Companies in competition with themselves

[65477]

Last summer, KonnectBus (Hedingham & Chambers) started route 42 Sudbury to Halstead to Braintree in competition with Flagfinders route 60 on the same corridor.

Shortly afterward the service registration Konnectbus was acquired by TMS, so we now have the situation that the two services, owned by the same company, are in competition with each other.

Although enough days have passed since the takeover for changes to have been registered, it seems the position will be unchanged until February at least.

Are there other cases where similar competition takes place?

 

[DunsBus]

Not quite the same but when Stagecoach took a 20% stake in SBL Holdings back in 1994, a planned Glasgow operation was abandoned with Strathclyde's Buses taking it on.

However, the services were already registered and had to run until they could be cancelled, so you had Strathclyde hiring buses to the aborted Stagecoach Glasgow to compete with Strathclyde - effectively running buses on hire to itself, to compete with itself.

This farcical situation ended once the services were cancelled.

 

[Wawanesa]

In fact the competition between between Konectbus 42 and Flagfinders 60 is even weirder than suggested because there is also a DRT service "Dart 3" which covers the northern half of the routes. It is operated under contract to Essex County Council by Flagfinder!

Due to schools commitments, both the 42 and 60 are frequently operated by doubledeckers.

 

[Deerfold]

Stagecoach famously competed with themselves, most notably in Manchester.

In South Manchester there were many operators with some corridors having up to 6 operators.

Stagecoach ran their own buses to a high spec and also operated several routes as Magic bus, charging bargain fares.

Passengers with Stagecoach period tickets could catch Magic buses, but not the other way round.

They then did an analysis of where there was room for competition and provided it themselves in a few other areas to try and dissuade other companies from moving in.

 

[Bristol LHS]

When Busways took over Tyne and Wear Omnibus Company (via an almost instantaneous sale to Go Ahead Northern), the competitive TWOC routes (typically very slight variations on Busways routes) continued to be operated by Busways vehicles.

They were eventually withdrawn, but a few clung on for some time - the X2 Sunderland-South Shields in particular lasted several years to my memory.

 

[robertclark125]

Didn't First do it in Bristol, when they bought Wessex coaches. They had a wessex service competing with a city line service.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

In the Portland bus war (between there and Weymouth), Cawlett Holdings had their Dorset Transit subsidiary running against Weybus and Smiths of Portland. They then (re)purchased Smiths (having sold it a few years earlier) and so owned two of three firms competing on the route.

Didn't First do it in Bristol, when they bought Wessex coaches. They had a wessex service competing with a city line service.

Correct - some B6s and Nationals branded Sky Blue. It actually pre-dated First but lingered into that period

 

[ChrisPJ]

You could point to the various flavours of City tour run by Lothian after they acquired the Guide Friday and Mac Tours operations, though they each offered something slightly different

 

[Mark L]

Reading Mainline continued to operate as a discrete brand for two years after it was acquired by Reading Transport in 1998. Although the network was revised a number of Mainline routes paralleled those of Reading Transport.

 

[WibbleWobble]

Bournemouth Transport did it with their White Buses, which were set up to fend off competition on their patch. It just meant they had White Bus services (using older vehicles) running in parallel with Yellow Buses services.

 

[Roger1973]

Blackpool Transport ran Routemaster buses on a promenade route in the mid / late 80s, against competition from Fylde Borough who were competing with Blackpool's trams.

There were a few post-deregulation examples where incumbent large operator was facing competition, and responded with some 'low cost' buses to compete with them - some running in a livery very similar to the competitor, some being fairly anonymous, and some giving the impression of being another independent operator, akin to Bournemouth's 'White Bus Services' mentioned above.

Another example I can think of was Lincolnshire Road Car briefly running a few buses under the 'Pete's of Lincoln' fleet name (photo on Flickr, not my photo or account, here) on a route where they were experiencing competition from a longer established local independent. LRC had at that time recently bought out local coach operator Pete's Coaches, who had not (as far as I know) ever run local bus services or owned 'bus' rather than 'coach' vehicles.

 

[Megafuss]

When Busways took over Tyne and Wear Omnibus Company (via an almost instantaneous sale to Go Ahead Northern), the competitive TWOC routes (typically very slight variations on Busways routes) continued to be operated by Busways vehicles.

They were eventually withdrawn, but a few clung on for some time - the X2 Sunderland-South Shields in particular lasted several years to my memory.

History repeated when Busway took over Welcome in the early 90s. Although the main duplicate routes didn't survive, Busways did continue to run the 222 along Scotswood Road in "completion" (or compliment) the 21/22. From memory as part of the Blue Buses Services brand.

 

[Pyewipecarshed]

It was fairly common practice for about five years after deregulation; the idea was to flood roads with buses to make the routes unattractive to actual competitors. Passengers didn't know any better, and thought they were striking a blow against the established operator (who they may or may not have had any grievance against) whilst unwittingly putting their money in the same company's pocket!
For example KHCT in Hull ran a low-cost subsidiary called Citilink, some of whose services competed fully or partially against the parent.