Should buses be operated by private operators or in public hands?

[TheGrandWazoo]

I wouldn't even be surprised by that these days. Always wondered why if councils care so much about cuts etc they don't try and find out more from the operators about cost vs passenger numbers etc. They'd soon realise it's expensive to operate though

They do. In fact, many councils use just that sort of threshold in determining value for money.

 

[py_megapixel]

Quoting myself : Get a car.

Surely you can understand why starving villages of bus services so that all of the residents start driving is, for want of a nicer way of putting it, utterly stupid from anything other than a profit perspective?

Not choose to live in a rural area (or at least one that isn't on an obvious route between two reasonably sized towns, so it would get a service by virtue of that, e.g. the various villages the UCOC X5 serves) when you need the amenities of a town?

The volunteer stuff does work, but it's not about frequent services, it's about a weekly bus to the local market and similar.

That makes sense, and perhaps the work example was a bad one. But I think the point still stands that a route being unprofitable doesn't automatically make it a bad route.

 

[py_megapixel]

Private operators are very good at running the routes and innovating.

Would you explain why we need innovation in the bus transport industry?

Aside from using more efficient, more modern designs of bus with nicer interiors (which, incidentally, Blackpool Transport and Transport for London are both rather good at), the concept is simple, and has been perfected. What innovations are there that actually benefit passengers, which private companies have done better than the integrated system in London?

There are a lot of issues in the bus industry however the majority stem from government (national and local) and on that basis, I support private companies as if the governments are messing up the small sections which they do have a say on, imagine how much of a f up it will be if it was nationalised.

The biggest problem I have with the bus industry is that there is no integration between operators, and that competition, which you seem unable to place in anything other than a positive light, causes stupidity like routes with 4 buses an hour which are only served half hourly because the operators run within a few minutes of each other.

Do you expect that to be solved by just letting the market do its thing?

Also there's no real reason public bodies couldn't recruit industry experts and experts in route planning, and I suspect that's what TfL does, as they manage OK. They just don't because it's not worth it for the odd municipal route.[/QUOTE]

 

[carlberry]

Surely you can understand why starving villages of bus services so that all of the residents start driving is, for want of a nicer way of putting it, utterly stupid from anything other than a profit perspective?

It's easy to understand, however it's very difficult to fix. Irrelevant of who operates them normal bus services are quite expensive to operate for small numbers of passengers, on-demand bus services appear to be cheap and wonderful however they end up being not predictable enough and very expensive (per passenger carried). Volunteer run services don't work for commuter flows. Even if we had an unlimited amount of money to put into transport in this country at some point the question has to be asked is it the right solution. The same amount of money invested in improving an urban transport link usually results in more new passengers and, therefore, more cars off the road.

 

[cnjb8]

Personally, I support more private companies running buses. Council make a big enough hash of the tendered network half the time and a number of councils are stuck in the stone ages running buses because 1 man and his dog have shouted loud enough. Private operators are very good at running the routes and innovating.


The reason that we are in this difficult situation I would say is that in all sectors, companies come and go. In the bus industry though, the costs of starting up are astronomical so as companies go, no one is coming in to replace them. That has lead to the monopoly areas which in turn causes the astronomical fares.
Combine all of that with the below which are all out of bus operators hands and in the hands of the public organisations, that is why we can't get anywhere.

• 
  Councils aren't prepared to invest in the infrastructure to make buses more competitive
  Car centric councils and government
  Councils budgets have been cut so bus networks have been reduced (Reducing the value for money and connecting passengers)
  Where councils do have the funds to subsidise buses, the money is wasted on routes which are not used simply to keep the minority happy while making the majority suffer from stupidly long journey times or confusing route variations)
  Rural and out of the way housing developments (lower density means less people reached per stop so longer journeys, more buses or reduced viability).
  Concessionary fare reimbursement is very low and thus routes which are pass heavy aren't viable any more.
  Too many uneducated prats (AKA councillors and MPs) who have no knowledge of how the industry works or the costs involved keep trying to tell operators where buses should run and then set up huge hate campaigns to try and force them out of a town/city simply because the village of 50 people isn't served by a bus every 10 minutes.

I think think that Cumbria and Oxfordshire are good examples of where private companies thrive and people are relatively happy. No council funded buses there as they refuse to fund them and the majority of areas are served. There are some areas which need improvements but on the whole, the areas are quite well served with high spec buses and thriving competition.

An area which is less successful is Manchester where 4 items from the above list apply. You also have Stagecoach who are extremely greedy in Manchester for no reason. Routes which do make money aren't ran commercially simply because they don't make enough. Very high profit margins wanted and they don't like the commercial risk on some of the less busy (but still profitable) routes (Basically why run a route where there is a risk it might only break even in a few years if instead you can have a guaranteed funding for it all year around).


There are a lot of issues in the bus industry however the majority stem from government (national and local) and on that basis, I support private companies as if the governments are messing up the small sections which they do have a say on, imagine how much of a f up it will be if it was nationalised.


Of the current municipal bus operators:
Blackpool: Very smart fleet and very good network. Prices are fair. They do duplicate the trams with buses though which shows they have money to waste. Very weird timings as well, I can't see how bus journey times are the same at all hours of the day.
Cardiff: Decent network, fair fleet. Can't be that good as there is a lot of competition and money is being made by the other operators so passengers aren't loyal and are showing they will use alternatives where they exist. Lack of transparency
Halton: Though not a current one, it only recently went. Went because the council didn't want to keep funding the buses. Fleet was outdated and was being ran down slowly for years.
Ipswich: Exact fare system. Quite a few reports online about poor customer service
Lothian: Some areas are good, others aren't.
Newport: Exact fare system. Confusing network and very user unfriendly. Poor customer service. Only got usage because there is no alternative in most areas.
Nottingham: Exact fare system, Lots of routes lots of variations for them.
Reading: Exact fare system on most original Reading Buses routes
Warrington: You could remortgage your house and still only have enough money for a single into town. Astronomical fares, outdated fleet in general, unwilling to listen to residents.

The best Municipal operators are Blackpool and Reading. Both of these are quite close to how private companies run with their routings and their customer service. For every Blackpool and Reading though, you have a Halton and Warrington and with councils being as incompetent as they are these days, there will be more bad than good bus networks in the end.

I recently went on holiday in the Lake District and their is no way the majority of it is served

 

[Megafuss]

Would you explain why we need innovation in the bus transport industry?

Aside from using more efficient, more modern designs of bus with nicer interiors (which, incidentally, Blackpool Transport and Transport for London are both rather good at), the concept is simple, and has been perfected. What innovations are there that actually benefit passengers, which private companies have done better than the integrated system in London?



The biggest problem I have with the bus industry is that there is no integration between operators, and that competition, which you seem unable to place in anything other than a positive light, causes stupidity like routes with 4 buses an hour which are only served half hourly because the operators run within a few minutes of each other.

Do you expect that to be solved by just letting the market do its thing?

Also there's no real reason public bodies couldn't recruit industry experts and experts in route planning, and I suspect that's what TfL does, as they manage OK. They just don't because it's not worth it for the odd municipal route.

[/QUOTE]

Free WiFi, USB charging, comfortable seating, actual publicity you can pick up and use are just a few things bus operators have done outside of London. TfL have only recently cottened on to USB charging due to way buses are ordered. On a more technical level, interworking of services is prevelant outside of London to make the best use of the resource avaliable. Something I understand is very rare in TfL land.

Re intergration. There is nothing stopping a Local Authority from setting up a partnership which can help coordinate services, such as in Oxford. But many don't have the will to do so.

Public bodies would need to recruit the very people that are planning and running buses in the private sector. Planning is a very niche field and operators struggle to recruit scheduling staff. For example I am aware of at least one operator that are two schedulers short despite advertising the role a number of times. Why do they have difficulty? Because from the outside, buses are just not fun.

 

[carlberry]

I recently went on holiday in the Lake District and their is no way the majority of it is served

Given how marginal a lot of the routes are, especially in winter, the Lake District still retains the bulk of services that it's historically had. Given that the county council dosent put any money into buses it's quite possible, if they had control of them, they'd be trying to extract it!

 

[Robertj21a]

There's rather a lot of people on here who appear to have little understanding of financial issues........

 

[py_megapixel]

Free WiFi, USB charging, comfortable seating, actual publicity you can pick up and use are just a few things bus operators have done outside of London.

I forgot about Wi-fi, though USB charging I have literally never used it myself or seen anyone else using it, it's one of those things that you say "that's neat" and then never think about again

Also I don't think buses are any more comfortable outside of London.

I'll add that on the innovation front, London is way, way ahead in the rollout of electric buses. The only privatised operator that seems to care about it at all is Stagecoach, and even they only have a few.

Re intergration. There is nothing stopping a Local Authority from setting up a partnership which can help coordinate services, such as in Oxford. But many don't have the will to do so.

Which is another problem. No doubt the bus companies will lobby against anything like this.

But as I've said time and time again I don't care who runs my bus as long as it works. The reason I advocate nationalisation is because the current system doesn't work.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That makes sense, and perhaps the work example was a bad one. But I think the point still stands that a route being unprofitable doesn't automatically make it a bad route.

I completely agree, my point was more that you can't live in the middle of nowhere and expect a half hourly service from 6am to midnight, if you live in a very rural area you'll at best get a Saturday shopping bus to the nearest town once every week or two unless it's somewhere served incidentally by a route between two larger places.

I agree subsidy is required in certain cases and I'm not against that, nor against cross-subsidy. It just gets silly when buying each user of a service a car and paying all the associated costs (or more realistically, having a zone where taxi travel to a suitable nearby town is charged at the bus fare and free on ENCTS) would be cheaper than running a bus.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I forgot about Wi-fi, though USB charging I have literally never used it myself or seen anyone else using it, it's one of those things that you say "that's neat" and then never think about again

You can't be looking hard. I use it and I've seen plenty of other people using USBs. Then you have wireless charging on Transdev vehicles.

I can't comment on your experiences, but there are plenty of examples of much more comfortable buses in the provinces though that is probably a reflection on longer journey durations

Which is another problem. No doubt the bus companies will lobby against anything like this.

Not really. The Greater Bristol Bus Network in 2007-9 was predecated on £70m on investment, of which 2/3 came from public sources to improve bus priority, RTI, shelters etc, and 1/3 was on the basis of First committing to new vehicles. It was also the basis on which the old Kickstart awards were made. Partnership can work where you have a local authority who will commit funds to improve priority so that operators can also get a benefit.

What operators don't want is to lose their business without any recompense, save bargain basement payment for their depots (as in Manchester).

But as I've said time and time again I don't care who runs my bus as long as it works. The reason I advocate nationalisation is because the current system doesn't work.

Yes, but nationalisation didn't work either. In fact, it resulted in a huge amount of overt and hidden subsidy, a massive reduction in patronage, and stagnation.

 

[PYROOGOBBO]

having Lived in an area with only first bus operation, we badly need a competitor/council owned bus service for at least competition, as first bus has been doing poorer and poorer services because it mainly feels like they can (parking up buses with passengers inside for 10 mins while the bus is 10 mins late, One incident where a perfectly working bus just abandoned passengers because there was some mysterious issue with the bus, even though it was perfectly running, leaving passengers to wait another 20 mins for a bus that was already 30 mins late)

 

[RT4038]

having Lived in an area with only first bus operation, we badly need a competitor/council owned bus service for at least competition, as first bus has been doing poorer and poorer services because it mainly feels like they can (parking up buses with passengers inside for 10 mins while the bus is 10 mins late, One incident where a perfectly working bus just abandoned passengers because there was some mysterious issue with the bus, even though it was perfectly running, leaving passengers to wait another 20 mins for a bus that was already 30 mins late)

Why do you think any of this would not happen if there was a competitor/council owned buses?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I agree subsidy is required in certain cases and I'm not against that, nor against cross-subsidy. It just gets silly when buying each user of a service a car and paying all the associated costs (or more realistically, having a zone where taxi travel to a suitable nearby town is charged at the bus fare and free on ENCTS) would be cheaper than running a bus.

You know my views on cross-subsidy; ultimately, the dross drags down the good stuff.

However, you're right to cite the costs of private motoring etc. Private motoring is cheaper in real terms now than 20 years ago. With cuts in BSOG, the cock-eyed ENCTS underfunding and remuneration pushing up "casual" single fares, plus the various legislative requirements that have added to bus operator costs, it's not surprising this disparity has increased.

How many times when Clean Air Zones are proposed have we seen that buses (below Euro VI) are to be charged/penalised whilst private cars aren't. Usually this is justifed as "a bus creates x times the number of pollutants" rather than on a per capita basis.

 

[carlberry]

I'll add that on the innovation front, London is way, way ahead in the rollout of electric buses. The only privatised operator that seems to care about it at all is Stagecoach, and even they only have a few.

Which is another problem. No doubt the bus companies will lobby against anything like this.

But as I've said time and time again I don't care who runs my bus as long as it works. The reason I advocate nationalisation is because the current system doesn't work.

Electric buses (and all alternative fuels) usually depend on government money at present. All the electric buses in London are run by privitised operators, it's only the Borisbuses that are publicly owned because nobody else would touch them.
I've never heard of an bus company lobbing against sensible integration, they're usually the ones that suggest the idea. They did lobby against one barmy idea that Oxford came up with of making everybody get off the bus half way through their journey then wait for another bus to continue into the centre.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Why do you think any of this would not happen if there was a competitor/council owned buses?

Indeed - perhaps if that poster had experienced Newport Bus, they might have a different view!

 

[PYROOGOBBO]

Why do you think any of this would not happen if there was a competitor/council owned buses?

Just part of me feels like First bus can get away with such shenanigans because there isn't another competitor, basically having a monopoly on an area means they can gouge it as much as they wish

 

[RT4038]

The biggest problem I have with the bus industry is that there is no integration between operators, and that competition, which you seem unable to place in anything other than a positive light, causes stupidity like routes with 4 buses an hour which are only served half hourly because the operators run within a few minutes of each other.

I am not sure that this sort of thing happens much nowadays, except possibly sections where services are going different ways and/or to different destinations parallel each other. Happens on the rail network too! Not sure that public ownership (without extra subsidy) would resolve all of these; when buses were publically owned and regulated before there were plenty of examples too.
I expect in your example a regulated, publically owned system would merely run 1 or 2 buses per hour; so I am not sure what benefit would be gained?

 

[buslad1988]

Very good points. Yeah we don't need another thread like that. Lothian is the only thing people who 100% want public run buses seem to shout about

Yeah all very good if you’re a major city with massive employment, numerous universities and a huge tourist market... slightly different to your average regional town in East Anglia for example!

For me it’s Blackpool Transport who seem to be leading the way and doing all the right things atm out of the comparative municipals.

 

[Robertj21a]

Yeah all very good if you’re a major city with massive employment, numerous universities and a huge tourist market... slightly different to your average regional town in East Anglia for example!

For me it’s Blackpool Transport who seem to be leading the way and doing all the right things atm out of the comparative municipals.

Blackpool is doing ok but I think most people would consider Nottingham amd Lothian to be even better.

 

[Bletchleyite]

You know my views on cross-subsidy; ultimately, the dross drags down the good stuff.

I don't think that's universally true. It's also more complicated than that, because for instance if you just operate 0700-1800 (as Peddle's MK Metro did) people may not choose the bus to get to work because come 1800 if they have to do overtime they're stuck. If you extend to 2000 you might carry very few people on those evening services, but they might cause more people to use the daytime ones because they're there as insurance.

That said, that's where Anruf-Sammeltaxi comes in in Germany - those services are in the timetable, but they don't run (as a taxi from a taxi firm) unless someone phones up and says they want them, so they cost nowt most days bar the ink on the timetable poster and whatever base rate the taxi firm is paid for being on the contract, if anything.

Cross-subsidy of routes is a bit different, but I think does work to a point.

How many times when Clean Air Zones are proposed have we seen that buses (below Euro VI) are to be charged/penalised whilst private cars aren't. Usually this is justifed as "a bus creates x times the number of pollutants" rather than on a per capita basis.

I certainly think this is unfair, and the specification should be similar for private vehicles too. However, I also see bus companies shouting for the stick, when in many cases the bus company simply isn't offering a good enough carrot. Bluntly, MK's bus service is rubbish. It looks rubbish, it is dirty, the vehicles are often damaged (though they're newer than they were), the staff often surly and the service is unpunctual, and most services are low frequency but nothing at all is done to make them properly connect so they can serve the very distributed nature of MK. It simply is not a viable alternative to the car for most journeys - it is a distress purchase chosen only if you don't drive and can't afford a taxi, but if there are two of you or more a taxi gets more affordable. If you got Alex Hornby and Best Impressions in and did everything they both said to do, plus the Council was on board to redesign the abomination of a bus station by the railway station so it didn't cause half that unpunctuality, then things might be different.

 

[carlberry]

I certainly think this is unfair, and the specification should be similar for private vehicles too. However, I also see bus companies shouting for the stick, when in many cases the bus company simply isn't offering a good enough carrot. Bluntly, MK's bus service is rubbish. It looks rubbish, it is dirty, the vehicles are often damaged (though they're newer than they were), the staff often surly and the service is unpunctual, and most services are low frequency but nothing at all is done to make them properly connect so they can serve the very distributed nature of MK. It simply is not a viable alternative to the car for most journeys - it is a distress purchase chosen only if you don't drive and can't afford a taxi, but if there are two of you or more a taxi gets more affordable. If you got Alex Hornby and Best Impressions in and did everything they both said to do, plus the Council was on board to redesign the abomination of a bus station by the railway station so it didn't cause half that unpunctuality, then things might be different.

Milton Keynes, by design, is never going to have attractive bus services. It was designed around 100% car ownership and, whilst some of it's features also mean that bikes are more usable than in most areas, it's impossible for it to support much more than it does at the moment. The best marketing team in the world isn't going to get enough of an uplift to finance an attractive bus service in most areas without the council suddenly decided to introduce workplace parking surcharges and massively reduced the amount of road space available to private cars. The more important thing to learn from it is not to do it again!

 

[Robertj21a]

I don't think that's universally true. It's also more complicated than that, because for instance if you just operate 0700-1800 (as Peddle's MK Metro did) people may not choose the bus to get to work because come 1800 if they have to do overtime they're stuck. If you extend to 2000 you might carry very few people on those evening services, but they might cause more people to use the daytime ones because they're there as insurance.

That said, that's where Anruf-Sammeltaxi comes in in Germany - those services are in the timetable, but they don't run (as a taxi from a taxi firm) unless someone phones up and says they want them, so they cost nowt most days bar the ink on the timetable poster and whatever base rate the taxi firm is paid for being on the contract, if anything.

Cross-subsidy of routes is a bit different, but I think does work to a point.



I certainly think this is unfair, and the specification should be similar for private vehicles too. However, I also see bus companies shouting for the stick, when in many cases the bus company simply isn't offering a good enough carrot. Bluntly, MK's bus service is rubbish. It looks rubbish, it is dirty, the vehicles are often damaged (though they're newer than they were), the staff often surly and the service is unpunctual, and most services are low frequency but nothing at all is done to make them properly connect so they can serve the very distributed nature of MK. It simply is not a viable alternative to the car for most journeys - it is a distress purchase chosen only if you don't drive and can't afford a taxi, but if there are two of you or more a taxi gets more affordable. If you got Alex Hornby and Best Impressions in and did everything they both said to do, plus the Council was on board to redesign the abomination of a bus station by the railway station so it didn't cause half that unpunctuality, then things might be different.

I'm in MK quite often but don't really see the problem with the buses outside the railway station. There's certainly nothing there to cause significant delays (which, for Arriva and Stagecoach, are carefully monitored real time these days).

 

[duncombec]

I'll add that on the innovation front, London is way, way ahead in the rollout of electric buses. The only privatised operator that seems to care about it at all is Stagecoach, and even they only have a few.

Do you actually know this is the case, or are you drawing conclusions from limited data? Aside from the pure price premium of an electric vehicle (and bearing in mind you may need more electrics than diesels to run the service because of charging capabilities), there is a big issue surrounding necessary upgrades to the power grid to manage the flow needed for recharging. If you ask the grid for too much and then don't use it, they will take the option away from you. If you buy the buses first and then look to the grid, you find yourself in a Harrogate type-situation.

There is much greater political pressure in London for utilities to get things right. It doesn't always succeed (e.g. Thames Water's leak rate), but it makes for bad press. If the Mayor says "I want more electric buses but the Grid Operators say no", who is going to come off worse? Now try getting a grid operator to upgrade miles of network so that a medium-sized shire town can have electric vehicles with a disinterested local authority. Is Mayor Burnham pushing for grid upgrades to power the massive increase in electric vehicles that if he hasn't already promised to magic up, he probably soon will?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I'm in MK quite often but don't really see the problem with the buses outside the railway station.

It's a bit difficult to see it at the moment, but if commuting ever does return to normal go and look there when the station's busy. The layout simply does not work (due to conflicts with queueing car traffic), and if you asked Arriva I'm sure they'd say as much - I believe they have considered refusing to use it but concluded that it would lose them too much traffic by not serving the station.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I don't think that's universally true. It's also more complicated than that, because for instance if you just operate 0700-1800 (as Peddle's MK Metro did) people may not choose the bus to get to work because come 1800 if they have to do overtime they're stuck. If you extend to 2000 you might carry very few people on those evening services, but they might cause more people to use the daytime ones because they're there as insurance.

That said, that's where Anruf-Sammeltaxi comes in in Germany - those services are in the timetable, but they don't run (as a taxi from a taxi firm) unless someone phones up and says they want them, so they cost nowt most days bar the ink on the timetable poster and whatever base rate the taxi firm is paid for being on the contract, if anything.

Cross-subsidy of routes is a bit different, but I think does work to a point.

If you go to the absolute minutiae of detail on cross subsidy, you'd not have services at all as one journey in the morning (i.e. the positioning journey) wouldn't be profitable to then run the first journey in. Bus operators know the realities of operating certain journeys for the holistic benefit - hence why many operators do run apparently barely marginal services to about 1900/2000. However, there's a world of difference between that and what true cross-subsidy is.

For instance, I was driving this morning on the A420 between Oxford and Swindon. The 66 service used to be hourly but through initial partnership with LAs and Stagecoach, it received new roadside infrastructure and improved bus priority (though Oxford is good for that anyway). Stagecoach for their part upped the frequency to half hourly and put on new single deck vehicles. Now assisted by some fairly extensive housing development on route and the creation of a virtuous circle, the S6 is now a Gold DD route that runs every 20 mins and every 15 in peak. However, would that be possible if someone had said "let's use the profits from that to have a Witney to Swindon service every hour" - probably requiring at least two vehicles. You will simply deny £150-200k p.a. from the S6 to prop up something that may be desirable, or socially necessary.

If that's sounds implausible, it was exactly how the 1930 Transport Act worked. The problem was that it was fine with a captive audience in the 1930s. By the 1950s when cars were suddenly affordable, it meant an increased burden on those profitable services to support ones that were marginal in the boom times and were then loss making. And, of course, the great days of regulation meant that service stability was maintained....so whilst the social fabric of the country changed, the bus services didn't.

I certainly think this is unfair, and the specification should be similar for private vehicles too. However, I also see bus companies shouting for the stick, when in many cases the bus company simply isn't offering a good enough carrot. Bluntly, MK's bus service is rubbish. It looks rubbish, it is dirty, the vehicles are often damaged (though they're newer than they were), the staff often surly and the service is unpunctual, and most services are low frequency but nothing at all is done to make them properly connect so they can serve the very distributed nature of MK. It simply is not a viable alternative to the car for most journeys - it is a distress purchase chosen only if you don't drive and can't afford a taxi, but if there are two of you or more a taxi gets more affordable. If you got Alex Hornby and Best Impressions in and did everything they both said to do, plus the Council was on board to redesign the abomination of a bus station by the railway station so it didn't cause half that unpunctuality, then things might be different

As @carlberry says, MK (and many new towns) are difficult places to serve. MK is particularly car centric with masses of car parking in the town centre. However, it is a pattern with most new towns.... Corby, East Kilbride, Skem etc....lots of low density housing, plentiful car parking, good road links. It's never been easy even in pre 1986 days.

I do agree with you though about bus companies shouting for stick when they need to come to the party. That is fair comment and it's what partnership is about. If LAs/DfT were to say, we will invest £xm to improve bus priority and at least try to level the playing field, but you have to meet certain criteria on age and condition of vehicles, then that's fine. That IS what has happened in certain bus partnerships and was the basis of the Kickstart scheme - both parties have to have "skin in the game". I also agree that you are probably exposed to one of the weakest Arriva operations in the UK.

 

[buslad1988]

Do you actually know this is the case, or are you drawing conclusions from limited data? Aside from the pure price premium of an electric vehicle (and bearing in mind you may need more electrics than diesels to run the service because of charging capabilities), there is a big issue surrounding necessary upgrades to the power grid to manage the flow needed for recharging. If you ask the grid for too much and then don't use it, they will take the option away from you. If you buy the buses first and then look to the grid, you find yourself in a Harrogate type-situation.

There is much greater political pressure in London for utilities to get things right. It doesn't always succeed (e.g. Thames Water's leak rate), but it makes for bad press. If the Mayor says "I want more electric buses but the Grid Operators say no", who is going to come off worse? Now try getting a grid operator to upgrade miles of network so that a medium-sized shire town can have electric vehicles with a disinterested local authority. Is Mayor Burnham pushing for grid upgrades to power the massive increase in electric vehicles that if he hasn't already promised to magic up, he probably soon will?

Yes exactly. It’s National Express and First who are the only major players so far to commit to zero emission fleets.

Very interesting piece in route one last week regarding the ins and outs of electric vehicles etc. People seem to think it’s just the companies not wanting to spend more on new buses but it’s the infrastructure required.

First Bus outlines steps towards 2035 zero-emission commitment - routeone

First Bus was the second of the ‘big five’ to commit to operating a fully zero-emission fleet when the annual results of parent FirstGroup were published in July. It will reach that milestone by 2035.ContentsPartnership still king in First Bus zero-emission transition plansFirst Bus: Challenges...

www.route-one.net

 

[Jordan Adam]

Very interesting piece in route one last week regarding the ins and outs of electric vehicles etc. People seem to think it’s just the companies not wanting to spend more on new buses but it’s the infrastructure required.

Indeed, people seem to ignore the fact that to operate a fleet of electric buses depots need expensive chargers put in, not to mention the fact that electric buses generally speaking still can't do a full 18 hour day so you need to rotate them through the day increasing fleet size, among other problems.

As you say it's not a case that operators don't want to buy electric buses. It's that electric buses still can't do what a diesel bus can do, people need to keep in mind that the mileage regional buses do is much higher generally than those in London.

 

[duncombec]

Very interesting piece in route one last week regarding the ins and outs of electric vehicles etc. People seem to think it’s just the companies not wanting to spend more on new buses but it’s the infrastructure required.

First Bus outlines steps towards 2035 zero-emission commitment - routeone

First Bus was the second of the ‘big five’ to commit to operating a fully zero-emission fleet when the annual results of parent FirstGroup were published in July. It will reach that milestone by 2035.ContentsPartnership still king in First Bus zero-emission transition plansFirst Bus: Challenges...

www.route-one.net

I think there are two very eye-opening quotes in that article, both in the section from Director of Strategy John Dowie:

What we want to avoid is opportunity charging.

and

It could be the case that bringing enough power into a modern depot is expensive because the local grid is already at capacity. Likewise, an older depot could be in an area that other industries have left, giving sufficient slack.

 

[A0]

As @carlberry says, MK (and many new towns) are difficult places to serve. MK is particularly car centric with masses of car parking in the town centre. However, it is a pattern with most new towns.... Corby, East Kilbride, Skem etc....lots of low density housing, plentiful car parking, good road links. It's never been easy even in pre 1986 days.

I think you're wrong about new towns - for various reasons.

They actually made it *far* easier for the bus companies - many of them had bus only roads - Telford and Halton being the most extensive, but places like Hemel did as well.

Additionally the estates were designed with bus stops conveniently sited, usually with lay bys, the town centres had (and in many cases still do) a reasonable sized bus station with space for vehicles to layover. And the way the towns were designed meant from most of the estates there were only 2 or 3 destinations within the town the buses needed to head for - town centre, rail station (if separate), industrial area (usually only 1 or 2) and hospital. Even then the bus companies managed to lose a captive audience.

Compare the ease of running buses around a new town like Harlow or Stevenage with the challenges of running through Luton or Watford - the bus companies had it easy in the New Towns.