rs
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Post by rs on May 6, 2023 10:13:27 GMT 1
I think the scale of the apparent losses at Transdev Blazefield, and the consequent necessary cost savings that were reported on here from someone from the union, who attended a meeting, if true, may have led to Hornby's departure. Whether he resigned or was dismissed will probably not been known publicly. Someone mentioned a Non-disclosure Agreement. In the realms of UK employment law, they are called a Settlement Agreement, which has to follow a set format with certain requirements, to be valid. McGills Bus Service Ltd. also made a loss in it's latest accounts up to January 2022, although not as large as the alleged Transdev Blazefield loss. McGills don't exactly operate in affluent areas, and they have a large and increasing fleet of Yutongs. Hopefully they won't allow any Sky Class nonsense, or pointless designer spend brought there, and there won't be a repeat of that pointless, money wasting exercise at Transdev either. Whilst I don't completely agree I do think a lot of money has been wasted on needless brands. Does near enough every different route need it's own brand? Alex Hornby used to preach that it did, in the past saying ‘I call it the Cadburys effect...Cadburys refer to their products as Wispa, Crunchie and Dairy Milk. They’re all in different coloured wrappers…and are instantly recognisable. It’s the same with our brands’. Not sure about anyone else, but even someone who is completely uninterested in buses will be able to recognise a bus regardless of how it's painted. I also don't think it works with buses because whether or not a Crunchie is made by Cadburys people buy a Crunchie because they like it. People won't get a 36 branded decker because they like it if they actually want to go to Knaresborough. They catch the bus because it gets them where they want to go. Then there's the hyping up of the different brands. Making out that they're just as amazing as the flagship brands with 'amazing' features just devalues them. Irwell Line is 'amazing'. Sky Class is 'amazing'. If everything's amazing, nothing is. Then there's the confusion to those not in the know. A small number of paying passengers didn't realise that Rosso's 464 and the Irwell Line services were operated by the same company. And why would they? No obvious Rosso branding on either, one is purple and pink and the other is teal and yellow. I know that's a tiny percentage of passengers that I know of, but I'm sure it happens elsewhere too. As for the Ribble Country brand, that was obvious to nearly everyone it was a disaster from the start. When the company is already massively struggling from Covid and driver shortages undercutting every independent operator in the area to win work and then acquiring a brand new fleet of buses and paying Stenning an obscene amount of money to get two of his finest crayons out to create another brand AND THEN needing to start a massive recruitment drive to get drivers to drive them... I don't think a day went by during Transdev's tenure with those services that at least one of them wasn't cancelled. However I don't think there's anything wrong with Sky Class itself. It's a fantastic product. I don't think it's industry leading in the same way that the first 'luxury' 36 was back in 2003, but for a premium brand it's exactly what you need. Where it starts to lose it's shine is when the companies flagship brand gets used on a none flagship route. Taking on the X98/X99 was questionable from the get go. There's already a severe driver shortage and an unacceptable amount of services are already being dropped daily, so why take on another service and cancel even more local journeys so drivers can operate it? On top of that, why use the companies most luxurious vehicles on a service that is already struggling - hence the previous operator giving it up? Not only that but it's operating from the same depot as what has long been considered the operations flagship route, the 36. Sky Class is a more luxurious product, and with both the 36 and the X98/X99 operating into Leeds it does devalue it slightly.
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Post by leedsbusman on May 6, 2023 13:56:01 GMT 1
I think the scale of the apparent losses at Transdev Blazefield, and the consequent necessary cost savings that were reported on here from someone from the union, who attended a meeting, if true, may have led to Hornby's departure. Whether he resigned or was dismissed will probably not been known publicly. Someone mentioned a Non-disclosure Agreement. In the realms of UK employment law, they are called a Settlement Agreement, which has to follow a set format with certain requirements, to be valid. McGills Bus Service Ltd. also made a loss in it's latest accounts up to January 2022, although not as large as the alleged Transdev Blazefield loss. McGills don't exactly operate in affluent areas, and they have a large and increasing fleet of Yutongs. Hopefully they won't allow any Sky Class nonsense, or pointless designer spend brought there, and there won't be a repeat of that pointless, money wasting exercise at Transdev either. Whilst I don't completely agree I do think a lot of money has been wasted on needless brands. Does near enough every different route need it's own brand? Alex Hornby used to preach that it did, in the past saying ‘I call it the Cadburys effect...Cadburys refer to their products as Wispa, Crunchie and Dairy Milk. They’re all in different coloured wrappers…and are instantly recognisable. It’s the same with our brands’. Not sure about anyone else, but even someone who is completely uninterested in buses will be able to recognise a bus regardless of how it's painted. I also don't think it works with buses because whether or not a Crunchie is made by Cadburys people buy a Crunchie because they like it. People won't get a 36 branded decker because they like it if they actually want to go to Knaresborough. They catch the bus because it gets them where they want to go. Then there's the hyping up of the different brands. Making out that they're just as amazing as the flagship brands with 'amazing' features just devalues them. Irwell Line is 'amazing'. Sky Class is 'amazing'. If everything's amazing, nothing is. Then there's the confusion to those not in the know. A small number of paying passengers didn't realise that Rosso's 464 and the Irwell Line services were operated by the same company. And why would they? No obvious Rosso branding on either, one is purple and pink and the other is teal and yellow. I know that's a tiny percentage of passengers that I know of, but I'm sure it happens elsewhere too. As for the Ribble Country brand, that was obvious to nearly everyone it was a disaster from the start. When the company is already massively struggling from Covid and driver shortages undercutting every independent operator in the area to win work and then acquiring a brand new fleet of buses and paying Stenning an obscene amount of money to get two of his finest crayons out to create another brand AND THEN needing to start a massive recruitment drive to get drivers to drive them... I don't think a day went by during Transdev's tenure with those services that at least one of them wasn't cancelled. However I don't think there's anything wrong with Sky Class itself. It's a fantastic product. I don't think it's industry leading in the same way that the first 'luxury' 36 was back in 2003, but for a premium brand it's exactly what you need. Where it starts to lose it's shine is when the companies flagship brand gets used on a none flagship route. Taking on the X98/X99 was questionable from the get go. There's already a severe driver shortage and an unacceptable amount of services are already being dropped daily, so why take on another service and cancel even more local journeys so drivers can operate it? On top of that, why use the companies most luxurious vehicles on a service that is already struggling - hence the previous operator giving it up? Not only that but it's operating from the same depot as what has long been considered the operations flagship route, the 36. Sky Class is a more luxurious product, and with both the 36 and the X98/X99 operating into Leeds it does devalue it slightly. Not sure I understand the criticism of Ribble Country. How do you know that what Best Impressions were paid is an obscene amount of money? Given Pilkingtons have bought new buses for the 64 (and others) and Coastal did for the 76/78 tender regularly why is it wrong for Transdev to do so? Also given that Lancashire tend to award contracts on price, every bidder has undercut its competitors as that’s how you win! Why is Transdev wrong for winning work from Pilkingtons and Holmeswood? Rotala won the 45 from Pilkingtons; 76/8 from Coastal and Stagecoach the 337/347 from Holmeswood. But that seems ok! I think most operators large and small see tenders as fair game. Indeed most of it was previous held by large operators before the smaller ones won it.
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Post by Deleted on May 6, 2023 13:58:52 GMT 1
I think the scale of the apparent losses at Transdev Blazefield, and the consequent necessary cost savings that were reported on here from someone from the union, who attended a meeting, if true, may have led to Hornby's departure. Whether he resigned or was dismissed will probably not been known publicly. Someone mentioned a Non-disclosure Agreement. In the realms of UK employment law, they are called a Settlement Agreement, which has to follow a set format with certain requirements, to be valid. McGills Bus Service Ltd. also made a loss in it's latest accounts up to January 2022, although not as large as the alleged Transdev Blazefield loss. McGills don't exactly operate in affluent areas, and they have a large and increasing fleet of Yutongs. Hopefully they won't allow any Sky Class nonsense, or pointless designer spend brought there, and there won't be a repeat of that pointless, money wasting exercise at Transdev either. McGill's are at a crossroads at present having bought some former First operations and developed new(or rather revived old) brands for them. But neither of those are 'established'. There is also the issue of vehicle quality and a need to get in decent fleet to run the services as the vehicles acquired from First are in poor condition. Alex is rather good at establishing brands and where the company presently is will play to his strengths. This along with Dundee means there is plenty to get on with. They don't use Ray Stenning though - but other designers exist. Possible to do things on a lower budget, which is what will be available! McGills have used Ray recently, as the updated Eastern Scottish & Midland Bluebird branding that replaced the Lothian copycat liveries was designed by him, alongside a new livery for Xplore that was first announced last year but doesn't seem to have started to roll out yet (some say it's due to the Ex-First ops needing repainting, others say it was dropped after many people compared it to Readings Greenline Livery). Ray also played a part in the 'Zero Heros' branding used on the Yutongs
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Post by SCH117X on May 6, 2023 15:43:43 GMT 1
Route branding was a Trandev Blazefield thing way before Alex Hornby arrived - Route 1, 36 and 770 (now 7) at Harrogate for example and for a while the 24 had been branded the Nidderdale Branch.
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Post by rwilkes on May 6, 2023 19:48:45 GMT 1
Route branding is used by many companies. It works in boosting revenue as long as its a good product with timetables and info Some small companies used it in NBC days but Trent Barton pioneered the modern version. They have superb services. All W Yorks buses are hamstrung by congestion annd are forced to produce a degraded and expensive offer I was in Nottingham for a few days and buses are fantastic for passengers and in the centre outnumber cars The city owned buses and Trent Barton do bus passengers proud because they have the bus infrastructure which works I wish WYCA would copy Nottingham, Oxford, Reading or Brighton instead of the hideously expensive London contracts
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rs
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Post by rs on May 6, 2023 20:11:23 GMT 1
Just to be clear, I was referring to the individual brands rather than route branding. I think route branding on top of the company livery (as it was mostly done in the Pre-Transdev Blazefield era) is a much better way of doing it.
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Post by stevieinselby on May 6, 2023 23:25:24 GMT 1
Route branding was a Trandev Blazefield thing way before Alex Hornby arrived - Route 1, 36 and 770 (now 7) at Harrogate for example and for a while the 24 had been branded the Nidderdale Branch. To my mind, there's a difference between applying some extra vinyls to embellish the basic corporate livery and designing a whole new livery that looks nothing like the corporate livery. Splashing a big number 1 on the side of a red bus when all your other buses in the town are red makes it easy to identify what route the bus is on and which company runs it, that's absolutely fine and is good. But that isn't what they do any more. While I'm not the biggest fan of the current liveries for either Arriva or Stagecoach (and I think that in both cases, what they had before was far better), they have got a consistent brand. You see one of their buses, you know it's one of their buses. I am not massively bothered about different Transdev divisions having different liveries, but when within one division there are numerous brands and you can't tell that they are run by the same operator, that's a problem, especially if it's an area where they don't have a monopoly. Go North East is the same, and TrentBarton.
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Post by nic on May 7, 2023 10:24:46 GMT 1
Just to be clear, I was referring to the individual brands rather than route branding. I think route branding on top of the company livery (as it was mostly done in the Pre-Transdev Blazefield era) is a much better way of doing it. Not sure your point here. Route branding is individual brands so I don't get where you're coming from. It's not like a high street brand - it's a bus in a different livery which you support as "route branding". With that you can push on social media (which every company needs these days to address complaints etc - so why not use social media as it's more or less free in terms of pushing the brand whilst addressing complaints). The company has always had brands, and route branding. Coastliner is an operator, but a brand. The 36 was the special one. The 1's which I cannot remember but I'm sure were former 100, the 770, 24. First have brands and first also do route branding.
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rs
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Post by rs on May 7, 2023 10:58:32 GMT 1
Just to be clear, I was referring to the individual brands rather than route branding. I think route branding on top of the company livery (as it was mostly done in the Pre-Transdev Blazefield era) is a much better way of doing it. Not sure your point here. Route branding is individual brands so I don't get where you're coming from. It's not like a high street brand - it's a bus in a different livery which you support as "route branding". With that you can push on social media (which every company needs these days to address complaints etc - so why not use social media as it's more or less free in terms of pushing the brand whilst addressing complaints). The company has always had brands, and route branding. Coastliner is an operator, but a brand. The 36 was the special one. The 1's which I cannot remember but I'm sure were former 100, the 770, 24. First have brands and first also do route branding. Stevieinselby words it better than I did in the post above yours in his last paragraph... Back in the Blazefield era you'd have a red and cream livery for Burnley and Harrogate, blue and cream for Blackburn/Lancashire United and Coastliner and Keighley had it's own teal and white livery. Routes that were branded, such as the Mainline at Burnley, 225 and the 152 at Blackburn or the Knaresborough services at Harrogate had their route branding applied on top of that livery. The buses still stood out because they were branded, but you still knew which company they belonged to. And if for whatever reason one was off route it didn't look out of place. Now in Rossendale you often see a Blackburn liveried blue bus on the 464 between Accrington and Rochdale. On a service that is, to most members of the public, a Rosso service but never (or very rarely) sees a Rosso vehicle. Irwell Line is another that is promoted as a Rosso service, but has operated from Blackburn until very recently so also saw Blackburn vehicles. Now it's moved to Burnley so has been seeing orange Burnley vehicles too. Sometimes there's a grey Pride of the North/Transdev Go branded bus thrown into the mix to further confuse things. The neglected Red Express is another confusing one. Was a Blackburn service, but is now technically a Rosso service according to the logos on the back of the bus and in promo material, yet runs with Blackburn vehicles or the occasional grey spare PotN/Transdev Go bus. It's all a bit of a mess!
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Post by westyorkshirebus on May 7, 2023 11:26:14 GMT 1
What you are wanting is exactly what now happens
Major routes between towns get a brand name and a special livery, but generally half of that livery is the colour of that operation, so there is a link to the main fleet
Lesser routes either have no brand, or have a brand name on the main fleet colours such as 7, Harrogate Electrics, Keighley Jets
If anything it is more logical than the days when we had The Zone, Spot On, Starship, as well as the main branded services, and as well as the normal fleet livery
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rs
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Post by rs on May 7, 2023 12:07:58 GMT 1
What you are wanting is exactly what now happens Major routes between towns get a brand name and a special livery, but generally half of that livery is the colour of that operation, so there is a link to the main fleet Lesser routes either have no brand, or have a brand name on the main fleet colours such as 7, Harrogate Electrics, Keighley Jets If anything it is more logical than the days when we had The Zone, Spot On, Starship, as well as the main branded services, and as well as the normal fleet livery Harrogate isn't so bad, as the standard fleet livery of red and red ties in with all their brand colours. Burnley/Blackburn with the various Rosso brands isn't as clear cut. Irwell Line is yellow and teal, 464 is purple and pink, Rosso Rovers is yellow and yellow, Red Express is red and yellow after being red and blue for a number of years. There's no clear identity, especially when other spare vehicles are thrown into the mix. I personally hated the Starship brand. Found it very tacky and completely irrelevant. Spot On was a good idea in concept, but I think it was too much change at once and just caused massive confusion and frustration with passengers. Lancashire United and Blackburn Transport had merged, routes were combined, split, dropped and tweaked... It was too much and the constant major service revisions that took place over the next few years didn't help. It became locally known as Spot Off... As for now, as I've said above, things are a mess. When it works, it works well. However I still think there are too many individual brands and they aren't all needed. I also think that too much emphasis has been put into making things look like things are going well which is covering up the fact things aren't actually running well. Since Alex Hornby's departure there has been a noticeable drop in standards. There have been a lot more off brand vehicles running on branded services for one. Keighley seems to have been the worst for it. Shuttle B7RLEs have been spotting running on local services amongst others, often with the incorrect or missing destination display. Vehicle presentation is still top class though. Doesn't matter if you're on a brand new Merc Mellor or a 20+ year old B10BLE. They still leave the depot every day absolutely spotless. Regular cleaning during the day keeps them clean. Yes some are looking tired now, but they're still clean and tidy. Transdev Blazefield do have a big hill to climb to get back to being the industry leaders they once were. The massive overspending that's been taking place over the last few years haven't helped at all as there's massive financial losses to overcome, and with no new vehicles (aside from the electrics) due there's very limited resources within the fleets too. The 66 plate Coastliner fleet would normally be replaced around now as they're getting on for 7 years old, but they're still being propped up by older cast offs from other depots. Instead of putting the ex-Zap Sky Class ADLs on the new X98/X99, why not send them to Coastliner to displace the older vehicles to the new service? Pendle Wizz wasn't withdrawn due to lack of passengers, but because of the increasing unreliability of the available vehicles. I have no way of backing up my claim on this forum, it's just what I've been told by people more in the know than me and I believe them - it often carried decent loads especially at peak times. Despite all this, the drivers are still the some of the best going. Friendly, professional and helpful. It's rare to get a bad one, but unfortunately there are a lot leaving and staff turnover is high. Some of this is claimed to be because of disagreements with the previous CEO or other senior management or unworkable and unsociable shifts. A lot of people had been lured in with the £1000 welcome bonus (I believe they were offering up to £3000 to get drivers for the X98/X99) but left after the minimum contract term to get the bonus. Obviously all of the above is my own opinion, I don't expect everybody/anybody to agree with me and I enjoy having civil discussions with those who don't agree.
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Post by SCH117X on May 7, 2023 12:09:47 GMT 1
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Post by SCH117X on May 7, 2023 12:13:02 GMT 1
Since Alex Hornby's departure there has been a noticeable drop in standards. There have been a lot more off brand vehicles running on branded services for one. Keighley seems to have been the worst for it. Shuttle B7RLEs have been spotting running on local services amongst others The complaint for years has been that Keighley would rather cancel a service than run it with a spare Shuttle vehicle.
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WYBS
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Post by WYBS on May 7, 2023 12:16:16 GMT 1
Since Alex Hornby's departure there has been a noticeable drop in standards. There have been a lot more off brand vehicles running on branded services for one. Keighley seems to have been the worst for it. Shuttle B7RLEs have been spotting running on local services amongst others The complaint for years has been that Keighley would rather cancel a service than run it with a spare Shuttle vehicle. Probably because they would get a right ol' rollocking from Hornby if they did.
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Post by SCH117X on May 7, 2023 12:19:25 GMT 1
The complaint for years has been that Keighley would rather cancel a service than run it with a spare Shuttle vehicle. Probably because they would get a right ol' rollocking from Hornby if they did. Harrogate regualarly used 36 vehicles on other services under his MDship - last non 36 working of one I saw was as a 727H school bus last year
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jimmi
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Post by jimmi on May 7, 2023 12:41:56 GMT 1
Probably because they would get a right ol' rollocking from Hornby if they did. Harrogate regualarly used 36 vehicles on other services under his MDship - last non 36 working of one I saw was as a 727H school bus last year Thing is, it was often just that, mostly only using branded buses on wrong routes that are scholars services, very occasionally at Harrogate one would escape onto the 8 after performing a scholars but that's about it, only other instance I'm aware of is one appearing on the DalesBus 59 one Saturday after one of the B9s developed a fault over the course of the day, naturally had no destinations so just ended up having to run round with 'The Harrogate Bus Company' on the display which seemed to be a tactic to keep branded buses off anything other than the route its branded for, I'd rather the displays were there for all services, just in case, so if it does have to happen, it can... 152 recently had a few stand ins such as the 1 branded E200MMCs having to go round with just 'The Blackburn Bus Company' on the display with no paper destinations or anything else that to most would look as if its either not in service or on a private hire, hope and pray this practice is phased out now Hornby has gone.
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mattb7tl
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Post by mattb7tl on May 7, 2023 12:43:48 GMT 1
Branding should’ve been used on existing bus routes rather than new routes which usually don’t have much of a success rate. Burnley doesn’t have many routes to feed into the X43. A lot of the routes end extremely early into the day along with patchy frequencies. If the company doesn’t enter another dark period, branding and increasing growth on the less popular routes would be the best way to grow.
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rs
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Post by rs on May 7, 2023 13:07:22 GMT 1
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Post by mk2mcw on May 7, 2023 18:35:48 GMT 1
Branding should’ve been used on existing bus routes rather than new routes which usually don’t have much of a success rate. Burnley doesn’t have many routes to feed into the X43. A lot of the routes end extremely early into the day along with patchy frequencies. If the company doesn’t enter another dark period, branding and increasing growth on the less popular routes would be the best way to grow. [br I live in Burnley I think only the M1-6 152 and X43 routes run late at night And of course the 591-2
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Post by SCH117X on May 7, 2023 20:21:29 GMT 1
Harrogate regualarly used 36 vehicles on other services under his MDship - last non 36 working of one I saw was as a 727H school bus last year Thing is, it was often just that, mostly only using branded buses on wrong routes that are scholars services, very occasionally at Harrogate one would escape onto the 8 after performing a scholars but that's about it, only other instance I'm aware of is one appearing on the DalesBus 59 one Saturday after one of the B9s developed a fault over the course of the day, naturally had no destinations so just ended up having to run round with 'The Harrogate Bus Company' on the display which seemed to be a tactic to keep branded buses off anything other than the route its branded for The school bus 36 I saw had a full height of its display 727H with School Bus alongside so there must be some other displayed programmed in beyond pure 36 ones.
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Post by westyorkshirebus on May 7, 2023 20:51:53 GMT 1
Of course post COVID service reductions led to surplus ‘36’ buses and still leads to surplus ‘Shuttle’ buses, which is why they were used on other services
They wouldn’t repaint the surplus Shuttle buses as it’s likely they might be cascaded or withdrawn entirely when the electric buses arrive
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Post by platform5 on May 8, 2023 9:14:27 GMT 1
So let’s get this right
The guy posts on Twitter almost daily then suddenly with no cool down it stops. Transdev is loosing millions.
Manchester City zap - closed York city zap - closed Ilkley - Harrogate extension from Keighley - closed Vazoom - quietly dropped Wharfedale work - dropped Lancashire work - dropped Investment in new vehicles - declined Average age of fleet - increased Management changes - very fluid
Jump or be pushed ! Watch out Mc Gills your next !
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deerfold
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Post by deerfold on May 8, 2023 10:16:13 GMT 1
So let’s get this right The guy posts on Twitter almost daily then suddenly with no cool down it stops. Transdev is loosing millions. Manchester City zap - closed York city zap - closed Ilkley - Harrogate extension from Keighley - closed Vazoom - quietly dropped Wharfedale work - dropped Lancashire work - dropped Investment in new vehicles - declined Average age of fleet - increased Management changes - very fluid Jump or be pushed ! Watch out Mc Gills your next ! That's what tends to happen when someone gets a new job and is put on gardening leave. How long have you gone back for that list? The 62 hasn't served Harrogate in 6 years and only ran for 18 months! I loved the trial and made good use of it - I think they might have done better if it had gone from Harrogate a couple of hours later, perhaps instead of the very early morning journeys that were provided, but it was never very busy, especially when the X52 frequency was doubled and moved to 10 minutes before the 62. Now with the X52 cut back, it's usually quicker for me to get to Harrogate via Leeds (or Skipton on a Saturday).
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rs
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Post by rs on May 8, 2023 10:46:13 GMT 1
The only things I find odd is the sudden halt in his Twitter posting, seemingly halfway through his holiday. It could be that it was something tied into his contract of employment after handing his notice in, who knows. But it just seems odd.
The other thing that I found surprising was not referencing Transdev or the past 8 years or so of his career. You see it often on social media when people are announcing their next chapters in their career they'll always thank their colleagues or at least reference their employment; especially after 8 years of self professed 'amazing' times.
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Post by SCH117X on May 8, 2023 10:51:20 GMT 1
Oddly they never seemed to market the 62 extension as well as they could - the K Day ticket meant most return journeys where cheaper than Connexions fares. On the otherhand part of its problem time wise was the single depot operation but running one duty on it out of Starbeck would no doubt have been seen to have problems ticketwise although it should have been simple to state K Day tickets would be valid on 62s operated by Harrogate. Judging by the ongoing trials the electric vehicles will be ordered and that then will see a fleet reshuffle and no doubt the older vehicles withdrawn but they do maintain them well, the 19 year old B7BLEs at Starbeck for example www.flickr.com/photos/east_lancs/52626287309
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