deerfold
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Post by deerfold on Apr 18, 2024 16:01:32 GMT 1
I see on Brabin's campaign she says she's a bus user, she's on a salary of £105,000 a year lol, no way she is a bus user, who would be on that salary? Plus with all the photo opportunties she goes too, no way she is a bus user. Why not? I don't think she's ever said she uses nothing else.
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Post by shelf81 on Apr 18, 2024 17:20:13 GMT 1
I'm confused as to why people who support an EP+, use Leicester, as a good example? I mean the statistics are quite laughable and prove bus priority isn't the answer. It's incredible that all those bus lanes have only increased punctuality by 2%... It also highlights that private operators haven't matched the investment made by their authority. The bee networks punctuality reports are better because they have introduced a boat load of off peak journeys which average out to create a more 'punctual' service. Leicester can't even do that, but whose surprised since one of their main operators is infamous for a lack of service reinvestment and poor evening services No investment by the private operators, apart from Stagecoach, First & Arriva paying approx. 75% the cost towards over 100 new electric buses & the charging infrastructure. Whilst at the moment there has only being a 2% increase in punctuality there is still alot of work going on to deliver the next batch of improvements what should increase that number, as it seems most of the planned stuff for later this year is connected to reliability: www.leicesterbuses.co.uk/planned-projectsWith your views on Firsts 'poor evening services' it does remembering a large number of what they used to be operate was funded by the likes of WYPTE/WYCA, with them cutting the funding & journies not First. If First cannot operate it commercially & WYCA no longer see a need to support the route then it does send the message that the affected journies was not well used. Another thing to consider is from the environmental aspect, a bus needs to replace at least 4 cars per journey to be more eco friendly. If you've got aload of buses running around on a evening/nightime carry penny numbers then it goes against what is meant to be one of public transports biggest advantages.
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Post by sharksmith on Apr 18, 2024 17:27:42 GMT 1
Deep down I really don't care whether buses are in public ownership, franchised or with private operators and like lemmings I would expect alomost every area to bring in some form of franchising system over the next ten years or so (DRT anyone?). No doubt in another thirty years time another wave of changes will eliminate franchising and the cycle will begin again, be that with buses in public or private control. Maybe there will be something new (DRT anyone?) or quite possibly, if bus usage continues to drop, the end to bus travel as we know it completely (DRT anyone?).
My objection to franchising in West Yorkshire is that I can't think of one thing under public control in this region which is a success. Looking at Bradford alone, the council is almost bankrupt, the interchange is closed, it looks like the Bradford Live project is now in trouble. How bad are Library Services, Household Waste sites are being closed down, Leisure facilities have been stripped back and I had to wait 3 months for a new garden waste bin even though I now have to pay for the service. I have had the misfortune to deal with Bradfords Child and Adult services and found them to be run appallingly.
In addition I worked for the civil service for over 30 years and know what happens when money gets tight, short term cheap becomes king rather than finding real value for money and staff take the brunt of the penny pinching, looking forward to Diamond Bus taking over some franchises in West Yorkshire as they are cheap.
The West Yorkshire Combined Authority are responsible for providing Bus Information, they're the experts on it having been responsible for over 50 years. Can you find anyone who thinks they've done a good job publicising the changes in Bradford over the last few months. Any system will be a failure if you put poor management in place I have seen nothing but failure from Metro and local councils over many years.
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pricel
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Post by pricel on Apr 18, 2024 18:19:54 GMT 1
The main point is that you can get better services for less cost with partnerships as in Oxford, Reading, Nottingham, Brighton and Leicester. Manchester has 9% growth with an expensive franchising system and Leicester has over 20% growth with a much cheaper partnership system WYCA, and supporters of franchising generally, do not understand the true costs of franchising as they think that the shareholder dividends can be diverted into bus support whereas they will still be paid but hidden in the leasing. Dividends have to be paid to borrow mony to buy buses. Is like the interest rates on a mortgage costs When WYCA find the true costs of what they are doing, compounded by the fact they don't know how to do anything, thye will simply do a Beeching on our buses Many other countries have farnchsing, but as their healthcare is in private ownership they have the spare cash which the UK doesn't. Would we want to porivatise the NHS to pay for buses? Some US cities pay for buses out of parking charges. The more people use the buses, the less parking charges they have to pay for them! Bare in mind there are far more services under Bee Network in Greater Manchester, so it balances out and if it were already 9% increased bus usage from 1 tranche being completed, then that really suggests how well franchising is doing.
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pricel
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Post by pricel on Apr 18, 2024 18:22:58 GMT 1
I think the money for franchising could be used on other things which should take a bigger priority, social care, children's care, mental health services, special needs education, disability support, tackling youth crime, all of which are very underfunded and neglected. With that logic, don't do anything with the buses at all just let them collapes. Don't even bother with EP+ as there are clearly more other issues that should take priority. 🤷👀
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Post by sharksmith on Apr 18, 2024 18:24:39 GMT 1
The main point is that you can get better services for less cost with partnerships as in Oxford, Reading, Nottingham, Brighton and Leicester. Manchester has 9% growth with an expensive franchising system and Leicester has over 20% growth with a much cheaper partnership system WYCA, and supporters of franchising generally, do not understand the true costs of franchising as they think that the shareholder dividends can be diverted into bus support whereas they will still be paid but hidden in the leasing. Dividends have to be paid to borrow mony to buy buses. Is like the interest rates on a mortgage costs When WYCA find the true costs of what they are doing, compounded by the fact they don't know how to do anything, thye will simply do a Beeching on our buses Many other countries have farnchsing, but as their healthcare is in private ownership they have the spare cash which the UK doesn't. Would we want to porivatise the NHS to pay for buses? Some US cities pay for buses out of parking charges. The more people use the buses, the less parking charges they have to pay for them! Bare in mind there are far more services under Bee Network in Greater Manchester, so it balances out and if it were already 9% increased bus usage from 1 tranche being completed, then that really suggests how well franchising is doing. I'm not sure you understand how percentages work there bud. If the cost of living in Bolton rises 9%, that doesn't mean that when you add in the cost of living increases in Oldham and Stockport it rises to 27%. Maybe 1 or 2% more from the people travelling between Bolton and Oldham/Stockport but you'd expect to see roughly the same percentage across the region unless your saying the buses in other areas were worse than the Tranche 1 areas. Although going by what some people think of First compared to Stagecoach you'd probably expect lower increased bus usage percentages in the south of Manchester where Stagecoach have always done such a spiffing job!
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mattb7tl
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Post by mattb7tl on Apr 18, 2024 18:32:31 GMT 1
I'm confused as to why people who support an EP+, use Leicester, as a good example? I mean the statistics are quite laughable and prove bus priority isn't the answer. It's incredible that all those bus lanes have only increased punctuality by 2%... It also highlights that private operators haven't matched the investment made by their authority. The bee networks punctuality reports are better because they have introduced a boat load of off peak journeys which average out to create a more 'punctual' service. Leicester can't even do that, but whose surprised since one of their main operators is infamous for a lack of service reinvestment and poor evening services No investment by the private operators, apart from Stagecoach, First & Arriva paying approx. 75% the cost towards over 100 new electric buses & the charging infrastructure. Whilst at the moment there has only being a 2% increase in punctuality there is still alot of work going on to deliver the next batch of improvements what should increase that number, as it seems most of the planned stuff for later this year is connected to reliability: www.leicesterbuses.co.uk/planned-projectsWith your views on Firsts 'poor evening services' it does remembering a large number of what they used to be operate was funded by the likes of WYPTE/WYCA, with them cutting the funding & journies not First. If First cannot operate it commercially & WYCA no longer see a need to support the route then it does send the message that the affected journies was not well used. Another thing to consider is from the environmental aspect, a bus needs to replace at least 4 cars per journey to be more eco friendly. If you've got aload of buses running around on a evening/nightime carry penny numbers then it goes against what is meant to be one of public transports biggest advantages. I was referring to service reinvestment It's very clear that private and publicly controlled bus networks reinvest profits in a different way, and one is undeniably better. It's safe to say that diamond wouldn't ever give the 36/7 a night service. It's not student oriented and they would see greater returns or less of a loss reinvesting profits at different times or in a different way or... not at all like with HD/HX... little service reinvestment and little fleet investment... First's poor evening services spans across every and any operation. Other operators, even hated ones, understand the concept of taking on some loss making journeys to free up more public funding to run a fuller timetable. First doesn't and that's why they experience nothing but decline. The timetables aren't usable and you can't build your life around them which in my opinion is why publicly owned companies have seen less or no drop in usage since privatisation.
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Post by sharksmith on Apr 18, 2024 18:43:05 GMT 1
I think the money for franchising could be used on other things which should take a bigger priority, social care, children's care, mental health services, special needs education, disability support, tackling youth crime, all of which are very underfunded and neglected. With that logic, don't do anything with the buses at all just let them collapes. Don't even bother with EP+ as there are clearly more other issues that should take priority. 🤷👀 With a finite amount of resources that's probably correct as most of those other priorities are more important. It's just not in the interests of any public company, or their horrible shareholders, to see their business run itself into the ground so leave them to it with the local authorities paying for essential but unproftable services if society can afford it. This just isn't the utopian society you think it should be.
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Post by rodneytrotter on Apr 18, 2024 18:50:51 GMT 1
Good luck having your services ran by some of the most incompetent people you've ever seen! Instead of the shareholders pocketing everything, it will all go to Brabin and co. If you think you can trust Brabin and co to run a bus network then I'm afraid your in for a shock, as I'm guessing they've never ever set foot in Bradford before judging by the info they gave about the interchange. She only does the photo opportunity's nothing else, she doesn't care, about what people think, as she blocks them.
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Post by rodneytrotter on Apr 18, 2024 18:56:37 GMT 1
I think the money for franchising could be used on other things which should take a bigger priority, social care, children's care, mental health services, special needs education, disability support, tackling youth crime, all of which are very underfunded and neglected. With that logic, don't do anything with the buses at all just let them collapes. Don't even bother with EP+ as there are clearly more other issues that should take priority. 🤷👀 With your logic, let all of the issues I talk about collapse, in favour of some sort of bus franchise that isn't guaranteed to work ran by power hungry people and let kids, older people, mental health people suffer, disabled people no support and even a higher crime rate happen just so that some rural area, that doesn't make any money gets a better bus service. What makes you think we can afford to fund a franchising system, when were struggling to fund the things I listed without dramatically raising council tax to pay for, or money to pay for a tram system, when there are bigger issues to solve.
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pricel
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Post by pricel on Apr 18, 2024 19:27:20 GMT 1
Bare in mind there are far more services under Bee Network in Greater Manchester, so it balances out and if it were already 9% increased bus usage from 1 tranche being completed, then that really suggests how well franchising is doing. I'm not sure you understand how percentages work there bud. If the cost of living in Bolton rises 9%, that doesn't mean that when you add in the cost of living increases in Oldham and Stockport it rises to 27%. Maybe 1 or 2% more from the people travelling between Bolton and Oldham/Stockport but you'd expect to see roughly the same percentage across the region unless your saying the buses in other areas were worse than the Tranche 1 areas. Although going by what some people think of First compared to Stagecoach you'd probably expect lower increased bus usage percentages in the south of Manchester where Stagecoach have always done such a spiffing job! Bee Network are referring to Greater Manchester, and still Manchester is far greater than Leicester, and has more services and yes that's how percentages work, it balances it out. Take crime rate for an example, a crime would be far higher where there is more people in Manchester compared to Leicester.
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pricel
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Post by pricel on Apr 18, 2024 19:29:00 GMT 1
With that logic, don't do anything with the buses at all just let them collapes. Don't even bother with EP+ as there are clearly more other issues that should take priority. 🤷👀 With your logic, let all of the issues I talk about collapse, in favour of some sort of bus franchise that isn't guaranteed to work ran by power hungry people and let kids, older people, mental health people suffer, disabled people no support and even a higher crime rate happen just so that some rural area, that doesn't make any money gets a better bus service. What makes you think we can afford to fund a franchising system, when were struggling to fund the things I listed without dramatically raising council tax to pay for, or money to pay for a tram system, when there are bigger issues to solve. and what makes you think we can waste money on an EP+ when companies will just bin off the funding like it's nothing, when the funding runs out.
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Post by shelf81 on Apr 18, 2024 19:37:09 GMT 1
No investment by the private operators, apart from Stagecoach, First & Arriva paying approx. 75% the cost towards over 100 new electric buses & the charging infrastructure. Whilst at the moment there has only being a 2% increase in punctuality there is still alot of work going on to deliver the next batch of improvements what should increase that number, as it seems most of the planned stuff for later this year is connected to reliability: www.leicesterbuses.co.uk/planned-projectsWith your views on Firsts 'poor evening services' it does remembering a large number of what they used to be operate was funded by the likes of WYPTE/WYCA, with them cutting the funding & journies not First. If First cannot operate it commercially & WYCA no longer see a need to support the route then it does send the message that the affected journies was not well used. Another thing to consider is from the environmental aspect, a bus needs to replace at least 4 cars per journey to be more eco friendly. If you've got aload of buses running around on a evening/nightime carry penny numbers then it goes against what is meant to be one of public transports biggest advantages. I was referring to service reinvestment It's very clear that private and publicly controlled bus networks reinvest profits in a different way, and one is undeniably better. It's safe to say that diamond wouldn't ever give the 36/7 a night service. It's not student oriented and they would see greater returns or less of a loss reinvesting profits at different times or in a different way or... not at all like with HD/HX... little service reinvestment and little fleet investment... First's poor evening services spans across every and any operation. Other operators, even hated ones, understand the concept of taking on some loss making journeys to free up more public funding to run a fuller timetable. First doesn't and that's why they experience nothing but decline. The timetables aren't usable and you can't build your life around them which in my opinion is why publicly owned companies have seen less or no drop in usage since privatisation. There are laws & limits over cross-subsidising loss making routes & journies what is the one advantage franchising has over private operations. Whilst doing it for a few late evening trips would be allowed if Diamond decided to do it to introduce a full 24/7 service routes 36/7 like you suggested it would almost certainly raise questions when it's on a corridor that Stagecoach was competing on. The majority of the time running loss making evening journies has nothing to do with 'freeing up more public funding to run a fuller timetable' but mostly because the main operator doesn't want another operator getting a foot in the door & most of the time if a CA or Council saves money on funding bus services, it doesn't go to other bus services but rather other departments. Most of the cuts around Huddersfield & Halifax on the evening/night journies was due to WYCA/WYPTE (some happened whilst I was still working for First during the mid 00s). If a service carries so little passengers even the PTE or CA decide it's not worth it then sometimes it's for the best to be cut. Buses are not like trains where there is the belief if you add a new service or journey people will flock to it in their hundreds, if a bus journey is carrying little to no passengers then who exactly are you running it for?
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deerfold
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Post by deerfold on Apr 18, 2024 19:41:19 GMT 1
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to just read the reasonable arguments on both sides without rants?
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Post by sharksmith on Apr 18, 2024 19:44:11 GMT 1
I'm not sure you understand how percentages work there bud. If the cost of living in Bolton rises 9%, that doesn't mean that when you add in the cost of living increases in Oldham and Stockport it rises to 27%. Maybe 1 or 2% more from the people travelling between Bolton and Oldham/Stockport but you'd expect to see roughly the same percentage across the region unless your saying the buses in other areas were worse than the Tranche 1 areas. Although going by what some people think of First compared to Stagecoach you'd probably expect lower increased bus usage percentages in the south of Manchester where Stagecoach have always done such a spiffing job! Bee Network are referring to Greater Manchester, and still Manchester is far greater than Leicester, and has more services and yes that's how percentages work, it balances it out. Take crime rate for an example, a crime would be far higher where there is more people in Manchester compared to Leicester. No 9% of 1 million is 90,000 and 9% of 100,000 is 9,000 but they are both still 9%. It's no higher with a larger sample size. If you eat quarter of a cake you've had 25% of it no matter if it's a cupcake or a feeds 24 party cake. You might put on more weight but you've still only eaten 25% of the cake regardless of the size of it. There may be more crimes in Manchester due to the larger population but not solely because of it, more to do with deprivation and other factors. The percentage of crimes per capita could be the same even though there are less crimes in a smaller area.
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deerfold
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Post by deerfold on Apr 18, 2024 19:45:06 GMT 1
With your views on Firsts 'poor evening services' it does remembering a large number of what they used to be operate was funded by the likes of WYPTE/WYCA, with them cutting the funding & journies not First. If First cannot operate it commercially & WYCA no longer see a need to support the route then it does send the message that the affected journies was not well used. WYCA thought core bus services ought not to be subsidised as overall companies would still be making a profit. First seems to have disagreed and got rid of a lot of late services. Oddly, Transdev have unsubsidised late services on the 662, 36, 66 amongst others. Until the late journeys on the 626 returned recently and the BSIP funded 72, the last 2 buses to anywhere from Bradford were both on the 662 on a Friday and Saturday night in a city dominated by First services.
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Post by rodneytrotter on Apr 18, 2024 19:49:05 GMT 1
Perhaps the drivers didn't want to work lates at Bradford, and who can blame them?
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Post by sharksmith on Apr 18, 2024 19:54:00 GMT 1
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to just read the reasonable arguments on both sides without rants? I'm trying to stick to facts, the points I made were all factual and just an explanation of why I think franchising may well be successful elsewhere, but won't work under the current public regime. With the exception of the period since COVID my bus service has neither improved or worsened in my lifetime. I expect to see no changes whatsoever under an enhanced partnership or franchising, I do think I'll be expected to pay a bigger supplement to the combined authority on my council tax though.
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Post by rodneytrotter on Apr 18, 2024 19:59:35 GMT 1
My area has been dramatically reduced from 4 buses an hour to 1 bus an hour, evening services cut, and hardly any Sunday services. Whats the point, no one wants to improve services, I emailed, the council, WYCA, bus companies, all they did was blame each other for doing it. No one cares, I already lost my patience with the network ages ago, I don't see what EP+ or Franchising will do to benefit me, I'm disabled as well and buses was my only way of getting around.
I think the bus companies, WYCA, metro, councillors, are all as bad as each other.
I give up, I don't see anything positive to come out of our transport network for me anyway.
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Post by sharksmith on Apr 18, 2024 20:02:04 GMT 1
With your views on Firsts 'poor evening services' it does remembering a large number of what they used to be operate was funded by the likes of WYPTE/WYCA, with them cutting the funding & journies not First. If First cannot operate it commercially & WYCA no longer see a need to support the route then it does send the message that the affected journies was not well used. WYCA thought core bus services ought not to be subsidised as overall companies would still be making a profit. First seems to have disagreed and got rid of a lot of late services. Oddly, Transdev have unsubsidised late services on the 662, 36, 66 amongst others. Until the late journeys on the 626 returned recently and the BSIP funded 72, the last 2 buses to anywhere from Bradford were both on the 662 on a Friday and Saturday night in a city dominated by First services. Once again though what if there isn't enough money? Do we want early and late services, rural services, Sunday services or council tax hikes? I know we want the first three but what if the money just isn't there? One of the phrases I hate most in this debate is 'London style franchising' TFL are in huge debt and have had to make significant cuts to frequencies. With high frequencies to start with this isn't so bad in London but we don't have the luxury of such a high quality service as a base from which to make cuts. Incidentally the 662 is an odd one, I caught a late evening service the other week and was surprised how busy it was. Having said that it stayed full with very little alighting or picking up all the way from Bradford to Saltaire where I got off. I think there's a subtle difference with interurban routes over local services. It's not just First areas that see local services finish earlier than other routes.
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Post by shelf81 on Apr 18, 2024 20:06:28 GMT 1
With your views on Firsts 'poor evening services' it does remembering a large number of what they used to be operate was funded by the likes of WYPTE/WYCA, with them cutting the funding & journies not First. If First cannot operate it commercially & WYCA no longer see a need to support the route then it does send the message that the affected journies was not well used. WYCA thought core bus services ought not to be subsidised as overall companies would still be making a profit. First seems to have disagreed and got rid of a lot of late services. Oddly, Transdev have unsubsidised late services on the 662, 36, 66 amongst others. Until the late journeys on the 626 returned recently and the BSIP funded 72, the last 2 buses to anywhere from Bradford were both on the 662 on a Friday and Saturday night in a city dominated by First services. Transdev have always been more open to cross-subsidising journies as their profit targets are less than First. First also tightened up it's rules over cross-subsidising when it went through what could be seen as it's own version of austerity during the late 00s/early 10s due to poor choices with it's American ops. Baring in mind that franchising/publicly owned bus companies still wasn't allowed to be set up during that period, if First hadn't of tightened up there was a real chance it might of gone bust what probably would of resulted in an even worse network. In the 626 example, you had the 662 & other services serving Shipley & Baildon on a evening plus a train service. All that together doesn't build up a strong business case to re-introduce a commercial evening service, with it being noticeable they only did reintroduce them with BSIP now the trains are currently not serving Baildon.
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Post by rwilkes on Apr 18, 2024 21:22:52 GMT 1
In Oxford the evening services on a Sunday are mostly every 15 or 10 minutes. Because they are full Other bus friendly towns have better evening services. Its good bus priority and high city centre parking charges reflecting land value buses work Good evening and Sunday services are not such a good idea if the buses are empty. The 662 does well as there is good publicity even if you haven't got a smart phone. I do not see how you can fil the buses if the times and stops are a secret and WYCA are no better than First and Arriva on htis Strangely across parts ofsouthern England First is as good as Transdev for publicity. Route brnading is good in Worcester, at least last time I was there I do not think WYCA would now how to fill them as they see buses as a social service not as a form of mass transit
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Post by dwarfer1979 on Apr 19, 2024 8:44:01 GMT 1
I'm confused as to why people who support an EP+, use Leicester, as a good example? I mean the statistics are quite laughable and prove bus priority isn't the answer. It's incredible that all those bus lanes have only increased punctuality by 2%... It also highlights that private operators haven't matched the investment made by their authority. The bee networks punctuality reports are better because they have introduced a boat load of off peak journeys which average out to create a more 'punctual' service. Leicester can't even do that, but whose surprised since one of their main operators is infamous for a lack of service reinvestment and poor evening services Because as an EP it is showing positive initial signs with buy in from all operators including two major groups that people like to dismiss as the ones who wouldn't co-operate, not uniquely so but certainly a clear example. Leicester doesn't actually, currently, have that much bus priority in comparison to other cities and I can't think of any new ones that have been put in recently but there has been a lot of planning and assessment work that is necessary before such projects are rolled out to identify the best places. There have been a number of major roadworks which will improve traffic flow for many users targeted on major bus corridors which will improve matters for buses as well but whilst the works are ongoing it does cause major disruption & diversions so if punctuality has improved during that period then it is actually a matter of some positive signs. The City Council has rebuilt both city centre bus stations and is fast completing an upgrade of bus stop infrastructure so there has already been investment from the city council but this has been matched by vehicle investment by all the operators (Arriva have bought 2 batches of ADL's plus just entering service are a batch of electric Streetdecks, one of the few that Arriva has actually managed to complete, First has nearly finished the complete replacement of their fleet with electric vehicles and even Centrebus as a smaller independent has purchased a couple of new buses and worked with LCC on the introduction of electric buses on some key routes). Leicester was also the first city, I think and it has been publicly claimed without correction, to introduce multi-operator tap-on/tap-off contactless payment across all operators which was the first major success of the EP. What Leicester shows is that even operators who are considered a problem have been willing to participate actively and fully in a genuine partnership with a Local Authority who sets it up with genuine and fair expectations of what can happen and how quickly and can deliver the initial improvements quicker (all Leicester has achieved has happened during the period TfGM have been preparing for the Bee Network). First have been very public for over a decade that they favour partnership working and have always invested more in, and concentrated attention on, those areas where the local authorities were pro-public transport and pushing partnership working with the operators. The PTE areas may have been pro-public transport in theory but they have never shown quite such a willingness to work in partnership and have always appeared to have a more antagonistic attitude to operators which makes it less attractive to an operator like First than elsewhere. You may not agree with such a position, and personally I think it was unwise and short-sighted given the potential of such networks (as shown by Stagecoach in Manchester's general success), but it explains why things that happened in West Yorkshire aren't necessarily entirely typical of operations elsewhere even if First quality has never lived up to their rhetoric or the performance of some other groups. I may be a little cynical but the problem with all these positive stats from TfGM about the Bee Network are a little short on context, it may be available somewhere but doesn't get mentioned alongside the good figures. What have they done to achieve their improved punctuality? Sticking Yellow on a bus doesn't get it through traffic faster and the same people, effectively, are managing the buses which leaves the question of what changed? How much extra resource (buses & drivers) has been put in to achieve this 10% improvement (which is still 20% below the Traffic Commissioner's expectations so not that good)? If deregulated operators could afford to add extra buses with little to show for it in terms of extra income to fund the resource then we could see such improvements but we don't have the subsidy to do so. As for the passenger growth what are they comparing to? If it is year to year then similar results are being seen across much of the country, we are just about recovered from the COVID drop (fare payers are about recovered, in many cases actually above pre-COVID, but concessionary pass usage is still lagging somewhat) & last year we had all the disruption from driver shortages still hitting passenger numbers so the sort of figures mentioned aren't as good as they appear and if it is month to month then what is the seasonality and how does such a change compare to previous years to assess how much is due to Bee Network and how much is due to normal patterns of demand. I'm not saying TfGM haven't created some success, they have invested in extra resource & improvement which you would expect to show in the stats, but without context the highly positive spin may be misleading on what causes what (i.e: it isn't who has control but how much free* money they have to fund things). *It isn't free, someone is providing it but it doesn't come from the farepayer but is instead provided from outside the direct income of the operation.
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Post by rwilkes on Apr 19, 2024 10:25:30 GMT 1
According to a letter in Buses, confirming what I have heard from other sources, Franchising has been more expensive than Andy Burnham expected, and although their has been a 9% increase in ridership and therefore revenue, costs have gone up more. The CA has to employ compliance officers to ensure buses run and run on time, and so have the bus companies to ensure they are not fined for late running due to roadworks etc. They have to pad timetables to avoid late running fines. It all adds to costs avoided by a partnership, In a partnership all these staff costs can be spent on bus priority which reduces late running anyway
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Post by leedsbusman on Apr 19, 2024 11:21:13 GMT 1
I was referring to service reinvestment It's very clear that private and publicly controlled bus networks reinvest profits in a different way, and one is undeniably better. It's safe to say that diamond wouldn't ever give the 36/7 a night service. It's not student oriented and they would see greater returns or less of a loss reinvesting profits at different times or in a different way or... not at all like with HD/HX... little service reinvestment and little fleet investment... First's poor evening services spans across every and any operation. Other operators, even hated ones, understand the concept of taking on some loss making journeys to free up more public funding to run a fuller timetable. First doesn't and that's why they experience nothing but decline. The timetables aren't usable and you can't build your life around them which in my opinion is why publicly owned companies have seen less or no drop in usage since privatisation. There are laws & limits over cross-subsidising loss making routes & journies what is the one advantage franchising has over private operations. Whilst doing it for a few late evening trips would be allowed if Diamond decided to do it to introduce a full 24/7 service routes 36/7 like you suggested it would almost certainly raise questions when it's on a corridor that Stagecoach was competing on. The majority of the time running loss making evening journies has nothing to do with 'freeing up more public funding to run a fuller timetable' but mostly because the main operator doesn't want another operator getting a foot in the door & most of the time if a CA or Council saves money on funding bus services, it doesn't go to other bus services but rather other departments. Most of the cuts around Huddersfield & Halifax on the evening/night journies was due to WYCA/WYPTE (some happened whilst I was still working for First during the mid 00s). If a service carries so little passengers even the PTE or CA decide it's not worth it then sometimes it's for the best to be cut. Buses are not like trains where there is the belief if you add a new service or journey people will flock to it in their hundreds, if a bus journey is carrying little to no passengers then who exactly are you running it for? What is the law against cross subsidy please? It is practised extensively in the bus industry with many strong services supporting those weaker ones. I’ve never found any legislation explicitly preventing it.
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