West midlands bus franchising

[Tony]

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.

Metroline have been the biggest mess of all in Manchester with both First and Stagecoach having to run routes for them. Some ex Stagecoach E400s are back on loan to Stagecoach to cover some Metroline work

[Wumpty]

Metroline have been the biggest mess of all in Manchester with both First and Stagecoach having to run routes for them. Some ex Stagecoach E400s are back on loan to Stagecoach to cover some Metroline work

it was never going to work for a non-established operator in Manchester. All the politicians and governing bodies are interested in is launching the scheme and bragging that it's a success, just because it's started.

It'll be exactly the same here too.

[winston]

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?

Andy Street has traveled on the bus a numerous times, doubt the Richard Parker even knows what to do when you board a bus... 

[winston]

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.

There will be, even the franchising document predicts the WM bus market total Pvr will shrink further even under franchising. 

[Coventrybususer95]

There will be, even the franchising document predicts the WM bus market total Pvr will shrink further even under franchising.

The report says that coventry will have a total  PVR of 146 buses i believe that nx coventry alone has more then that amount at about 176ish buses

[Tony]

The report says that coventry will have a total  PVR of 146 buses i believe that nx coventry alone has more then that amount at about 176ish buses

You are mixing pvr and allocation 

[BlackCountryBusSpotter]

Andy Street has traveled on the bus a numerous times, doubt the Richard Parker even knows what to do when you board a bus...

Yes Andy Street hence he proposed to improve Bus Prioties and enforce Bus Lanes and sort out Parking, Shame his beloved Trams ruined a lot of the roads around Brum and the Black Country, however he got it as knew they were important, Parker probably has travelled on maybe between 1 and 3 buses for the News the 11 is one I remember, possibly a 74 once and maybe another bus. He would obviously ride the 11 it's the famous or was the most famous route and longest in Europe. 

[Simon Dunn]

The biggest challenge with Depot Franchising is people.  

Suitably qualified experienced Management.  A Supervisory structure that is stable, understands the individuals businesses ethos, systems of work  and all this happens on one night.   In effect businesses with scale (multiple depots, other employment opportunities), deploy prized "assets" and the transferring business have a huge hill to climb.

All large operators (although I believe NX have paused this for now) train huge numbers of new drivers.  We train around 300 per year.  Training a new driver costs in excess of £6,500 each.  Every driver we train, signs an employment bond which means they need to stay in our employment for a minimum period, which under TUPE law the bond cannot be reclaimed.  In Manchester, when we lost our Bolton depot - we stopped Training new drivers.  We have a national school which we focused on other depots and a result the number of drivers decreased.  Staff Turnover rates are a lot higher now than before COVID.  Circa 40%.  If you consider the impact on a market of circa 5,000 drivers with no one training for the best part of 2 years - there will become by default a massive driver shortage.

The expectation that staff will behave like sheep and are able to be transferred from one operator to another is misconceived. 

I am sure anyone can appreciate when someone has worked in a business for a period of time, when they are told their employment it about to transferred.  People naturally consider their own position, they look at other employment opportunities and not everyone transfers.   

Some of these TUPE transfers involve people moving a distance from their current place of work.  In Manchester we have enough staff, we have a stable business and we now train again.  We took on 5th January 2025 30 people on TUPE.  Within 4 weeks all 30 people had left.  This was not our choice, and most have gone to new employment opportunities outside of the bus industry.

This is what has happened in Manchester.  I am not sure why anyone expects the West Midlands to be different and ultimately this shortfall will mean if a strategy of allotting depots is adapted there will be a massive shortage of staff and ineffectively service delivery will go backwards.

When there is a shortfall of staff.  What happens?   Price goes up. Simple supply and demand.   

Bus Businesses are long term businesses which require long term investment.  The most prized asset are the people, developing people is a long term commitment and that commitment is forever and 5 year franchising with a transient operator approach doesn't encourage long term investment and development of staff.    

Franchising is inevitable the only way to avoid this people issue is to move to a more London style approach.  

[LD713821]

What TFWM need to do is introduce contactless tap & go from only NX / only Metro to ALL buses and trams like how Swift Go works, then also brought into the trains when its introduced.

If they do that hopefully they can look into removing Tickets in the future, its very annoying when your at a bus stop and the fat family of 4 spend 10 minutes looking for change then your bus is late

One of the best features from a franchised network like London is you don't have to stick with one mode of transport if you've already paid, you can just tap and go for all modes of transport and be charged at the end

[Isle of Stroma]

If they do that hopefully they can look into removing Tickets in the future, its very annoying when your at a bus stop and the fat family of 4 spend 10 minutes looking for change then your bus is late

Nowhere near annoying as when you're stuck behind someone whose 'phone won't play ball with the reader / someone mid-call (on speaker phone, natch...) whilst trying to scan / someone who hasn't got a clue how to use their 'phone / someone doing the usual 'My 'phone's dead' or 'The ticket's on my phone, honest Guv' routine. Etc...

Need I go on? Of course, the actual annoying thing is buying a paper ticket, only to find that NXWM have been cost-cutting on the printer ink AGAIN & half of your ticket is illegible/invisible.

[Westy]

From what I've observed, you seem to have less trouble with Swift cards. You just make sure you don't break them by accident, as my sister had to get a replacement when that happened.

The phones for the reasons mentioned, while the contactless cards seem to depend on what's on the card itself, or does the contactless bit have to be reactivated after so many times?(Sure I got told that once, so when I had to use my debit card to get a Nbus on the 326 during the pandemic, when Nx Travel shops were shut, so I got into the habit of going into Greggs for a bacon roll & keying my pin in(still do most of the time!), thus making sure the contactless was activated.)