It's perhaps curious here that the Woking shoppers services, which would generally be the sort of service to receive a small number of bids owing to their infrequency, actually had the highest of all the services offered!
Having done rather well last time, Falcon don't seem to have fared so well this time. It could, of course, be the cyclical nature of these things (you can't win big every time), a case of who is going to come most unstuck with fuel prices if they haven't been taken into account, or perhaps a partly deliberate ploy to make space/ensure drivers for their TfL (467, off the top of my head?) win.
In last year's tendering, the Woking Shopper 39/40 contract also received similar interest with 5 bidders, which was the highest number of bidders that any individual contract received. I guess part of its appeal might be that it offers weekday work 0930-1400 and comes complete with a driver's break built into the schedule between 1100-1200 (exact times vary depending on day), which allows an operator to then either insert it between existing school runs or between the school/college runs of the 690 contract which is generally what operators have done to date as part of package bids. Operating the 39/40 sandwiched between the three 690 runs gives an operator a five day a week duty from 0720-1630 (plus dead time to/from Worplesdon) which requires only one bus and driver due to the integrated midday break and opportunity for further breaks between the shopper and school runs both morning and afternoon. Reptons Coaches has expanded their local service work with this model, with routes like the similar Spelthorne Shopper 570-2/4 weekday daytime contract which they sandwich between the 637 school contract, and similarly the 513 (Downside to Kingston) weekday daytime contract between the 661 school contract.
With the 12, 39/40, 81 and 690 contracts only being awarded to Falcon last year, one can possibly assume they have been handed back not wanting to continue them on their current terms. Perhaps because space and driver resource has been deemed better focused on the TfL and Kingston University work they have since won and commence operating at around the same time these contracts end? Looking back at past tender results, I believe the other losses were last awarded in 2022 (400 and 621) and 2023 (663).
The 28 (Woking to Guildford) must be a bit of a pain route these days, as it typically has 58/59 minutes running time in each direction, so an hourly service can't be reliably provided with two vehicles so they run it with a third, which means in every three hours each vehicle is sat at Woking for nearly an hour of that after doing just a single round trip. Falcon originally took this on in 2019 after Buses Excetera ceased trading and the frequency was broadly every 90 minutes, so fine with two buses. It was later increased to hourly but with the double run to Pirbright Camp removed, which brought the end-to-end journey time down to 53 minutes so again doable with two buses with 7 minute layovers. However I seem to recall they interworked it with the Woking to Chobham 73 to give slightly more layover time between journeys, which probably worked out well as that route is around a 45 minute round trip. The end-to-end journey times on the 28 have been further increased to essentially an hour each way and the route did become interworked with the 456 for a time (Falcon lost the 73 to White Bus), until that route was increased to half-hourly. Ideally the 28 needs something suitable it can be interworked with at one end, with the 73 previously having been ideal, but this is perhaps something Stagecoach will be able to efficiently do with their more extensive Guildford network and this possibly helped them win that contract.
