Diamond Bus Service Changes 15th April 2023

[Tony]

The 45 is an important route, especially as it serves Walsall FC. Now, on matchdays, single deckers can't cope as it's absolutely rammed now as suspected the passenger numbers must be much lower on non matchdays, but surely the money they make on matchdays are not enough to keep the route going into the minuses

Half a dozen full buses once a fortnight is hardly a big earner

[Westy]

Would now be a time to radically think the basis of the 45. Especially with the 2 major operators in the area both giving up on a route that in relatively recent times pre Covid had 12 buses an hour between Walsall and Yew Tree (8 from NX, 4 from Diamond).

How about a 16B/16Y, Rather than run the buses from Walsall, Yew Tree to West Brom, run them as extensions of the 16 to/from Birmingham instead, through Yew Tree to Walsall along the current 45 route?  I can't see the point of subsidies to cover what must be a failing route given very recent history but some sort of service is needed. The West Brom side of the 45 route is covered anyway from lots of sources. Want a connection from Yew Tree estate itself to West Brom, messing about by amalgamating the 66 & 67 with some route changes (or just extending the 66) could offer an hourly shopping link.

Probably a stupid idea but surely so is offering a worse version of the same failing route via subsidies (the extension of the 16 would be covered by subsidy I would have thought, the other 2 already are).

What about adding it to the 4 group of services somehow & extending it on from West Bromwich elsewhere?

[Trident 4194]

Half a dozen full buses once a fortnight is hardly a big earner

Why did nx used to use deckers on it?

[Rachvince53]

Why did nx used to use deckers on it?

It may have interworked with another service.

[Budgie]

@Westy What sort of extensions were you thinking could work for the people of Palfrey, Yew Tree and Stone Cross?  I don't know what they could be but if there are then of course Yes. My mates in Yew Tree could well take their little one to the Zoo in Dudley if the bus from outside their house went there,but a summer trip every year or so wouldn't sustain a bus service.

Birmingham is where the jobs, shops and entertainment are plus offers a base for travelling much wider. Bescot and Tame Bridge stations offer a link already of course but one of the biggest problems when public transport goes wrong is the lack of an easy alternative.  Plus in my mates cases, you have to get a youngster to the station and back (when they are tired and grumpy). Diamond and NX can't run a service based on when the trains are in full meltdown mode but the subsidising authority should be considering integrated transport.  Lots of train and bus routes run side by side, complementing each other.

[Westy]

@Westy What sort of extensions were you thinking could work for the people of Palfrey, Yew Tree and Stone Cross?  I don't know what they could be but if there are then of course Yes. My mates in Yew Tree could well take their little one to the Zoo in Dudley if the bus from outside their house went there,but a summer trip every year or so wouldn't sustain a bus service.

Birmingham is where the jobs, shops and entertainment are plus offers a base for travelling much wider. Bescot and Tame Bridge stations offer a link already of course but one of the biggest problems when public transport goes wrong is the lack of an easy alternative.  Plus in my mates cases, you have to get a youngster to the station and back (when they are tired and grumpy). Diamond and NX can't run a service based on when the trains are in full meltdown mode but the subsidising authority should be considering integrated transport.  Lots of train and bus routes run side by side, complementing each other.

If not linking them back with the 42/43, which are mainly the modern equivalents of what the 401/402/405 used to be, then what about alternate / certain journeys on the 4 group being rerouted via Palfrey & Yew Tree, giving those areas links to Blackheath/ Merry Hill/ Halesowen/Hayley Green instead?

Then again Walsall to Brum via Palfrey, Yew Tree(Would you include the Charlemont - Stone Cross double run?) & the rest of the 16 route - Maybe!

None of these routes are used end to end in one go surely?

Take the NX 25 in Wolverhampton for example, surely no one in their right mind would do the whole route in one go, when you have the 4 between Wolves & i54 up the Stafford Road etc.

There's probably lots of routes in the system that just link areas together & are not the quickest end to end.

Walsall to Wolverhampton, you'd use a 529, not a 9 or 69 for example.

[Jack]

It's a shame about the 45, it does mirror off most the 4 and other services but leaving the Yew Tree without any service won't go down to well. Isnt it possible to have the 401E or something like the old 305 back just so the estate isn't left without a service? Can't see the elderly there being too happy that the estate is going to be unserved and a fairly long walk to the 4.

[Solo1]

401e was ran for ages in compertion with 45 nx  & nx come off 45 diamond now running it & not paying yet was paying when 401e & nxbus 45 was running

[Stu]

To try and make this easy to understand.  Roughly, depending upon bus/ Mellor/ Single/ Double/ Age of Asset, hours of operation, type of vehicle, etc we need to earn around £50 per hour for a bus service.

With the fares at £3 for a Day Ticket, concessionary fares reimbursement at less than £1, NBus reimbursement around £1, and fares so low, the average yield per passenger is around £1 per passenger.  For a bus to earn £50 per hour (this has escalated as a result of labour cost increases (make up over 50% of our cost), fuel, and inflation across our sector), and then you have passenger numbers which are on like for like routes around 85%

Do you see the services we have deregistered carrying 50 people per average per hour? 

In my opinion this is why we are seeing a lot of deregistration's in the Low Fare Zone areas. 

Thanks for that explanation, you've pretty much confirmed what I have suspected for some time.

TfWM have insisted (and promised) that fares will not increase until 2025, while bus operators face increased operating costs.

As a result of these increased costs, services that were previously 'borderline' are now simply 'unviable', if the same number of passengers are paying less (in 'real terms') for their travel.

Every other business has been forced to increase their prices, to offset their increased operating costs. Apart from bus companies, who are expected to NOT increase their prices in line with inflation etc.

I get the whole idea that TfWM/government want to help with the "cost of living crisis" by reducing/freezing fares in order to attract passengers back onto the buses. But such funding will only go so far, its no surprise in the last couple of years that we've seen smaller independent bus operators either collapse (ie Thandi) or just give up and sell out (Claribels, Johnsons etc).

There will have to be some kind of trade-off made somewhere, either bus fares will have to increase, or more commercial services will be 'lost' or substantially reduced.

[Stu]

Franchising
This would be at least 5 years down the road, the crisis the industry is in is now, a solution needs to be found now. If we go franchise what do we do in the interim to stabilise the Network.
People who advocate franchising always state TFL success, have we forgotten the vast amounts of taxpayers money that TFL has gobbled up so far compared to what the rest of England has had for the fully deregulated model. Also the average walking distance to a bus in London is well over the 400m that we enjoy in the West Midlands. So is TFL something we should aspire to?

Several people predicted over a year ago the reality we are now facing, fare elasticity models snap when you lower the fare to the point where you physically cannot get enough passengers on the bus due to capacity to make the bus break even.

Franchising will happen sooner than you think, I suspect.

I don't think it is the answer to the problems currently being faced.

However, the problems currently being faced will be used as a good argument 'in favour' of such a model being introduced. Dwindle down the number of operators, until all that is left to bid on the franchises are the 'big corporate' bus groups.

[Westy]

I realise, we're probably starting to go off topic here, so if it ends up being split, fair enough, but I'd rather see the context kept together for now, but anyway, when was the last major fare increase in the area(The one that happened at the start of the year normally!)?

I'm thinking in the mid 10's.

If we had kept the annual increase, instead of freezing every year since, would we be in this situation, with or without the pandemic to account?

Are we now (excuse the language) 'having our **** handed to us on a plate'?

Sure, it's been nice no major fare increases for the past few years, but surely deep down, we knew this couldn't last forever.

It'll be interesting to see how big the future increase might be.

[Steveminor]

@Westy 

I think we could have made it work with the fare freeze to some extent, what is becoming a major issue is the LFZs where fares are now too cheap and making services unviable, if you look at where the network has contracted the most it's in these areas. What is needed is a realignment of the fates in the LFZs to bring them into line with the fare structure in the rest of the network. There is no point having brilliantly cheap fares if there are no buses.

@Stu 
It is not a quick process to start a franchised network, look how long it has taken Tfgm, by which time the network will be in complete tatters as most of the tfwm staff will be too busy working on it to effectively run the network that's operating now.

If it then does come in & then subsequently fails to deliver the results that politicians and public want, well what then, how do we get out of the mess then.
If you are at the bottom of a hole the last thing you need is an excavator to try and dig your way out "guys we need to dig up" 

[j789]

I realise, we're probably starting to go off topic here, so if it ends up being split, fair enough, but I'd rather see the context kept together for now, but anyway, when was the last major fare increase in the area(The one that happened at the start of the year normally!)?

I'm thinking in the mid 10's.

If we had kept the annual increase, instead of freezing every year since, would we be in this situation, with or without the pandemic to account?

Are we now (excuse the language) 'having our **** handed to us on a plate'?

Sure, it's been nice no major fare increases for the past few years, but surely deep down, we knew this couldn't last forever.

It'll be interesting to see how big the future increase might be.

Well if the answer being suggested here is to massively increase fares that will ONLY lead to even less passengers using the bus. 

In an ideal world, if the current 80-85% passenger levels compared to pre-COVID were maintained alongside a 20% increase in fares (and also subsequent higher reimbursement from concessionary passes), then you could argue that would offset the passenger loss. Sadly of course, in reality what would happen with such a fare rise would be another loss of 10% or more passengers which would again make the service unviable leading to a further fare hike.

Fare hikes lead to a vicious circle that would speed up route withdrawals, not slow them down.

The money extra bus companies need to run their services should not come from current passengers having to pay more, it should come from central government with increased subsidies to operators. This is the ONLY solution that will work long term, fare increases in this time of financial hardship would be an absolute disaster for the industry.

[Stu]

Well if the answer being suggested here is to massively increase fares that will ONLY lead to even less passengers using the bus. 

I'm not suggesting there should be any 'massive' increase in fares, but a realistic 'modest' increase might help matters.

The money extra bus companies need to run their services should not come from current passengers having to pay more, it should come from central government with increased subsidies to operators. This is the ONLY solution that will work long term, fare increases in this time of financial hardship would be an absolute disaster for the industry.

During the Covid pandemic, the government did its level best to discourage and dissuade people from using buses because they were 'unsafe' and that people "might die".
That kind of messaging is quite damaging, admittedly, however I don't think increased subsidies are any kind of viable long-term solution, and while the Government is partly responsible for this mess, I don't think that using public taxpayers money to support private commercial enterprise is a good viable long-term solution.

[Budgie]

@j789 Whilst I agree with what you are saying about central government funding, how do you deal with the big elephants in the room. Namely, whilst NX, Diamond and Chaserider would probably put funding to good use, others would simply increase management bonuses and shareholder payments whilst paying lip service to route improvements/protection they would use to justify said payments.

Secondly, central government interferene. If the political news is to be believed today, central government are restricting pots of monies to councils for certain things unless they agree to the Civil Service policy of how to clear chewing gum from Park Benches. I would not want such micro management of the bus industry, even if it wasn't privatised.

Thirdly if we have private firms receiving public money, the return should be innovation and not less of the same failed routes. I suggested an extension to the 16, @Westy has made some other good suggestions. How do you ensure that so routes such as the 45,  002 and 226 can live on?