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Most out of town routes are run by the state owned Postbus. Are they all operated directly by Postbus, or are some tendered out but still using the normal yellow livery and logo?
Are some urban buses tendered out? If so, do they use the normal livery and logo of the city's transport?
Crossley buses: hmm, we had those too here once in NL-thats long ago!
But this Q reminds me again at the very recent thread about different UK vs EUR.
Tendering/contracting out would not be the right word/term for it. Its simply mostly ´as we always did it that way!´ Plus NO EU-regulations for it either.
POSTbus has hardly any buses itself-all are by local operators-even more as DB/Bahnbus in the northern neighbor DE=germany has/does. Their names are always somewhere along the sides. I guess (have to check) that the german wiki probably has more about it. And as most are in kind of isolated valleys, these remain quite stable operators. And oh yes-also transporting the mails/letters once/day etc is still common in special trailers.
The urban operators vary, most (still?!) keep in their own hands-as once long ago even in GB was common. But some smaller systems that were once on a commercial base by a local (private) operator kept on a contrct with that same operator since subsidies started to get needed-even in expensive CH.
Also the common everywhere major FR mega-operators like TransDEV or KeoLis hardly have a presence in CH.
I also remember that once there was an extensive british run site busstation.net or .com, which listed all those operators- I think of a mr. Steve Annell or the like? Has any replacement for this appeared you may know? Mr google does not show much result for that.
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No, the german wiki does not have a ful list of local operators, but does have an extensive desciption of the PostAuto. it also operates-on contract! and won by tender some systems in FR. It has around 888 routes with nearly 2222 buses in the Swiss. IN the past-as is very common in CH-mostly also built in CH: Saurer! FBW, and bodywork by Hess. Quite often even to special desgins for narrow mountain roads. That is now mostly a thing of the past though.
It does do some contracting: every year some 99 new buses are ordered and this goes on contract. Winners are mostly the well known DE brands for that.
(Hint: the BUSes branch of the german DSO=drehscheibe online forum, equiv to this one, will easily give more info from very well informed sources for Qs like this one)
Is bus tendering common in Switzerland?
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Most out of town routes are run by the state owned Postbus. Are they all operated directly by Postbus, or are some tendered out but still using the normal yellow livery and logo?
Are some urban buses tendered out? If so, do they use the normal livery and logo of the city's transport?
It is a common misconception that Swiss public transport is operated on a 'national whole' basis (especially with British enthusiasts who sometimes compared the 'horrific' UK BR privatisation structure of franchising with the 'perfect national' Swiss network).
In fact if you look at the side of some Swiss post buses you can see a local contractor's name. So a bus will be running for 'Postauto' but the actual operator is 'bill's buses of kleindorf'. Many of the smaller Swiss urban networks are run on a similar basis. Most of the core networks (eg VBZ Zurich) are however single organisations. Having said that even they sometimes have oddities. For example, 'TPG Geneva' buses that run into France are mostly actually operated by French companies and the buses are registered in France with French numberplates.
When local contractors are used, is there a competitive tendering process, or does Postbus or urban network simply choose the contractor without a bidding process?
The operation of regional passenger transport bus routes (RPV) is put out to public tender in certain cases, for example, if a new RPV transport service is to be introduced and a licence must be issued for this or the licence of an existing bus route has to be renewed and the canton has provided for a tendering procedure in its planning. A tender is only mandatory, if the estimated annual compensation for the new transport service in question exceeds a total of CHF 230,000. For the renewal of the licence the threshold value is CHF 500,000. These lower financial limits help to avoid disproportionate costs and bureaucracy. A further exception to the tendering obligation exists if a new transport service becomes part of a regional network. If only one transport company operates several interconnected bus routes in a region, the integration of the new transport service into the existing network results in operational synergies. As an alternative to invitations to tender, the cantons can conclude target agreements with the previously contracted transport companies.
Whether the winner of the tender uses its own vehicles or commissions a subcontractor is another matter.
I can give some information about how it works in Basel (where I live).
As mentioned above, the core bus network of the city is mostly operated centrally by BVB (Basler Verkehrs-Betriebe) with a few exceptions.
For example some buses are operated by Margarethen Bus AG on concession from BVB. These buses still carry the BVB Green livery, though the buses are different from the usual BVB fleet. The older buses were also a lighter green, whereas newer BVB buses carried the darker green which was always a tell-tale sign.
Also Bus 38 is operated in cooperation jointly with Südbadenbus, so sometimes the bus will be a Red DB Südbadenbus bus with D number plates, and sometimes it will be a Green BVB bus with BS cantonal plates.
There are of course cross-border and cross-canton bus routes which serve Basel operated by various other companies:
SWEG (D <-> CH)
Distribus (F <-> CH)
BLT (Baselland <-> Basel Stadt)
AutoBus AG also for some connections to neighbouring villages in Baselland. They are based in Liestal and are a private company which operates some bus concessions with their own fleet for various municipalities in Baselland.
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