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He may have been thinking of Travel Express (Lets Go) whose e200s certainly aren't the best maintained in my opinion. They were operating the 63/64/65 & 303 tenders until June .

There were far worse companies than them in the 1980 and 1990s to be fair to them.

Who are the cowboy operators currently operating TfWM work?

I thought you were an experienced driver - you should know that contracted work was never the bread and butter of these sort of cowboys.

No, running a couple of minutes in front of a rival company's bus on commercial services was more their mindset - dangerous driving manoeuvres to ensure they get to the stop first. Fortunately many of these companies have long gone to the wall. One particular area is still not free of them though and TfWM weren't blind to that either!

He's not clueless. Unfortunately you're the clueless one in this debate, as usual.

How many times have LandFlight or Kevs been called to PI compared to Diamond? Compare the fleet volume now buddy! Far smaller bus fleet. Nonsense as always from j789.

Argh not heard much from you recently, which company is it your at these days??? 

And also talking about clueless if you bothered to read anything above you would see I was talking about Straightlines views on National Express (see the big capital N and X I used 🤦). I didn't even mention Diamond so no clue why your are bringing that company up now.

And further was Landflight or Kevs or any such company named as a cowboy - NO! Because they actually use new vehicles, follow timetables and maintain buses to good standards. However, as usual, you don't seem to understand that criticising certain small companies for shoddy practises doesn't mean I am saying it about every small company.

How hard is it that really to understand? Geez 🤯

My little interest in anything you had to say finished, about here.

Well that's a shame as you clearly are clueless comparing NX to these sort of companies. I'm even thinking your dislike of any alternative viewpoints on such companies is suggesting you are/were involved in such a transport enterprise. Maybe I'm wrong but it's intriguing nonetheless 🧐.

Ah of course. Anyone that isn't a PLC must be a "cowboy" with substandard vehicles, got it!

I think the vast majority of operators that ran Centro / TfWM tenders weren't cowboys, often filling gaps where the almighty PLCs had abandoned for more profitable main road corridors.

So your argument is fundamentally flawed.

First off, don't put words into my mouth - I did not say EVERY small company were cowboys! However, I've enough experience in this industry driving in the West Mids for the past three decades to have witnessed many cowboy companies. 1990s they had clapped out Leyland Nationals, 2000s it was lynx, step entrance Darts etc, 2010 it was Darts now the 2020s it's E200s. Its clearly not every company operating those vehicle types - Ludlows back in the day were a great, innovative company - but the common theme of the cowboys is how badly their vehicles are turned out.

Anyone who has actually worked for one of the larger companies in the West Midlands area would say the same thing. This area has had far too many chancer companies who offer nothing to the public. It's funny how companies operating significant numbers of vehicles in the area rarely get called before the traffic commissioner yet many of those companies running only a few buses have seemed too. I wonder why!

I'm so glad the operators with their "likely clapped out Darts or E200s" have gone, it has left the operators with their clapped out Omnilinks, Geminis and Tridents to use instead!

Massive difference - one of those operators has maintained their older vehicles to very high engineering standards for their 20+ year life, the cow boys on the other hand clearly spend a fortune on maintaining their vehicles - Not!

The only good thing about franchising will be that those crappy little companies that offer nothing to attract new passengers won't be allowed to operate anymore.

Mr Parker is disappointed that he can't make more money out of the Tender processes (there was an article on Birmingham Mail saying this but I cannot find it). He wants more companies involved in the Tender process to push up the prices of the tenders so they get more money.

And of course the West Midlands has such a great history of attracting high quality, smaller companies into the area ...... NOT!

Cheaper tenders mean reduced quality, likely clapped out Darts or E200s running round putting new passengers off trying the bus.

If Mr Parker really cared about our buses, he'd be constantly on at the Labour government to support operators with new vehicle grants so that all local tenders were operated by new (or at the very least nearly new) vehicles. Stipulating 'Euro 6' does equate to quality either, emissions may be lower yet the bus itself can still look unattractive.

Typical TfWM. And our 'great' mayor Rich thinks they could be put in charge of franchising the buses!!! Chaos and incompetence incoming!!!!

By the time franchising comes in, that private company will have gone bust because they can't survive on £2 fares with no subsidy.

There wouldn't necessarily be a huge amount of increased revenue charging £3 if it meant those passengers gained since Covid with the £2 left again. 

Keep the £2 and increase passenger numbers by 10%+ over the next 2 years (as people see it as good value compared to using the car) to cover any shortfall or increase to £3 and lose 15/20% in that same time.

What's better - more captive passengers paying less for a bit (you can then steadily increase fares each year as done in the past and still keep passenger numbers up) or increase fares by 50% in one go and lose passengers pretty much forever.

I am sure the bean counters at NX, Diamond etc will see the £ signs of profit increasing fares to £3 but I hope there are people with longer term vision in these companies who can see the bigger picture by keeping fares lower.

Put it up to £3.20. Free money in the short term! I wouldn't be surprised how many fare increases on paper happen between now and end December.

Or a savvy private company may see that keeping the fare at £2 is the best longer term solution, especially with franchising on the cards.

Great press in the short term for the company in terms of cost of living and also makes it far harder to see advantages for franchising as it would be doubtful franchising could keep such a low fare without significant subsidies going forward.

You just know our current mayor would be dribbling from the mouth if fares went up as it would give him something else to beat NX with. I'd love to see NX stick two fingers up to him by doing something like this.

When coming out of the West Brom game this afternoon after the match, the traffic management people had cocked up and allowed traffic along Birmingham Road in both directions - usually the outbound route is shut to clear all the fans first. 

This led to absolute chaos as cars and at least 3 74s towards West Bromwich were forced onto the wrong side of the road also delaying inbound traffic.

How such incompetence happened I have no idea as Birmingham Road outbound has been shut after games for many years.

If the passenger numbers aren't that high it makes sense to run night services with a Mellor, would imagine the fuel costs would be lower

No doubt the smaller buses would be cheaper on fuel but that isn't the major cost associated with night services - it's manpower.

Not only do you have to pay the driver (most likely a higher rate of pay than day work too) you also need to have garage staff available for breakdowns, etc. These staff costs soon add up as it doesn't matter whether you can run a night service with one vehicle or 5, the garage staff stool need to be available so the cost is the same.

Ironically if you could scale up the number of night services being run at each garage, the garage staff costs would reduce as a % of overall expenditure as they would be spread out over more services.

As such, I think for Birmingham night services to work effectively they need to be run from one garage no matter what the route to minimise these additional garage costs. Having one or two routes run from different garages is not cost efficient.

I said market share which anyone with half a brain would understand encompasses the overall market.

NXWM receive a lot more "subsidy" these days than perhaps meets the eye and I understand will require more to maintain the existing network moving forward.

A lot of that coming from the £2 fare which pretty much all operators are currently claiming but of course NX are the ones criticised. 

If you bother to look at the passenger growth figures post- COVID you will see that the £2 fare has had a massively positive impact in the West Midlands clawing back some of the lost passengers due to the pandemic. This 'subsidy' has had a very positive impact so criticising companies for this subsidy is absolutely half brained! More people using the bus is a good thing! No doubt Mayor Rich will happily take the positive headlines for passenger growth in the West Mids but throws all 'subsidy' into one bracket to beat NX with. Does the mayor not realise that a franchise system will also not entail massive subsidy???????? He conveniently forgets to mention this in his rants of course.

We've just got the farm foods version of Burnham as Mayor with a smaller potential chequebook and clearly zero clue of how to operate a transport network. 

They have over 95% of market share - who do you want him to criticise, Kev's!?

Commercial services yes but NX certainly don't run anywhere near that % of fully subsidised routes - look at the routes Diamond run in the West Mids - far more subsidised routes than commercial ones.

This new mayor is a clueless buffoon and is just repeating what that idiot Burnham said about First and Stagecoach in Manchester. It will take a few years until the mess that will be the 'Bee Network' is fully costed and only then will people realise that they have been absolutely shafted. 

Always easy for politicians to blame big companies as they are always seen as the 'bad guys' yet any one in this industry with half a brain can see that what this mayor spouts is a load of unrealistic rubbish. 

Awful things. Sweaty in the summer, cold in the winter, ask any of the drivers who have had to sit in them when cabs seats made of it

Yep, anyone with memories of the old Fleetline red plastic seats would agree with that. Even modern versions aren't much better - First had a fleet of Streetlites with grey versions of these sort of seats, they were uncomfortable driving in the cab at the best of times and awful when it was hot.

Also, I'm no scientist but I remember enough from school to know that bacteria won't survive very well in such conditions as on a bus seat - too cold/warm, too much disturbance caused by constant backsides sitting down and getting up, etc. Something that isn't spotlessly clean doesn't mean that it is also a health risk, it obviously isn't.

I know the dust from the seats has never been very nice if you hit the padding but in any enclosed public space you will be breathing in the same dust particles anyway. Just don't hit the seat too hard and it's not an issue!!!