West midlands bus franchising

[Wumpty]

And you can bet that Mr Burnham isn't mentioning this in any of his many press conferences either! Even more ironic is how First particularly were painted as the bad guys in Manchester before franchising and yet now they are getting the 'Bees' out of a hole. Irony these politicians certainly can't comprehend that is for sure!

A prime example is happening in Manchester at the moment. Stagecoach is the prominent operator in South Manchester commercially, TfGM award two garages to Metroline. Lots of Stagecoach staff are happy working for them so choose to fill all the remaining vacancies at Stagecoach's remaining garages instead of TUPE transferring to Metroline.
Metroline haven't had chance to recruit enough new recruits to fill the gaps, so lots of buses missing that weren't before franchising, so much so that TfGM have now had to call First Group in from Rochdale to run some of the services they have only just awarded to Metroline, and I bet First are charging them nicely for the privilege.

Mr Burnham hasn't but callers to BBC Radio Manchester in the last few weeks most certainly have! His only, and continued parrot-fashioned response is that most new businesses need a little help, and the majority of services are running with little disruption!

I'm sure the same will happen when bus franchising hits the West Midlands, with whoever wins the tenders needing help from intergroup, or from another operator like NXWM.

[Stu]

Been having another look at consultation responses.

(S1) There are several challenges facing the West Midlands Bus Network which means that it is not performing as well as it could. Do you have any comments on this?

The lack of integration is frustrating- when I travel in London I know Oyster will work on all the transport, automatically cap my spend etc. I'm Birmingham I am really not sure how best to go from tram to bus or bus to train. And then you can't use tickets with different operators so it costs more to get a 50 bus one way with NXBus and the other with Diamond. It doesn't feel like anyone has passengers' best interests at heart. It's also hard to find information, google is great but if you need info from the bus operator eg routes it is inconsistent. The recent price increase following the removal of the £2 cap has also been quite a shock - it's now not much more expensive to get an uber from my house to the city centre when there are two of us travelling, which feels like we just end up with more cars on the road. I understand the need to subsidise longer less profitable journeys, but it's expensive for people living in deprived urban areas relatively close to the city centre.

I do agree that Oyster is great in London, but then we do have Swift Go here in the West Midlands that does the same thing. But I agree that paying by contactless card is not as well integrated here.

More untruth though with the claim that "you can't use tickets with different operators so it costs more to get a 50 bus one way with NXBus and the other with Diamond". nBus Day tickets are valid and accepted on all operators, and there is no cost difference between travelling on an NX or a Diamond bus if making a single journey.

" it's now not much more expensive to get an uber from my house to the city centre when there are two of us travelling" - It seems to me there is a lack of awareness of the Family/Group nBus ticket, and an assumption made by many people that if they have to travel by bus then they can only buy single tickets.

[wembley86]

I think as part of this franchising scheme we need to look at our failures in public transport in the west midlands.

Look how long it took to get line two of the metro of the ground and it is still not up and running. Imagine instead that been a guided bus route from Bescot at Wallows Lane traveling along the disused railway to Dudley/Stourbridge how much easier at quicker bus journeys would have been. 

[BlackCountryBusSpotter]

I think as part of this franchising scheme we need to look at our failures in public transport in the west midlands.

Look how long it took to get line two of the metro of the ground and it is still not up and running. Imagine instead that been a guided bus route from Bescot at Wallows Lane traveling along the disused railway to Dudley/Stourbridge how much easier at quicker bus journeys would have been.

Isn't Wallows Lane still an active Train Line for Frieght from Bescot to Portobello and so on and will be part of the Walsall to Wolverhampton line when that reopens

[Rachvince53]

Isn't Wallows Lane still an active Train Line for Frieght from Bescot to Portobello and so on and will be part of the Walsall to Wolverhampton line when that reopens

No, thats the line that joins/leaves the Chase Line at Wednesbury Road. The line at Wallows Lane was part of the South Staffordshire Line which begins at the point where the Chase Line turns north to pass under Wallows Lane. It has been mothballed since the through line to Stourbridge via Wednesbury, Dudley Port (Low Level) and Dudley closed. I believe it was intended to be repurposed as part of the "5Ws" Metro plan. 

[BlackCountryBusSpotter]

No, thats the line that joins/leaves the Chase Line at Wednesbury Road. The line at Wallows Lane was part of the South Staffordshire Line which begins at the point where the Chase Line turns north to pass under Wallows Lane. It has been mothballed since the through line to Stourbridge via Wednesbury, Dudley Port (Low Level) and Dudley closed. I believe it was intended to be repurposed as part of the "5Ws" Metro plan.

The 5W Line was never going to work anyway, so glad the mayor hasn't proposed that like his predecessor did it would have presumably gone up from the Metro Alignmnt from Wednesbury Parkway across what is now the Black Country New Road or under it and apparently was going to serve Darlaston before following the old alignment of a former rail line from Darlaston to Where the new station is, there were many issues half of that land has houses and factories on it, some of it carries busy Main roads over it and some of it is a park. I believe they later rectified it to use the South Staffs line and not serve Darlaston, But There was many proposals for it most of which didn't work. 

[Tony]

The 5Ws would have worked perfectly,  The plans were in place before the last Mayor

[satters]

I do agree that Oyster is great in London, but then we do have Swift Go here in the West Midlands that does the same thing. But I agree that paying by contactless card is not as well integrated here.

it would be a boon if tap & cap worked across the different bus companies, for whilst my travel to & from work is wholly NXWM, the buses I use for getting around on days off are a mixture of Diamond, NXWM and Kevs

[ayoungbusman]

Personally, as someone who has worked on both sides of the coin (for operators and TfWM), I think several issues around franchising haven't been answered and some of the reasons for franchising being pursued are being presented behind smoke and mirrors.

The franchising assessment indicates that even with franchising, passenger numbers are envisaged to fall. If that is the case, the taxpayer is being asked to 'buy' a system that even with all the money being invested, won't improve and in turn, would probably cost more money to prop up. No one in business rightly buys a business in insolvency so why should the taxpayer be asked to do this with regards to the bus network?

Franchising is meant to improve journey times however TfWM and Local Authorities already control highways and various aspects of the road system, such as parking enforcement so how franchising improves that is something I can't see. If franchising isn't coupled with serious improvements to both parking enforcement and introduction bus priority in areas where it's technically feasible but politically distasteful (such as Soho Road, where it's dual carriageway for the majority of the way but is parked on, in sometimes a haphazard way, impacting the 74's punctuality to name one area) then I can't see how franchising magically speeds up journey times. All I can see is an influx of additional buses into timetables to keep frequencies up, which brings me onto my next point...

Driver shortage. Whilst this may be turning around, under franchising that doesn't magically go away. Coupled with the fact that the West Midlands Combined Authority has some levers it can pull to improve this (employment programs, education etc), it's easy to say 'we control the network so more buses should run' but if you don't address this problem, I can envisage a scenario where the operators are short of drivers and can point to the franchising authority in this case as not creating a system where adequate drivers are available across the network for employment.

The documents to me seem long winded and designed to assure a 'yes' to franchising, regardless of whether this is the best option, solely based on it being a Labour policy and nothing more substantial than that.

[Wumpty]

At the risk of repeating some of my posts, and that of others, I had quite the debate with two local councillors and one Labour MP this week over the virtues of bus franchising.

Interestingly (!), none of these politicians have caught a bus in the last 5 years, so ironically cannot offer any semblance of comparison of what bus travel looked, looks, or will look like.

They completely missed the point that bus franchising will never work until the road infrastructure is massively redesigned (which it never will). There only comment was that there's bus lanes along Wednesfield Road between Heath Town and Wolverhampton Ring Road (forgetting the Willenhall Road bus lanes!), that offers "excellent integrated transport links with trains, buses and Metro". That's as may be, but that doesn't alter the fact that congestion on Wolverhampton's Ring Road is the worst I've ever seen it, very little bus priority in place and that after the bus lanes, they still share the same road space.

I pointed out that, WHEN bus franchising happens (which is something we have to resign ourselves too, consultation or not), that route frequencies will decrease, the opportunity for under established operators to tender for services increases, you'll have the same situation as in Manchester where operators aren't set up for this level of upheaval, even with advance warning of the changes (see the Metroline using Stagecoach fleet!), leasing/borrowing buses in all liveries to cover the same routes as before, just under the guise of TfWM services.

This, in turn, will drive more passengers into cars on the same roadspace, thus exacerbating the existing problem.

I used an example with the three of them; the WA9 was on diversion due to an incident around New Invention. Now suppose this was a TfWM franchise route........would it make ANY difference if this happened under franchising where the service was running up to 45 minutes late? No. It's the same roads, same buses with the same traffic, and still they wouldn't accept it. They thought you could magic up buses "as they'd be contractually obliged to maintain the frequency!

All they see is a one-size-fits-all model for London and Manchester that *must* work for Birmingham (no mention of West Midlands/Black Country in the discussion!).

Face it folks, no matter how many consultations, public meetings and assurances that the travelling public will have a say, that this is happening, come what may.

[karl724223]

At the risk of repeating some of my posts, and that of others, I had quite the debate with two local councillors and one Labour MP this week over the virtues of bus franchising.

Interestingly (!), none of these politicians have caught a bus in the last 5 years, so ironically cannot offer any semblance of comparison of what bus travel looked, looks, or will look like.

They completely missed the point that bus franchising will never work until the road infrastructure is massively redesigned (which it never will). There only comment was that there's bus lanes along Wednesfield Road between Heath Town and Wolverhampton Ring Road (forgetting the Willenhall Road bus lanes!), that offers "excellent integrated transport links with trains, buses and Metro". That's as may be, but that doesn't alter the fact that congestion on Wolverhampton's Ring Road is the worst I've ever seen it, very little bus priority in place and that after the bus lanes, they still share the same road space.

I pointed out that, WHEN bus franchising happens (which is something we have to resign ourselves too, consultation or not), that route frequencies will decrease, the opportunity for under established operators to tender for services increases, you'll have the same situation as in Manchester where operators aren't set up for this level of upheaval, even with advance warning of the changes (see the Metroline using Stagecoach fleet!), leasing/borrowing buses in all liveries to cover the same routes as before, just under the guise of TfWM services.

This, in turn, will drive more passengers into cars on the same roadspace, thus exacerbating the existing problem.

I used an example with the three of them; the WA9 was on diversion due to an incident around New Invention. Now suppose this was a TfWM franchise route........would it make ANY difference if this happened under franchising where the service was running up to 45 minutes late? No. It's the same roads, same buses with the same traffic, and still they wouldn't accept it. They thought you could magic up buses "as they'd be contractually obliged to maintain the frequency!

All they see is a one-size-fits-all model for London and Manchester that *must* work for Birmingham (no mention of West Midlands/Black Country in the discussion!).

Face it folks, no matter how many consultations, public meetings and assurances that the travelling public will have a say, that this is happening, come what may.

And it's going to be organised by clowns who don't catch public transport or who have little knowledge about public transport basically Manchester will be pulling the west midland strings 

[Sandy Lane]

At the risk of repeating some of my posts, and that of others, I had quite the debate with two local councillors and one Labour MP this week over the virtues of bus franchising.


Interestingly (!), none of these politicians have caught a bus in the last 5 years, so ironically cannot offer any semblance of comparison of what bus travel looked, looks, or will look like.

A genuine question as I have no idea what the answer will be. Does the WM Mayor use local bus services either for business or personal use?

[BlackCountryBusSpotter]

A genuine question as I have no idea what the answer will be. Does the WM Mayor use local bus services either for business or personal use?

I've ever only ever seen him on the buses twice on the news, he is usually stood outside the Bus Station usually Wolverhampton, or Walsall and on the news you see other TFWM Staff with him. 

Going on to Wumpty's point, as someone who used to commute in and out of Wolverhampton the Ring Road is indeed a nightmare, of a morning it is queuing from The Wednesfield Road Turn off to most of the time past the Bus Station sometimes even over to the Bilston Road Island so you have the 9, 59, 69 all stuck in it as well as arriving 79's, 82's, 8's, X8's and 529's which are also delayed leaving to. Of an Evening the Traffic seems to get worse with even more traffic from the Wednesfield Round and on Bilston Street, Around Christmas especially Bilston Street is a nightmare, I once walked it from College by Compton Park, took a photo of a Covid sign for a college project, then walked it to the Manders, as I knew the next 79 was about 3 minutes from leaving and I would miss it if I walked I jumped on a number 10 it was about Midday/1PM and the bus took 10-15 minutes to get from the Manders Centre to the Bus Station, the 79 I had aimed to get hadn't actually managed to clear Pipers Row and the one behind it which I caught had been late getting in and then took 10 minutes to leave. 

Traffic on the West Park Side of the City also seems horrendous from the Morning School Run to about 9AM delaying 1's and 10's and also Arriva 9's and Banga 891's, of an evening it seems even worse heading in both directions beyond School Run times, If I left College at 5/5.15PM I wouldn't be getting to Wolverhampton until about 5.35/5.40 due to waiting and then sitting in Traffic, the 79 would also get stuck in traffic and hence 2 or 3 would turn up. 

But onto a wider issue, Parking is a nightmare and School Parking especially, where I live in Darlaston is by a Primary School which has had two of it's kids involved In a serious incident so they installed a Zebra Crossing fine, but due to the owners of the Frying Pan Pub restricting access and Alma Street rightfully being made Residents only all the Parents have to park on Bilston Street this means the amount of Traffic leaving there plus the Crossing means the 39 often struggles to pass the section being held up for 5 minutes, add on roadworks that were in Pleck and Moxley Last Week they would be about 30-35 minutes late. Bilston Street is a dead end so no option of parents going that way, I have no idea why it is a dead end, if it was made a two way street it could flow onto St Lawrence Way a Road more suited to handle the Traffic than Willenhall Street. 

There is constant parking issues to on routes I use the 79 encounters them in Hill Top also not helped by Roadworks there at the minute, the Darlaston buses get them in Pleck, Pleck is often a hold up even for seemingly no reason and at random times also not helped by a Big School after the Railway Bridge on the Island and a Mosque further down, The 529 is often affected by J10 and the Keyway and now Willenhall Roadworks. 

These politicians need to ride a bus of an Evening and Morning Peak and see why there being held up and why more often than not they can't actual regain Time especially in areas like Birmingham and busy Main routes like the 9, 59, 79, 529 and 1 and in Birmingham any route that serves a main corridor. Sadly they won't and we will be forced to pay for this. I would happily even when I can drive get a bus into a City or to places like the Footie so I could Drink or avoid the pain of City Parking and driving, however if they do this with the buses I would rather drive and get cabs than get a bus that hasn't actually been improved and if anything would be worse 

[Rachvince53]

I agree with you on the worsening traffic situation. Franchising will simply not make any difference unless other factors are dealt with. 

[Wumpty]

I agree with you on the worsening traffic situation. Franchising will simply not make any difference unless other factors are dealt with.

My other fear is job losses - if franchising is meant to sort the wheat from the chafe on viable and socially necessary bus routes, surely, and sadly, there will be job losses from all quarters, including bus drivers.

Not all bus operators will win work, especially if outsider operators like Metroline (who incidentally, are monitoring West Midlands franchising VERY closely) win routes like they have in Manchester.