Stagecoach's response to Labour Party & Tyne & Wear regulation

[PM]

Firstly with the night services. Yes GEN did try them and end up cancelling them due to low passengers but they introduced them just before we hit that financial crisis which led to a downturn in trade. It's picked up since & I think they would work. I'm not the only one with this view NX obviously think so with their introduction of the 24hr routes (not the ones I would have started with but still).
Yes in big cities like ours deregulation has worked, but if you look at the rural areas they have definitely suffered especially as of late. Many communities have less buses than ever or even no bus at all as operators want profit & councils can't afford to subsidies them. Remember when an operator puts in the tender price they are also factoring profit into that price. What business would want to run just for break even.
We need to look at the bigger picture & if I "someone who loves competition & loves the cherry picking as some of you see it. Thinks so then maybe just maybe we need to change the direction we're going.

I can see your point about the financial crisis but in 2006 we were still in the boom years. I also think they were poorly promoted...

WMSNT is not-for-profit and there has been an increase in the voluntary/charity sector in providing bus services.

Do you not think it's best to thin out, simplify a network and focus on corridors/areas with potential for growth people can easily understand?

It's interesting hearing from someone who has worked in the sector who isn't in favour of the status quo.

[winston]

One thing that the centro sqp did was to stop the return of a night network. Sunny travel had withdrawn the buses from the 14 & 120 as they weren't compliant . Now I see that as fair enough. But I had planned a new night network using those buses along the lines of the former petes travel night bus network. I had contacted a lot of bar & club owners/companies who were massively supportive of the project & a deal was being done for them to fund door staff/security for the buses. However Centres response was that since the buses were non low floor they could not operate unless new compliant vehicles were purchased. This was to be a trial which if successful would have resulted in newer buses purchased, but on a limited budget how could sunny afford to update the whole fleet & then basically subside 6 routes until they could pay for themselves, if they ever could. In that respect the Birmingham sqp is wrong.
As to Labours views on the buses. I am all for the idea of basically re regulating the nation's buses. Local authorities are cutting back on their subsidised networks through lack of money when there are some routes which do not require subsidy yet operators won't run them unless paid to do so e.g. 71 Sundays was heavily subsidised for years & years until AMPM commercialised it & even increased the frequency between Solihull & Chelmsley wood from 30 mins to 15 mins & still made a profit. In a re regulated industry this could never happen. Think about the savings councils would make not having to reimburse all those concessionary journeys to all those operators.
What you could have is the core network of routes operated by the pte's.  Then if an operator thought up a NEW route they could apply to the pte to run that route on the same grounds as pte's have for subsidising routes I.E it must not compete with any of the pte's own services & must fill a social required status. I.e connect communities to hospitals train stations or town centres they would be unable to get to unless they had to change bus several times.
Now that would make every company think outside the box in order to survive

If Sunny Travel's budget couldn't stretch to providing compliant buses for the B'ham SQP, how would they be able to tender for routes let under a quality contracts scheme and be able to finance the purchase of potentially new buses? Additionally, how many small operators do you see operating Tfl routes even those with only Pvr's of say 3 buses.....

[PM]

One thing that the centro sqp did was to stop the return of a night network. Sunny travel had withdrawn the buses from the 14 & 120 as they weren't compliant . Now I see that as fair enough. But I had planned a new night network using those buses along the lines of the former petes travel night bus network. I had contacted a lot of bar & club owners/companies who were massively supportive of the project & a deal was being done for them to fund door staff/security for the buses. However Centres response was that since the buses were non low floor they could not operate unless new compliant vehicles were purchased. This was to be a trial which if successful would have resulted in newer buses purchased, but on a limited budget how could sunny afford to update the whole fleet & then basically subside 6 routes until they could pay for themselves, if they ever could. In that respect the Birmingham sqp is wrong.
As to Labours views on the buses. I am all for the idea of basically re regulating the nation's buses. Local authorities are cutting back on their subsidised networks through lack of money when there are some routes which do not require subsidy yet operators won't run them unless paid to do so e.g. 71 Sundays was heavily subsidised for years & years until AMPM commercialised it & even increased the frequency between Solihull & Chelmsley wood from 30 mins to 15 mins & still made a profit. In a re regulated industry this could never happen. Think about the savings councils would make not having to reimburse all those concessionary journeys to all those operators.
What you could have is the core network of routes operated by the pte's.  Then if an operator thought up a NEW route they could apply to the pte to run that route on the same grounds as pte's have for subsidising routes I.E it must not compete with any of the pte's own services & must fill a social required status. I.e connect communities to hospitals train stations or town centres they would be unable to get to unless they had to change bus several times.
Now that would make every company think outside the box in order to survive

If Sunny Travel's budget couldn't stretch to providing compliant buses for the B'ham SQP, how would they be able to tender for routes let under a quality contracts scheme and be able to finance the purchase of potentially new buses? Additionally, how many small operators do you see operating Tfl routes even those with only Pvr's of say 3 buses.....

Perhaps leasing? Though that does open up a can of worms of its own...

[Steveminor]

Exactly right if you have at least an idea of your income then you lease or buy within your set budget. But with all daytime operations changing & so revenue there being unknown then you're not going to upgrade your fleet for a night network that may not even work.

[winston]

This looks interesting:

http://www.firstgroupplc.com/news-and-media/latest-news/2014/03-11-14.aspx