Heartlands etc.

[Steveminor]

Bob the x74 of Arriva ran hourly & lasted for quite a while. It was cancelled not long after the national concessionary pass came out as it carried mostly passes it didn't generate enough revenue. One of many routes nationally that failed due to the concessionary pass.

[Tony]

The big problem you have making routes like this pay is you can only sell each seat once. and being commuters they want season tickets at a discount price.

On a hour long urban route you can sell each seat two or three times as people get on and off along the route.

[Steveminor]

Which is why the x31 failed. If it had gone along the walsall rd instead of the motorway it may have generated more revenue.

[Bob]

The X31 used to never run on time due to the ridiculous hold ups on the m6. Whoever made the decision to run it down a horrendously congested motorway must have been backwards!  Lol

[Steveminor]

When deregulation came in then there wasn't a national concessionary pass & new routes did start but these longer & rural routes started dying off due to the poor reimbursement rate for the pass ( not the local authorities fault but a governmental policy failure. It's all well & good giving out "free" travel passes but if companies close the routes because of lack of money then the passes become useless anyway.
Without those passes I could see the x73 being able to run all day as it is a very useful route covering the tamworth estates & giving them a direct link to brum.
But fill your bus for £15 of passes won't pay any bills.

[the trainbasher]

We ought to follow the Scottish model in my opinion

[Bob]

Of course if we still had a regulated system and public transport was considered a service rather than a profiteers paradise we could have an express cross subsidised by the paying routes......

[Dutsey]

I think there is a market for an express service between Tamworth and Birmingham. It just needs to be reliable, advertised well and I am sure passengers would use the service. Lets hope Central can make this a success and hopefully extending the journey into tamworth and adding more journeys.

The 16 that they have taken always seemed quite busy when I was driving past in the morning.

[Tony]

Of course if we still had a regulated system and public transport was considered a service rather than a profiteers paradise we could have an express cross subsidised by the paying routes......

Perhaps not, Public bodies have higher costs, tend to employ more people behind the scenes, pay higher wages, have higher pension costs (All of which are good for the people employed) but means that a lot of the 8% or what ever the 'Profiteers paradise' make in profits would be gobbled up before it even got anywhere near providing more bus routes.

To prove the point when I joined WMPTE in 1978 as a junior wages clerk there were around 80 wages clerks, on D-reg day in 1986 this was cut to about 20 with WMT and about 10 remained with the PTE.

[Bob]

Yes tony 20 with WMT who remained a public sector operator for a further five years!  So public ownership can be efficient. ..midland red ran a lot more express services under nbc ownership than arriva do now? In fact while privatisation has been ok for some areas,  look at cannock to see where it went t##s up...the service was much better in wumpty/nbc days. Ok arriva have recently upped their game a bit, investing in a few crap lightweights for (interurban) walsall services etc and a few pulsars on pye greens but prior to that they were abysmal for years and had a monopoly.  Ypu yourself saud you could rarely go a few days without seeing some dart broke down with its engine cover up

[Tony]

Yes tony 20 with WMT who remained a public sector operator for a further five years!  So public ownership can be efficient. ..midland red ran a lot more express services under nbc ownership than arriva do now? In fact while privatisation has been ok for some areas,  look at cannock to see where it went t##s up...the service was much better in wumpty/nbc days. Ok arriva have recently upped their game a bit, investing in a few crap lightweights for (interurban) walsall services etc and a few pulsars on pye greens but prior to that they were abysmal for years and had a monopoly.  Ypu yourself saud you could rarely go a few days without seeing some dart broke down with its engine cover up

When you've worked through both you see the good and bad points of both ways,  but either way Public is more expensive. Because my pension is still a public one, I started pre 1986, National Express would love to get me out of it as it costs them, so much so that last year they offered me a five figure some to drop out of it and join a private sector one! I am one of the very small number of NX employees with those costs EVERY public sector employee has them.

[Bob]

Doesnt mean public sector is bad.  Just shows private firms dont give a s##t about their employees.  Just money

[j789]

Which is why the x31 failed. If it had gone along the walsall rd instead of the motorway it may have generated more revenue.

I don't think Arriva would have risked their whole Cannock operation on one route. Going down Walsall Rd would have been in direct competition with NXWM who could have responded by registering on Arriva routes. Also, even with an Express route, the X51 would still have defeated it because of its much better frequency.

There was talk where I work in Worcester of bringing back the old Express routes between Worcester and Birmingham, going down the M5 but there is so much traffic these days that such a route isn't really feasible. One accident on the motorway would mess the whole thing up and the A38 alternative route is no better either. Shorter express routes like the X51 can work but these days longer routes can't. The car is totally to blame for clogging up the roads.

[Bob]

Cannock to brum isnt really that far though. Id rather be on a bus than a god awful rammed to the rafters inadequate size train for the trip! Arriva ran for quite a few years down the a34 from cannock to brum on the old X31, on an hourlyffrequency which competed with the 51, wmt didnt really react

[Kevin]

... but there is so much traffic these days that such a route isn't really feasible. One accident on the motorway would mess the whole thing up and the A38 alternative route is no better either. Shorter express routes like the X51 can work but these days longer routes can't. The car is totally to blame for clogging up the roads.

And there ladies and gentlemen is the nail hit square on the head...
For longer distance train is by far the better option, maybe bus companies would be better looking at connecting with trains, in this case perhaps at Wilnecote? The train being a bit rubbish (as per cannock) is the issue that needs to be addressed more