tbtc
Veteran Member
This might be a slightly hard to define thread with arguments about what a “route” is (given that a route today may be slightly different to a route ten/twenty/thirty years ago) but bear with me, let’s play nicely…
First used to run an orbital service around southern Edibburgh (Wester Hailes - Oxgangs - Infirmary) as a council contract every hour (numbered 18).
Flash forward to today and it’s a commercial route run by Lothian every half hour, it’s extended at both ends (Airport and Fort Kinnaird), it’s got modern branded buses to highlight the Airport aspect (“Skylink”), the eastern end has just been beefed up with a new 48 increasing the total number of buses from the Hospital to Fort Kinnaird, things are looking good. But which other routes have been transformed from the "life support" of needing subsidy to keep going to a healthy subsidy-free service?
Sometimes tendered routes become commercial because of competition (a few operators have played the “game” of cutting evening/Sunday journeys, finding that the council tender was awarded to a different operator, and then suddenly deciding that they *can* afford to run them commercially after all).
Stagecoach pulled that trick in Barnsley fairly recently but they aren’t the only ones – many operators have been happy to be awarded council funding to run routes but will quickly offer to run those journeys commercially rather than let a new company get a foothold onto their “patch”.
e.g. some journeys in West Lothian now no longer require council funding, as First and Lothian compete by running commercial journeys on services that were previously deemed “uneconomic”.
Sometimes, though, a route really does transform– maybe the council funding was only there in the early years in the hope that passenger numbers would build (e.g. a new housing estate) or maybe the “free” pensioner travel has increased demand over a scenic route?
But what else and where else? Whilst many services have been withdrawn over the past twenty years, and other services no longer commercially viable (and therefore requiring council subsidy), what tales are there of routes that have bounced back from requiring subsidy to being without council funding? And, in those examples, was this due to the service genuinely becoming busy enough, or was it just a bus operator trying to “game” the system by trying to get a subsidy but then preferring to run the journeys rather than let another firm get that subsidy?
First used to run an orbital service around southern Edibburgh (Wester Hailes - Oxgangs - Infirmary) as a council contract every hour (numbered 18).
Flash forward to today and it’s a commercial route run by Lothian every half hour, it’s extended at both ends (Airport and Fort Kinnaird), it’s got modern branded buses to highlight the Airport aspect (“Skylink”), the eastern end has just been beefed up with a new 48 increasing the total number of buses from the Hospital to Fort Kinnaird, things are looking good. But which other routes have been transformed from the "life support" of needing subsidy to keep going to a healthy subsidy-free service?
Sometimes tendered routes become commercial because of competition (a few operators have played the “game” of cutting evening/Sunday journeys, finding that the council tender was awarded to a different operator, and then suddenly deciding that they *can* afford to run them commercially after all).
Stagecoach pulled that trick in Barnsley fairly recently but they aren’t the only ones – many operators have been happy to be awarded council funding to run routes but will quickly offer to run those journeys commercially rather than let a new company get a foothold onto their “patch”.
e.g. some journeys in West Lothian now no longer require council funding, as First and Lothian compete by running commercial journeys on services that were previously deemed “uneconomic”.
Sometimes, though, a route really does transform– maybe the council funding was only there in the early years in the hope that passenger numbers would build (e.g. a new housing estate) or maybe the “free” pensioner travel has increased demand over a scenic route?
But what else and where else? Whilst many services have been withdrawn over the past twenty years, and other services no longer commercially viable (and therefore requiring council subsidy), what tales are there of routes that have bounced back from requiring subsidy to being without council funding? And, in those examples, was this due to the service genuinely becoming busy enough, or was it just a bus operator trying to “game” the system by trying to get a subsidy but then preferring to run the journeys rather than let another firm get that subsidy?
