Rotala Management - Questions & Answers

[Cedric]

How many MPDs are arriving at kidderminster from wessex out of interest and what fleetnumbers will the new streetlites have?

Thanks

the 2 mpd I saw  had fleet numbers 20653/20654

Thanks bewminster but i was just interested in asking Simon how many of the batch are going to arrive-as I know two of the batch are on lease with another company

posted on wrong on wrong section  sorry

[PM]

How many MPDs are arriving at kidderminster from wessex out of interest and what fleetnumbers will the new streetlites have?

Thanks

the 2 mpd I saw  had fleet numbers 20653/20654

Thanks bewminster but i was just interested in asking Simon how many of the batch are going to arrive-as I know two of the batch are on lease with another company

posted on wrong on wrong section  sorry

No worries  :)  And interesting that they may have been at tividale before. Theyre ex transdev this lot so they should be in decent nic-some of the YVV ones at long acre are great though.

[Cedric]

simon
have put some things in the Kidderminster review  but there are quite a few things I can think of  that   could improve your services a lot  and they may attract more passangers. can I use review more than once  . or  is there any other way I can in form you

[Diamond Geezer]

Route 56 was also branded for a while

It sure was, as Route56 - playing on the iconic US Highway sign for Route66.  Lines from the Nat King Cole song were changed as follows:

"If you ever plan to motor west" - changed to "Planning to motor Brownhills West?"
"Get your kicks on Route66" - changed to "Get your kids on Route56"

Even had the american bumper sticker too !

This was one of my favourites.

[Diamond Geezer]

The one that was tweaked was 'Ride Me All Night' to 'Catch Me All Night' on the 31 branded Solo following 'feedback' from the University, Police and, urm, a rape support group.  We were referring to the bus - dunno what they were referring to  :o ::)

[Ash]

Are there any plans to brand or rebrand any of the services within the diamond network especially out of Tividale. Shame the black country connection branding was lost as the 404E gained it's own brand of which quite a few passengers referred to it as the 'black country connection bus' or the 'purple bus' whereas at the moment you can get a black/red/blue and red and white diamond vehicle on the service at any one time.

[the trainbasher]

Route 56 was also branded for a while

It sure was, as Route56 - playing on the iconic US Highway sign for Route66.  Lines from the Nat King Cole song were changed as follows:

"If you ever plan to motor west" - changed to "Planning to motor Brownhills West?"
"Get your kicks on Route66" - changed to "Get your kids on Route56"

Even had the american bumper sticker too !

This was one of my favourites.

I remember this as 1 of these appeared on a Sunday on the 226 and another appeared on the 223 on a weekday!

[Simon Dunn]

The Levantes were on an Operating Lease.  A subsidiary of National Express has taken assignment.

On an on going basis, we look at our fares.  What matters to us, is the money we take per trip, not what we charge.  Our whole pricing strategy is something we need to review again.  I agree with your comments that clearly a day ticket with ourselves with not worth the same value as on NX.  On the NBus panel, I tried to encourage the cost of the NBus product to be no more than NX (or less).  However, this is not something that any other operator or Centro would support.

Simon, Thanks for your responses,

A batch of 11 plate Levante that size was crying out to be snapped up by either NX or a major NX subcontractor, NX especially have large numbers of 06/56 plate Scania/Levate that will need removing from the network. I assume Rotala have still had to pay the monthly lease payments despite having no for them work.

I still think passenger numbers on Diamonds WM commercial services began to fall when fares were brought in line with those of NX, and ultimately those services began to be withdrawn. Obviously the economy has had an affect of passenger journeys across the board, the only thing to differentiate between the two competing operators is service & vehicle quality.

Good news of the 12 x Streetlites, will these be larger capacity DF versions? I take it Rotala are growing increasingly in favour of the Wright Streetlite with recent second-hand versions at Preston & Wessex

National Express have taken all 14 Levantes, and we were responsible for the payments until the assignment.

7 are 10.8m DF versions, 5 are 9.5m versions.  We acquired 3 about a year ago for Preston.  Since then we have been evaluating them.  When we acquire any vehicle we have to assess what is best value for money.  We consider the deal we have done with Wrights to be best value for money at this present moment in time.

Great news about the streetlites being acquired and thanks for your information on the vehicles sold-really helpful as I popped over to kidderminster today to photograph some of the older stuff. Please could you do this in future for other buses sold as it will give those of us who want to photo then a bit of advance warning? Thanks

Are the MAN/centros at redditch having reliability problems at the moment as some of them dont sound very healthy and according to the drivers there they are not very reliable.

On the subject of MAN/centros, 30804 billows black smoke all the time and has done since about last november/december-maybe this one needs a look at?

1.  We have sold some further vehicles last night, which includes all the Ex-First Tridents, the last 2 remaining First darts at Kidderminster and W446DOP and I think W232DNO
2.  We have had problems with the MAN's, but it has been self inflicted.  i.e. Running without water.
3.  30804 - I will get it checked out

[Simon Dunn]

How many MPDs are arriving at kidderminster from wessex out of interest and what fleetnumbers will the new streetlites have?

Thanks

To enable us to sell and move some vehicles around we are putting all the Blue V***HEC series MPD's into Kidderminster.  This will give us time to assess what we actually need

[Simon Dunn]

How many MPDs are arriving at kidderminster from wessex out of interest and what fleetnumbers will the new streetlites have?

Thanks

the 2 mpd I saw  had fleet numbers 20653/20654

Thanks bewminster but i was just interested in asking Simon how many of the batch are going to arrive-as I know two of the batch are on lease with another company

This may fall through

[Simon Dunn]

simon
have put some things in the Kidderminster review  but there are quite a few things I can think of  that   could improve your services a lot  and they may attract more passangers. can I use review more than once  . or  is there any other way I can in form you

Your comments are welcome.  Can you send me a private message?

[Simon Dunn]

Are there any plans to brand or rebrand any of the services within the diamond network especially out of Tividale. Shame the black country connection branding was lost as the 404E gained it's own brand of which quite a few passengers referred to it as the 'black country connection bus' or the 'purple bus' whereas at the moment you can get a black/red/blue and red and white diamond vehicle on the service at any one time.

I will forward your comments to the Commercial Director.  I don't believe this is something we are considering at present

[Westy]

What was the point of Black, Red Diamond etc?

You couldn't move the buses around without them looking out of place,  eg Red Diamond's appearing on Black Diamond 301 for instance.

Why didn't you stick with the red & white livery instead?

Twm tried branding with the local garage name which didn't work.

[PM]

Are there any plans to brand or rebrand any of the services within the diamond network especially out of Tividale. Shame the black country connection branding was lost as the 404E gained it's own brand of which quite a few passengers referred to it as the 'black country connection bus' or the 'purple bus' whereas at the moment you can get a black/red/blue and red and white diamond vehicle on the service at any one time.

I will forward your comments to the Commercial Director.  I don't believe this is something we are considering at present

This is a shame as some branding would be great-would boost ridership on already popular routes

[PM]

How many MPDs are arriving at kidderminster from wessex out of interest and what fleetnumbers will the new streetlites have?

Thanks

To enable us to sell and move some vehicles around we are putting all the Blue V***HEC series MPD's into Kidderminster.  This will give us time to assess what we actually need

Thats a good idea-will they have royal bath branding removed and diamond logos slapped on? Is that the plan? Never been on one of these so looking forward to that tomorrow

1.  We have sold some further vehicles last night, which includes all the Ex-First Tridents, the last 2 remaining First darts at Kidderminster and W446DOP and I think W232DNO
2.  We have had problems with the MAN's, but it has been self inflicted.  i.e. Running without water.
3.  30804 - I will get it checked out

Which 2 darts at kidderminster are these-P403MLA and R610YCR?

That explains the MANs sounding unhealthy but hope that hasnt caused any damage

Thanks