesses are finding it tough with much increased costs and income which is stagnant or falling. The best run operators can find ways to create success in times like this but the more reliant you are on local authority funding the less opportunity there is to come up with something clever and operators like Sandla (small independents running middle aged, or older, secondhand vehicles) have already pared all discretionary costs down to the bone, there is little fat left if times suddenly get very hard. There is not much councils can do when evaluating bids to ensure they are deliverable as it is difficult for an outsider to be able to make that judgement as they will not have all the facts. Operators will have different cost bases which will affect their base bidding cost starting point (Centrebus have always been a low cost operator and our cost base will be lower than a First or Arriva subsidy due to that - we employ about as many people at head office for a fleet of around 300 as my previous employers, an small partially ex-NBC operation, employed for a fleet of 90, of which a third were operated under franchise by other companies, whilst keeping operations supervision at similar levels for the size of depot) so automatically some operators will bid lower than others for the same work. However you cannot use that as a full benchmark as if you have spare capacity or a vehicle in the area on other contracts (possibly for another authority or even a commercial business) you may be able to cover a contract for less than your base price as the vehicle working is largely funded by other work around it, it may be just a bit of fuel and some extra wages needing to be covered (you could see rates up to half what they would normally be, generally involving school work but not exclusively, because the operator had a bus in the area anyway so the work was largely paid for already). Costs will also vary by what vehicle is used (and older vehicle may be cheaper to run so enabling a lower price, the risk is when the vehicle is then replaced the contract may suddenly become unviable), the pay conditions at the operator (wages, paid breaks, holidays etc as well as scheduling agreements on duration of work and the like), the fuel price the operator can get from its supplier (the big guys get an advantage here as they buy in bulk and hedge the prices) & distance from base or from other work that the operator may be able to interwork it with to reduce the operating costs of more than one service. You will also have on subsidy bids (where the operator keeps the revenue) different views on the potential income of the service, does an authority penalise an operator who takes a more optimistic view for doing so - they could have a good plan that by the end of the contract has turned a route into a commercial service that the council no longer has to pay for through marketing and reliable operation (Centrebus have done that in a number of areas and I'm sure we can name many other operators who work the same - Western Greyhound & Norfolk Green are the true masters of this way of running a business). Simply put it is too difficult for an authority to take more than a very broad view on whether an individual operators bid is sustainable, if it is markedly lower than other bids they may confirm with the operator that the price is right and they are happy with it but if they insist it is all they can do is award the contract to the cheapest bidder who meets their quality criteria and count the savings as long as they last and hope that they don't fail too quickly and that the price hike for the emergency replacement isn't too big if it does fail. |
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