TfGM Bus franchising

[lincman]

I accept property - if purchased - will be paid for. Goodwill will not, and vehicles may or may not be purchased - but if they’re not, they may have to be sold in a fire sale at less than market value (accepting that Groups probably have ability to cascade elsewhere, but not SMEs). PTE got money from the original purchasers - and through a competitive process so a fair value at the time- like most businesses there have been subsequent sales.

The original sale was not by competitive tender but invitation to purchase, the sale did not go to the highest bidder, but to whoever the politicians decided could have it.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The original sale was not by competitive tender but invitation to purchase, the sale did not go to the highest bidder, but to whoever the politicians decided could have it.

Here we have a cited example of politicians of a certain political hue having free rein to indulge their personal political whims.

 

[lincman]

Here we have a cited example of politicians of a certain political hue having free rein to indulge their personal political whims.

And so the wheel turns full circle, I await future developments with some scepticism.

 

[Cesarcollie]

And so the wheel turns full circle, I await future developments with some scepticism.

And so the wheel turns full circle, I await future developments with some scepticism.

Agreed. My key point is that if you buy a pub, a restaurant, a garden centre or whatever you will generally be buying property, other assets, and goodwill. You may get a bargain or you may not. But either way, through your hard work and skill you would expect to grow, develop and invest in that business over the years, making profits. There is risk attached - you may succeed, you may not. But that risk should be controllable through your direction. When you decide to exit, through retirement or whatever, your expectation would be that the goodwill of that business, through all that hard work, is worth more than you paid for it. You don’t expect a government body to come along and confiscate it, paying you simply for the value of the property and stock...!

 

[lincman]

Agreed. My key point is that if you buy a pub, a restaurant, a garden centre or whatever you will generally be buying property, other assets, and goodwill. You may get a bargain or you may not. But either way, through your hard work and skill you would expect to grow, develop and invest in that business over the years, making profits. There is risk attached - you may succeed, you may not. But that risk should be controllable through your direction. When you decide to exit, through retirement or whatever, your expectation would be that the goodwill of that business, through all that hard work, is worth more than you paid for it. You don’t expect a government body to come along and confiscate it, paying you simply for the value of the property and stock...!

I agree completely with point of view, but as I understand it, all an operator will get is the price of it's depot and nothing else. The issues regarding staff and vehicles and of course cost seem to be being rather brushed over.

 

[Cesarcollie]

I agree completely with point of view, but as I understand it, all an operator will get is the price of it's depot and nothing else. The issues regarding staff and vehicles and of course cost seem to be being rather brushed over.

Yes. I rather suspect TUPE will have to apply (even where legally it doesn’t actually) or there’d be an uproar. Vehicles will come down to whether TfGM are looking for practical solutions and a mixed age fleet (and of course the existing operators wanting to sell them). If TfGM specify new buses they’ll end up with a higher cost, and of course a fleet which will all get older at the same time.

 

[domcoop7]

I'm against Franchising, but have to say that nobody is *taking* the operators' goodwill. Instead what they are doing is *de-valuing* the goodwill (to barely more than zero in some cases).

To use an example, if internal combustion cars are banned, the government haven't taken Volkswagen's goodwill. It just no longer has a value unless they change their business model.

Loss of business value is always a risk for operators (whether private [First Manchester Queens Road & Bolton], or public [Halton Transport]).

Indeed I was recently reading the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report on Stagecoach -vs- Lancaster City Transport during the bus wars of the early 1990s.

Interestingly what hapenned there is that the local council put the feelers out that they were prepared to sell the company and invited bidders.

Blackpool Transport offered £800k, and Merseyside said they were interested but didn't make any concrete moves.

Stagecoach then registered services to duplicate every non-tendered Lancaster City Transport route. They said "you've got 56 days. If before then you sell us all your buses, and your Heysham depot, and make all your drivers redundant we'll give you £1 million. If not, you've got a loss making company on your hands and we'll buy what we want in a fire sale when it goes into liquidation".

Had the council waited the 56 days their goodwill would have dropped to zero overnight. They sold to Stagecoach.

Stagecoach didn't take the council's goodwill - the goodwill just became worthless. So Stagecoach can't complain now when somebody else plays the same game.

But again, for the avoidance of doubt, I don't think Franchising is going to achieve anything useful other than increased Council Tax, reduced local authority services (as funding is switched from "boring" stuff to the sexy empire building of showing off their uniformly liveried buses to the world) and buses being concentrated in Manchester City Centre.

 

[johncrossley]

But again, for the avoidance of doubt, I don't think Franchising is going to achieve anything useful other than increased Council Tax, reduced local authority services (as funding is switched from "boring" stuff to the sexy empire building of showing off their uniformly liveried buses to the world) and buses being concentrated in Manchester City Centre.

Most people seem to think that there will be considerably fewer buses in the city centre, because there will be a greater reliance on using connections and reduced frequency on main routes to allow for improvements in areas which are currently underserved. Most cities outside Britain seem to try to minimise the number of buses in the city centre.

I have a suspicion that a lot of people on enthusiast orientated forums such as this don't like franchising because it will make the scene more boring. Especially having fewer liveries and fewer service changes. When companies start up "innovative" routes there is a lot of excitement on here, even if most of the time they end up being withdrawn a few months later. See how few posts there are on London buses on here. On a more infrastructure related forum I read there seems to be hardly any debate about franchising and everyone seems to think it is obviously a good thing.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

But again, for the avoidance of doubt, I don't think Franchising is going to achieve anything useful other than increased Council Tax, reduced local authority services (as funding is switched from "boring" stuff to the sexy empire building of showing off their uniformly liveried buses to the world) and buses being concentrated in Manchester City Centre.

Local elections take place early in May in Greater Manchester. I wonder if all those political parties strongly in favour of bus franchising will explain in their electoral literature that there will be rises in Council Tax to help to finance this vision and also the reasons why the matter was not democratically put forward in a referendum.

 

[Bletchleyite]

They're not taking back the vehicles. If they take back the depots, it'll only be by agreement and they'll be paid for.

You can argue about the goodwill, but it sounds like you're suggesting they'll confiscate their assets

Owning a business doesn't give you the right to prevent regulatory changes later which might affect that business, of course. They still have vehicles, drivers, ticket machines, the money in the bank etc. That won't change after deregulation, just the nature of how they do business (competition at the point of bidding for each contract, rather than competition at the point of use) will change.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Apr 2021 ==

I have a suspicion that a lot of people on enthusiast orientated forums such as this don't like franchising because it will make the scene more boring. Especially having fewer liveries and fewer service changes. When companies start up "innovative" routes there is a lot of excitement on here, even if most of the time they end up being withdrawn a few months later. See how few posts there are on London buses on here. On a more infrastructure related forum I read there seems to be hardly any debate about franchising and everyone seems to think it is obviously a good thing.

Yes, I think you might be onto something there. Competition makes for an interesting scene - but what it absolutely doesn't do, pretty much by definition, is give you an integrated urban transport system as all major European cities have...except ours. The reason it doesn't is because even where it makes sense to integrate logistically, it's less profitable to do so so they don't.

 

[johncrossley]

Local elections take place early in May in Greater Manchester. I wonder if all those political parties strongly in favour of bus franchising will explain in their electoral literature that there will be rises in Council Tax to help to finance this vision and also the reasons why the matter was not democratically put forward in a referendum.

The Tory mayoral candidate is anti-franchising. Let's see how well she does.

 

[Gareth]

Yes, I think you might be onto something there. Competition makes for an interesting scene - but what it absolutely doesn't do, pretty much by definition, is give you an integrated urban transport system as all major European cities have...except ours. The reason it doesn't is because even where it makes sense to integrate logistically, it's less profitable to do so so they don't.

Doesn't matter much in Liverpool anyway. Arriva have had a near monopoly for over 20 years now. For most of that time, they've been pretty awful, with single decker buses on most previously double-decker lines and fares growing year on year well past the rate of inflation.

It's only been in the last few years, with the spectre of franchising looming, that they've somewhat upped their game to some extent.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Doesn't matter much in Liverpool anyway. Arriva have had a near monopoly for over 20 years now. For most of that time, they've been pretty awful, with single decker buses on most previously double-decker lines and fares growing year on year well past the rate of inflation.

It's only been in the last few years, with the spectre of franchising looming, that they've somewhat upped their game to some extent.

Arriva are in my experience rubbish pretty much everywhere and long have been. But actually it does matter even in Liverpool, because Arriva are minded not to integrate properly with Merseyrail because taking someone all the way into the city is more profitable.

(Obviously there are plenty of routes where it makes more sense to run a direct bus because Merseyrail's coverage is decidedly poor - but to use an example, a Kirkby to Liverpool bus makes no sense at all - it would make more sense to run a couple of circular routes to the station, timed to connect with the trains)

 

[Gareth]

I was referring to the "interesting scene" comment.

Things were "interesting" during the early days of deregulation. The buses changed from a sea of green to every colour of the rainbow. Fareway, in particular, ran Merseybus ragged with stupidly cheap fares. But as the years went on, the companies consolidated and the buses aged. Then Arriva took over and introduced long overdue new buses, but they were single decker and the fares went up notably.

 

[Cesarcollie]

Arriva are in my experience rubbish pretty much everywhere and long have been. But actually it does matter even in Liverpool, because Arriva are minded not to integrate properly with Merseyrail because taking someone all the way into the city is more profitable.

And perhaps customers would rather travel all the way on one mode than be forced to change?

 

[Bletchleyite]

And perhaps customers would rather travel all the way on one mode than be forced to change?

When provided with a quality, properly integrated network where those connections are both not penalised financially and are painless, I suspect most will happily make the connection because it will mostly give them a considerably quicker journey. The approach is widespread everywhere else in Europe. We are not really different, despite this British tendency to think we are.

 

[domcoop7]

On a more infrastructure related forum I read there seems to be hardly any debate about franchising and everyone seems to think it is obviously a good thing.

It depends on the demographic of the users though. I used to follow a well known infrastructure forum, but it just got tedious in the end. Page after page of "Liverpool is the best and Mancs are all Tories" on the Liverpool forum and "Manchester is the best as we're nearly as big as London and Scousers are all" and so on.

To top it off you then get younger student types wittering on about what building that millennials deem useless should be demolished in order to build skyscrapers so that Liverpool / Manchester can be better than Manchester / Liverpool and its only fair because London has them and Media City is crap and Wirrall Waters is just a ponzi scheme and our stadiums are better than yours and our airport is the better one and so on and so on.

I think *this* forum is much better as contributors seem to know the industry and what they are actually talking about rather than the Student Union fantasy world they imagine could become a Utopia.

But I guess it depends which forum.

For the record, I've come full-circle myself over the years. I used to want GM Buses back, but now I'm a bit older and realise that investment and innovation often doesn't come from the public sector in the way idealists suppose. And Franchising is a dog's dinner - neither renationalising nor keeping it private. Has it helped the railways?

 

[507021]

Arriva are in my experience rubbish pretty much everywhere and long have been.

So rubbish that when the OLR took over the Northern franchise, there was a massive improvement in service reliability and rolling stock quality overnight.

Oh wait. There wasn't.

 

[johncrossley]

So rubbish that when the OLR took over the Northern franchise, there was a massive improvement in service reliability and rolling stock quality overnight.

Oh wait. There wasn't.

Maybe he was talking about Arriva commercial bus operations. Does anyone think Arriva buses in London are any better or worse than other operators in London? I doubt it. Arriva have franchised bus operations around Europe and are probably roughly the same standard as others in the localities.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Maybe he was talking about Arriva commercial bus operations.

Indeed I was given that this is the bus forum. Northern (the TOC) is fairly rubbish too, but that is for different reasons than those affecting their commercial bus operations.

 

[Robertj21a]

Maybe he was talking about Arriva commercial bus operations. Does anyone think Arriva buses in London are any better or worse than other operators in London? I doubt it. Arriva have franchised bus operations around Europe and are probably roughly the same standard as others in the localities.

As you say (and it's often overlooked), Arriva run a very sizeable number of operations across many European countries. To me, their European operations are no better or worse than the other bus operators in Europe.

 

[johncrossley]

I used to want GM Buses back

Just to clarify, you mean the post-deregulation operator, not the pre-deregulation PTE operator Greater Manchester Transport? If you really mean GM Buses, rather than GMT, what was good about GM Buses? It was on its knees for most of its existence with virtually no fleet replacement for many years. Patronage declined dramatically during the GM Buses era.

 

[Gareth]

It was orange.

 

[507021]

Maybe he was talking about Arriva commercial bus operations. Does anyone think Arriva buses in London are any better or worse than other operators in London? I doubt it. Arriva have franchised bus operations around Europe and are probably roughly the same standard as others in the localities.

Perhaps so, but I don't really consider "Arriva are rubbish" as being a constructive contribution to this discussion.

As for Arriva London, a former associate who works there told me the only good thing about working there is his salary. The vast majority of ex-London vehicles the Arriva operation I work for has received have been largely dreadful, even after a refurbishment. The DLPs and VLWs were an exception, still not perfect by any means but at least they felt like they had a decent amount of miles left in them.

Indeed I was given that this is the bus forum. Northern (the TOC) is fairly rubbish too, but that is for different reasons than those affecting their commercial bus operations.

Genuine question, where does Arriva Merseyside rank on your scale of satisfaction?

 

[Purple Orange]

It depends on the demographic of the users though. I used to follow a well known infrastructure forum, but it just got tedious in the end. Page after page of "Liverpool is the best and Mancs are all Tories" on the Liverpool forum and "Manchester is the best as we're nearly as big as London and Scousers are all" and so on.

To top it off you then get younger student types wittering on about what building that millennials deem useless should be demolished in order to build skyscrapers so that Liverpool / Manchester can be better than Manchester / Liverpool and its only fair because London has them and Media City is crap and Wirrall Waters is just a ponzi scheme and our stadiums are better than yours and our airport is the better one and so on and so on.

I think *this* forum is much better as contributors seem to know the industry and what they are actually talking about rather than the Student Union fantasy world they imagine could become a Utopia.

But I guess it depends which forum.

For the record, I've come full-circle myself over the years. I used to want GM Buses back, but now I'm a bit older and realise that investment and innovation often doesn't come from the public sector in the way idealists suppose. And Franchising is a dog's dinner - neither renationalising nor keeping it private. Has it helped the railways?

On said infrastructure forum, you can put various characters on ignore. It becomes a better experience.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The Tory mayoral candidate is anti-franchising. Let's see how well she does.

That does not answer my query as to local election literature informing the electorate that Council Tax will rise in order to pay for the project and also explaining why no referendum was held.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Genuine question, where does Arriva Merseyside rank on your scale of satisfaction?

I've not really used it enough to say, but it appears to be quite conservative, basically MTL/Merseyside PTE but with a different colour of paint and slightly newer vehicles.

 

[Gareth]

I've used it a fair bit over the years. Its operations in the east of the city out of Green Lane depot were pretty awful. The old double deck fleet was switched out for new or near new single deckers. In rush hour, these were worse than cattle trucks and it wasn't uncommon to have to stand, squished up against strangers for some 45 odd minutes. This is to/from West Derby, which you could walk in an hour, if fit. It was especially unbearable in the hot weather. The fares also went up seemingly constantly over the years.

They've finally put double deckers back on most main routes and these were brand new. Better cooperation with Merseytravel and Stagecoach with regards to ticketing has also helped. So, it feels better in the last few years. Like I said though, a lot of it has been to try and convince Merseytravel not to go down the path of franchising.

 

[johncrossley]

That does not answer my query as to local election literature informing the electorate that Council Tax will rise in order to pay for the project and also explaining why no referendum was held.

I'm sure the Tory candidate will go on about this at length without anyone else needing to say anything. There is no need for a referendum. The election is a de facto referendum. If the Tory candidate gets elects presumably she will stop the franchising process.

 

[507021]

I've not really used it enough to say, but it appears to be quite conservative, basically MTL/Merseyside PTE but with a different colour of paint and slightly newer vehicles.

A fair assessment, to be honest. I've used their services since day one and worked for them for a few years now, and while they're nothing particularly special they do what they say on the tin pretty well. I do think our vehicle presentation could be better, but to be fair it's not the worst I've seen either.

Also, if you feel I come across as being rude or have done so in the past, then I apologise. Unfortunately, I sometimes find it difficult to understand viewpoints without any context (particularly in text form) and I don't want you to feel it's a personal issue.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Apr 2021 ==

I've used it a fair bit over the years. Its operations in the east of the city out of Green Lane depot were pretty awful. The old double deck fleet was switched out for new or near new single deckers. In rush hour, these were worse than cattle trucks and it wasn't uncommon to have to stand, squished up against strangers for some 45 odd minutes. This is to/from West Derby, which you could walk in an hour, if fit. It was especially unbearable in the hot weather. The fares also went up seemingly constantly over the years.

They've finally put double deckers back on most main routes and these were brand new. Better cooperation with Merseytravel and Stagecoach with regards to ticketing has also helped. So, it feels better in the last few years. Like I said though, a lot of it has been to try and convince Merseytravel not to go down the path of franchising.

I can vouch for that completely. It's only really been since a new depot manager took over in the mid 2010s that things improved for Green Lane passengers, with 46 Enviro400s (a 47th transferred in when it was pretty much brand new), 25 Volvo B5LHs and twelve Enviro200 EVs delivered between early 2015 and late 2017. I started working at Green Lane a few months before the Volvo hybrids entered service, but a friend of mine who was there long before me wasn't very complimentary about the fleet at any point prior to the introduction of double deckers.