Can anyone explain to me why a company that's disposing of six or whatever number it is operations to save costs is also entering into an all-out bus war with a municipal operator in Ipswich?
Simply local management. The Eastern Counties operations, which include Ipswich, will make money and have potential in that area, the local management at what is First Anglia (or whatever it's called) have decided. Meanwhile, the First Midlands management who look after Leicester and Northampton feel their operations need to be scaled back to preserve profits, reduce costs, and indeed don't have as much potential.
People often forget, and this was always the case with stagecoach in the 1990s, that no two Stagecoach firms are the same. They may share the same livery, but what one operation decides to do is different from what another does. For instance, Stagecoach Busways fended off competition from HMB Buses in Newcastle using megabus liveried vehicles. Stagecoach Fife, in its bus war with fifefirst, from 1997-2000, didn't, and stuck to its normal operating methods.
It's also worth noting that back in 1997, when FifeFirst launched (as a result of Stagecoach incursions in Glasgow), that Firstgroup (they were the driving force behind it, not local management) were looking at other operations in Fife, and were looking to maintain a prescence for 10 years in Fife on the 56 (which duplicated the Stagecoach Fife 19).
By June 2000, Fifefirst was losing money, nto helped by very tight schedules between Edinburgh and Dunfermline, which turned out to be too tight, and resulted in large gaps in service. Not only that, but a resurgent Stagecoach Fife had bought out allisons of Dunfermline. Furthermore, FifeFirst had only an outstation in Dunfermline, meaning a breakdown required another bus to come all the way over from Dalkeith, in Midlothian. This was all decided by Firstgroup management in Aberdeen, wheras Stagecoach Fife's response was formulated in their Kirkcaldy head office, with limited input from Perth group HQ.
Having lost that bus war, and the subsequent 2002 battle with Lothian Buses, is it any wonder First's confidence in Mid and East Lothian was dented, and also perhaps with uk operations as a whole.
That said, maybe the way Stagecoach, and Go Ahead, run their operations shows the way forward that First hasn't really grasped; UK group management, look in at times, but in the main, the local management make the main local decisions, not group HQ.
Perhaps that shows up the issues facing First. A management that doesn't know its true operating area, and that's why they're not doing too well.
