Social Travel

[PM]

Thought we needed a new topic for Social Travel.

Anyone seen them out on the 97 yet to see how loadings are doing initially?

Are all vehicles in the same livery as the one Steve posted a picture of in the Discount Travel Solutions thread?

Are buses roughly halfway betwen Discount Travel Solutions departures on the 97?

[Isle of Stroma]

The only one I've seen (of any non-NX op) so far is X179(CTG), carrying fresh air on both occasions.

I would add that I've not gone out of my way to find them though.

[PM]

The only one I've seen (of any non-NX op) so far is X179(CTG), carrying fresh air on both occasions.

I would add that I've not gone out of my way to find them though.

Why does that not surprise me i.e pretty empty loadings!

It's odd that Discount/Social aren't striving to really grow, they're just using 3 buses or so on a fairly long route. What I don't get is why they don't concentrate on a less NX heavily bussed route. Buses will rarely be ahead of NX due to their high frequencies. With large gaps and a non clockface timetable, passengers aren't going to wait for them. I'd like to see them focus on one corridor, like Sunny, and build up a presence with high frequencies offering real competition as it would seem pretty difficult otherwise, as the attempts on the 63, 29, 966 have all shown.

[Isle of Stroma]

I've said it before & i'll probably have to say it again but...

There IS space for a 2nd op on the 97 BUT it has to be done & MAINTAINED properly. Central Connect came closest to doing so, possibly accidentally, with the orange branded Darts. It was a shame when all the effort wasn't maintained.

Piddling around with anonymous tat is NOT the way to make money here.

[PM]

I've said it before & i'll probably have to say it again but...

There IS space for a 2nd op on the 97 BUT it has to be done & MAINTAINED properly. Central Connect came closest to doing so, possibly accidentally, with the orange branded Darts. It was a shame when all the effort wasn't maintained.

Piddling around with anonymous tat is NOT the way to make money here.

I'd argue Pete's Travel and early GWM came pretty close as well, with a flat 10 min frequency at one point and Sunday buses. The rest I completely agree with.

[Steveminor]

Social Travel don't start until next Monday and yes all 3 buses are in the same livery with the mpd fresh out of the paint shop.
It has been a hard couple of days for DTS with heavy competition from the 97 drivers plus the park street fire causing disruption to all 97 buses unfortunately causing grouping around DTS departures.  Despite this the cash plus concessionary figures are far superior to the 966 29 or 63 & only slightly behind my target figures for the first week.
I won't go into the reasons why the 97 was chosen & it has nothing to do with my history with the service, but the plan is to grow the frequencies and develop the routes for both operators over time "if it proves successful" including some ideas to expand the route to different destinations.
I was the one who originally had the idea to expand the 97 to the airport about 10 years ago with Bharat although they subsequently had problems with the directors falling foul to HMRC. Plus the old serverse travel route that extended to Tamworth, so there are possibilities and I already have a timetable in draft.
The DTS 87 will start on Sunday plus remember Social Travels first day will be on Sunday on the 72 which should help relieve the loads on the 71 Sunday service as the buses struggled with the loads last Sunday (Ok partly due to 102 a lower capacity bus wrongly assigned to the route).
Get your cameras ready though as I think the Social Travel livery is quite striking & very different to any other wm operator.

[PM]

Social Travel don't start until next Monday and yes all 3 buses are in the same livery with the mpd fresh out of the paint shop.
It has been a hard couple of days for DTS with heavy competition from the 97 drivers plus the park street fire causing disruption to all 97 buses unfortunately causing grouping around DTS departures.  Despite this the cash plus concessionary figures are far superior to the 966 29 or 63 & only slightly behind my target figures for the first week.
I won't go into the reasons why the 97 was chosen & it has nothing to do with my history with the service, but the plan is to grow the frequencies and develop the routes for both operators over time "if it proves successful" including some ideas to expand the route to different destinations.
I was the one who originally had the idea to expand the 97 to the airport about 10 years ago with Bharat although they subsequently had problems with the directors falling foul to HMRC. Plus the old serverse travel route that extended to Tamworth, so there are possibilities and I already have a timetable in draft.
The DTS 87 will start on Sunday plus remember Social Travels first day will be on Sunday on the 72 which should help relieve the loads on the 71 Sunday service as the buses struggled with the loads last Sunday (Ok partly due to 102 a lower capacity bus wrongly assigned to the route).
Get your cameras ready though as I think the Social Travel livery is quite striking & very different to any other wm operator.

I agree the livery looks good, based on the photo you posted, the layout looks a bit like the old Northumbria livery. It's a bit less drab and boring than the DTS livery though at least with all 3 companies buses are in a livery, which is more than can be said of some operators.

I'm glad to hear the 97 is doing ok and best of luck with growing the service. I only wonder if launching the service with a regular clockface timetable and more regular timetable to start with would create a bigger impact and build presence better than building up gradually? Almost certainly more risky but maybe it's harder to assess a route's potential with 3 buses than it is with a bigger fleet on there?

[Steveminor]

You also have to consider that if we hit the 97 hard to start with then that would really p $#k NXWM off and they would most likely retaliate hard & we don't want that especially when we want to develop something new in the long term.
We really don't want a war with NXWM for the 97 we just wish to coexist for a while.
Might sound boring for those wanting a bus war but we've got the Solihull chelmsley corridor for that lol.
Yes the front styling was taken from the northumbria livery & the purple was chosen because to my knowledge no one has used that colour yet in the west midlands & we wanted an identity that was purely ours in the same way as stelios chose orange for easyJet.
So as you can see Social Travel is being started with a long term future plan already in place, something few others do when they start running buses. The plan is comprehensive and goes upto year 20 with quite a conservative start but just watch this space.
The original plan was to start with 3 Trident, but we toned it down a bit for long term longevity of the company.

[PM]

You also have to consider that if we hit the 97 hard to start with then that would really p $#k NXWM off and they would most likely retaliate hard & we don't want that especially when we want to develop something new in the long term.
We really don't want a war with NXWM for the 97 we just wish to coexist for a while.
Might sound boring for those wanting a bus war but we've got the Solihull chelmsley corridor for that lol.
Yes the front styling was taken from the northumbria livery & the purple was chosen because to my knowledge no one has used that colour yet in the west midlands & we wanted an identity that was purely ours in the same way as stelios chose orange for easyJet.
So as you can see Social Travel is being started with a long term future plan already in place, something few others do when they start running buses. The plan is comprehensive and goes upto year 20 with quite a conservative start but just watch this space.
The original plan was to start with 3 Trident, but we toned it down a bit for long term longevity of the company.

I agree NX would be more likely to retaliate with a greater frequency or discounted fares, as indeed they've done on the 301/2.

I think it's a nice looking livery and as you say Purple hasn't really been used much in the West Midlands and gives the company it's own identity.

It would be nice to see greater competition on Birmingham area routes, like the 97, 17, 87, 120, 74 that are routes operators have targeted in the past and stayed on longer than corridors like the 7/51 etc.

[Steveminor]

We have the figures for the 87 & the 120 from previous experience with sunny travel. The 120 is not good and while the 87 is ok there is not much options for developing that route beyond head to head competition.
We had the figures from the 74 when we were looking at buying Joes Travel & their figures were abysmal.
The 17 & 51 can be developed into something different but I guess you'll just have to wait & see. It'll probably be Social travel that does something with the 51 but I haven't quite decided that yet.

[PM]

We have the figures for the 87 & the 120 from previous experience with sunny travel. The 120 is not good and while the 87 is ok there is not much options for developing that route beyond head to head competition.
We had the figures from the 74 when we were looking at buying Joes Travel & their figures were abysmal.
The 17 & 51 can be developed into something different but I guess you'll just have to wait & see. It'll probably be Social travel that does something with the 51 but I haven't quite decided that yet.

I'm surprised about the 120, as the lower NX frequency could mean buses slotted in between meaning less direct head to head competition.

The concentration of buses out to Walsall is pretty strong, although loadings are also pretty strong, any competition on there has quickly dissolved.

I imagine the Joe's Travel figures were based on a pretty poor level of service delivery, reliability etc, and so distorted by that.

Interestingly, I'd bet GRS's figures on the 11A/C are far lower than those being achieved on the 16, due to them building up a presence on there they've failed to get on the 16.

[Steveminor]

Yes the service delivery of Joes on the 74 would effect their figures but not by the amount we're talking about since they're gone now I don't see any harm in saying they were averaging £35 per day & one of their drivers suggested it was impossible to get some people to pay the fare, they would just walk straight on & sit down.
The 120 used to be Ok strangely when diamond nx & sunny all competed but the the figures just started to go south even when diamond pulled off things didn't get much better.

[Stu]

Social Travel don't start until next Monday and yes all 3 buses are in the same livery with the mpd fresh out of the paint shop.
It has been a hard couple of days for DTS with heavy competition from the 97 drivers plus the park street fire causing disruption to all 97 buses unfortunately causing grouping around DTS departures.  Despite this the cash plus concessionary figures are far superior to the 966 29 or 63 & only slightly behind my target figures for the first week.
I won't go into the reasons why the 97 was chosen & it has nothing to do with my history with the service, but the plan is to grow the frequencies and develop the routes for both operators over time "if it proves successful" including some ideas to expand the route to different destinations.
I was the one who originally had the idea to expand the 97 to the airport about 10 years ago with Bharat although they subsequently had problems with the directors falling foul to HMRC. Plus the old serverse travel route that extended to Tamworth, so there are possibilities and I already have a timetable in draft.
The DTS 87 will start on Sunday plus remember Social Travels first day will be on Sunday on the 72 which should help relieve the loads on the 71 Sunday service as the buses struggled with the loads last Sunday (Ok partly due to 102 a lower capacity bus wrongly assigned to the route).
Get your cameras ready though as I think the Social Travel livery is quite striking & very different to any other wm operator.

Good to hear that Social Travel will be looking into developing routes, rather than just piggy-backing onto existing routes in the hope of making some money.

Would you consider looking at other routes in the future, just as a suggestion maybe the 6 (Birmingham to Solihull)? I recall AM-PM seemed to do okay on there for a period, people seemed keen on a new operator with a distinctive livery at the time. NXWM still seem to be struggling with loads at times, even with more double-decks on there, maybe a bit of competition could be healthy? Nothing worse than waiting ages for a bus, then a full one just passes you by! I'm surprised that someone else hasn't considered giving that route another go, to be honest, even if it didn't run the full route but only ran to Shirley.

[PM]

Social Travel don't start until next Monday and yes all 3 buses are in the same livery with the mpd fresh out of the paint shop.
It has been a hard couple of days for DTS with heavy competition from the 97 drivers plus the park street fire causing disruption to all 97 buses unfortunately causing grouping around DTS departures.  Despite this the cash plus concessionary figures are far superior to the 966 29 or 63 & only slightly behind my target figures for the first week.
I won't go into the reasons why the 97 was chosen & it has nothing to do with my history with the service, but the plan is to grow the frequencies and develop the routes for both operators over time "if it proves successful" including some ideas to expand the route to different destinations.
I was the one who originally had the idea to expand the 97 to the airport about 10 years ago with Bharat although they subsequently had problems with the directors falling foul to HMRC. Plus the old serverse travel route that extended to Tamworth, so there are possibilities and I already have a timetable in draft.
The DTS 87 will start on Sunday plus remember Social Travels first day will be on Sunday on the 72 which should help relieve the loads on the 71 Sunday service as the buses struggled with the loads last Sunday (Ok partly due to 102 a lower capacity bus wrongly assigned to the route).
Get your cameras ready though as I think the Social Travel livery is quite striking & very different to any other wm operator.

Good to hear that Social Travel will be looking into developing routes, rather than just piggy-backing onto existing routes in the hope of making some money.

Would you consider looking at other routes in the future, just as a suggestion maybe the 6 (Birmingham to Solihull)? I recall AM-PM seemed to do okay on there for a period, people seemed keen on a new operator with a distinctive livery at the time. NXWM still seem to be struggling with loads at times, even with more double-decks on there, maybe a bit of competition could be healthy? Nothing worse than waiting ages for a bus, then a full one just passes you by! I'm surprised that someone else hasn't considered giving that route another go, to be honest, even if it didn't run the full route but only ran to Shirley.

That was an early BCC route wasn't it?

[PM]

Yes the service delivery of Joes on the 74 would effect their figures but not by the amount we're talking about since they're gone now I don't see any harm in saying they were averaging £35 per day & one of their drivers suggested it was impossible to get some people to pay the fare, they would just walk straight on & sit down.
The 120 used to be Ok strangely when diamond nx & sunny all competed but the the figures just started to go south even when diamond pulled off things didn't get much better.

That is pretty dreadful!! I don't imagine the 11A/C did much better. Well, it can't have done, otherwise they'd potentially still be around.

Perhaps with Diamond on there as well people got used to seeing non NX buses and paying cash/buying returns but once the main source of competition left, reverted to travelcards? Or maybe it's an example of where competition in terms of increased frequency actually generated and improved overall ridership?