Transdev Blazefield

[M803UYA]

I do think (in any sector) some CEOs are good-time growth people; good at spotting an opportunity, riding a wave and speculating to accumulate in good times: Hornby, Martijn Gilbert.

Going out and procuring new fleet for tenders is fairly ballsy - as is spending a lot of money with Best Impressions. It is possible to do branding cheaper and maintain consistent liveries. Go North East did that in the Peter Huntley era - single colour liveries on buses to speed painting time and the rest applied with vinyls. You can for instance have in house graphic designers who can devise brands for you to use without copyright restrictions and also design your timetable materials. You achieve the Best Impressions look without the cost. But they're the industry leader in their field and they deliver more than a brand and a nice timetable.

Perhaps after 8 years at the helm what Transdev Blazefield needs now is someone who can contain costs and consolidate what is there. Alex Hornby is a marketing man at heart, and so wants to promote buses, and grow passenger numbers. That costs money. As is getting brand new fleet for 'new work' whilst your oldest buses soldier on past their 20th birthdays. If you're procuring a lot of new fleet, and taking on new work it's not entirely unreasonable that the masters will want to see a return on that investment. The most recent set of accounts show a £298k loss increasing to a £2.9m loss (to end of 2021) - who knows what the picture is for 2022? The service reductions suggest even worse financial performance.

It is a lot easier for someone versed in marketing to promote existing services and add in a few more buses to a viable commercial network than it is to go for lots of tenders. I can see why you'd want to do that as it is solid money, but if Alex has signed off optimistic budgets for tendered growth (in passenger numbers) that would have seen him come unstuck. Would you now be seeing the benefits of the ex Yorkshire Tiger routes to the turnover?

The behaviour towards other independent operators will have had an impact also. Had the traditional Blazefield approach of 'leave the side roads to independents so they don't come after our commercial corridors' been followed would the competition on commercial routes have been present? I suspect not.

So the company might not need a hatchet person to come in, but they want to consolidate what is there. That's not what Alex is really about - and possibly not what motivates him. Being truthful it motivates very few bus industry execs - they want to grow and develop rather than wield the axe.

 

[Simon75]

Maybe a management buyout or separation from Transdev would help ?

 

[Andyh82]

The behaviour towards other independent operators will have had an impact also. Had the traditional Blazefield approach of 'leave the side roads to independents so they don't come after our commercial corridors' been followed would the competition on commercial routes have been present? I suspect not.

I presume you are talking about Connexions Buses? That’s the only work I can see where there is any sort of competitive service running against Transdev

Are you suggesting that they would have withdrawn the X1 & X70 if Transdev hadn’t won the Wharfedale tenders, because they didn’t previously when Transdev didn’t run them, and at the end of the day you are taking about 3 buses worth of work. I’m not sure it’s even significant for Connexions who have a PVR of around 30, never mind Transdev

None of the operators who lost the Ribble Country work have come out on the attack against Transdev’s commercial network

 

[SCH117X]

The X70 started in 2011 which is sometime before any tender issues as implied by M803UYA may have arose.

The X1 now is so reduced to be pretty pointless aside from concession users or the very occassional traveller; regular passesngers will use a Transdev pass allowing for early morning, mid afternoon during schooldays, evening, Saturday and Sunday journeys and it would be too surprising if it went the way of the rest of their Harrogate services and got the chop.

 

[Andyh82]

I notice the new Harrogate bus guide makes no mention to service 8, and its been removed from the map

Therefore I am guessing its going to be withdrawn shortly?

The hours of operation, only running at off peak times with gaps at school times would seem right up Connexions street to run?

 

[Tetchytyke]

the recently uploaded accounts suggest the worst performing parts of the business are Rosso and Team Pennine - ie the bits someone decided to buy recently.

It wouldn’t surprise me, as both had been run into the ground by their previous owners- Rosso where the council was skint and Yorkshire Tiger as Arriva couldn’t be bothered.

Does feel like there’s a touch of the Moir Lockheads about Blazefield - a desire to colour in more of the map, even if the territory’s poor, same with some of the tenders in Ribble Valley and Wharfedale.

Nigel Featham strikes me as someone who’s managed to grow the good stuff with some limited (but strong) branding initatives at Arriva and now Go North West; but has also clearly got the backbone and work ethic to cut costs, as he did by pruning the network at Arriva NE, and with the working practice changes at Go North West.

I think that’s a little harsh a take on Blazefield and a little too positive a take on Arriva NE. I wouldn’t so much say Arriva NE was pruned, unless one does their pruning with a chainsaw.

As for Rosso and Pennine, it’s an interesting one. Two struggling businesses run into the ground by previous owners, they’re going to be hit harder by Covid. But I think that their acquisition was just about the right call, history shows that if you don’t fill the holes in your network map then someone else will do it for you. Hornby learned that at TrentBarton.

 

[158756]

It wouldn’t surprise me, as both had been run into the ground by their previous owners- Rosso where the council was skint and Yorkshire Tiger as Arriva couldn’t be bothered.



I think that’s a little harsh a take on Blazefield and a little too positive a take on Arriva NE. I wouldn’t so much say Arriva NE was pruned, unless one does their pruning with a chainsaw.

As for Rosso and Pennine, it’s an interesting one. Two struggling businesses run into the ground by previous owners, they’re going to be hit harder by Covid. But I think that their acquisition was just about the right call, history shows that if you don’t fill the holes in your network map then someone else will do it for you. Hornby learned that at TrentBarton.

I think with Rosso there were some bits worth buying but also a lot of tendered and marginal work, with the added downside of competition in Greater Manchester, and Transdev then added even more tenders. The best situation for Transdev might have been for them to go bust and then cherry pick the best routes a la Halton, but who knows how far off that might have been and whether someone else would have bought it first. Gaining a presence in Greater Manchester might yet pay off if they win some franchise contracts.

Team Pennine is just confusing to me. It doesn't really fit with the rest of Transdev, either geographically (I think it only has (edit) two routes which meet other Transdev services, and those only run once an hour) or in terms of the high quality relatively frequent trunk routes which are what Transdev are known for. It seems to be mostly tenders and scrappy hourly routes serving places First have deemed unprofitable - I would have thought it more a fit for someone like Centrebus than Transdev.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Mar 2023 ==



(This was supposed to be a new post)

Burnley April service changes are out:

Better buses in Burnley from 16 April

We're making some changes to our buses in Burnley from 16 April.

www.transdevbus.co.uk

Contracts lost, we already knew.
Pendle Wizz withdrawn, will be replaced by an hourly Mainline service M6.
M3 reduced to hourly. (So basically one bus is diverted from Trawden to Skipton)

The 2 and 68 will be combined in a way, with the 2 running hourly through to Higherford and Colne and the half hourly frequency between Burnley and Nelson maintained by a new service 2A, which will also skip some stops in Nelson. It looks like with this change Barrowford will go from 3 buses per hour between the two routes to just one. Exact route is not specified other than serving Nelson Morrisons, I assume it will take the number 2 route through Barrowford to serve the college.

I notice they mention Wi-Fi and USB power for the 2 and 5, but not the 1,3 and 4. Does this tell us anything about which vehicles they are getting?

 

[peterblue]

Indeed, Team Pennine and the subsidised parts of Rosso are better suited for a low cost venture than for Transdev. It simply does not fit their modus operandi.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I think that’s a little harsh a take on Blazefield and a little too positive a take on Arriva NE. I wouldn’t so much say Arriva NE was pruned, unless one does their pruning with a chainsaw

To be fair to Nigel Featham, he was actually more about growth than other MDs. Ironically perhaps, he too was very much a Best Impressions devotee (see Arriva MAX) and carried that on with Go North West. Much of the decline in Arriva NE was under the tenure of the late Steve Noble, and then Jonathan May who announced the closure of three depots on the same day.

As for Rosso and Pennine, it’s an interesting one. Two struggling businesses run into the ground by previous owners, they’re going to be hit harder by Covid. But I think that their acquisition was just about the right call, history shows that if you don’t fill the holes in your network map then someone else will do it for you. Hornby learned that at TrentBarton.

In terms of Rosso, the purchase made perfect sense and for the reason you stated. There was a failing business and someone was going to buy it. Do you wait for a potential competitor (such as Stagecoach) to buy it and encroach on your territory? Or do you remove that prospect by buying it yourself? Remember that it did have some decent routes amongst the dross so as a purchase, that one made sense.

The purchase of Team Pennine was always more difficult to square. Don't know what discussions took place but having lost the Flyer work to Transdev, wonder if Yorkshire Tiger was offered at a nominal price? Certainly it wasn't an obvious move, Arriva kept the best route to Wakefield and otherwise, it's pretty thin.

Team Pennine is just confusing to me. It doesn't really fit with the rest of Transdev, either geographically (I think it only has (edit) two routes which meet other Transdev services, and those only run once an hour) or in terms of the high quality relatively frequent trunk routes which are what Transdev are known for. It seems to be mostly tenders and scrappy hourly routes serving places First have deemed unprofitable - I would have thought it more a fit for someone like Centrebus than Transdev.

Haven't they already tried that once before (or at least a part share in the operation)?

If Alex Hornby is on gardening leave, then you can probably point to Ribble Country and Team Pennine as two projects that will have required considerable capex and management time, and will have raised the ante on commercial expectations.

 

[Andyh82]

What is interesting is that it isn't as if Rosso and Team Pennine had lots of brand new buses purchased for it. The fleets were modernised with some modest second hand purchases.

Rosso received new Optare Versas for the "464" and of course all the Mellors for the Ribble Country/Little Hotline work. The rest of the modernisation was mid life Solos, E200s, Centros and Enviro 400s

Similarly TP received just the 6 Mellors for the "Calder Country" work, the rest being mid life E200, E200MMCs and Solo SRs. In terms of fleet modernisation TP is very close to being 'finished' and therefore able to be left alone for a number of years. Yorkshire Tiger liveried buses are now in single figure numbers.

And of course they've managed to get over 20 years out of B10BLEs in Burnley and Blackburn and they still look decent.

 

[Deerfold]

There seems to still be a long way to go with Team Pennine. I live near Keighley and cancellations on local routes have dropped considerably.
My sister in law lives on 2 hourly Trans Pennine routes and it's not unusual for both to not run in the same hour. My parents in law live on a half-hourly route out of Halifax (which was quarter hourly when HJC (Halifax Joint Committee) first started running it and every 20 minutes pre-pandemic) and also see frequent cancellations (to be fair they were terrible under Tiger, but there was hope they'd have improved considerably by now).

 

[Andyh82]

A lot of Team Pennine’s commercial work in Halifax can be traced back to services that they started in the 90s via Centrebus and Yorkshire Tiger

Regarding cancellations, they do prioritise the 20 Rye Lane, as it’s more frequent and parts of the route are parallel to or at least near another route. With the rural routes you’d be out in the sticks waiting an hour so it’s less ideal.

 

[Tetchytyke]

It seems to be mostly tenders and scrappy hourly routes serving places First have deemed unprofitable - I would have thought it more a fit for someone like Centrebus than Transdev.

Yorkshire Tiger was formed from K-Line and the Huddersfield bit of Yorkshire Traction that Stagecoach didn’t want. It was formed as a joint partnership between Centrebus and Arriva, “Centrebus Holdings”, and Arriva subsequently bought Centrebus out. So clearly there was enough about it for Arriva to actually buy Centrebus out, rather than give it to Centrebus for a song.

At one point it was well on the way to pushing First out of Halifax, but clearly has fallen back whilst under Arriva control and is now back to being tenders and estate buses.

I imagine a lot of is linked to Transdev winning the airport work and acquiring the Idle depot site.

 

[RustySpoons]

Burnley April service changes are out:

Better buses in Burnley from 16 April

We're making some changes to our buses in Burnley from 16 April.

www.transdevbus.co.uk

Contracts lost, we already knew.
Pendle Wizz withdrawn, will be replaced by an hourly Mainline service M6.
M3 reduced to hourly. (So basically one bus is diverted from Trawden to Skipton)

The 2 and 68 will be combined in a way, with the 2 running hourly through to Higherford and Colne and the half hourly frequency between Burnley and Nelson maintained by a new service 2A, which will also skip some stops in Nelson. It looks like with this change Barrowford will go from 3 buses per hour between the two routes to just one. Exact route is not specified other than serving Nelson Morrisons, I assume it will take the number 2 route through Barrowford to serve the college.

I notice they mention Wi-Fi and USB power for the 2 and 5, but not the 1,3 and 4. Does this tell us anything about which vehicles they are getting?

Wasn't expecting the Wizz to disappear! Also noticed that Trawden is going to be served hourly rather than every 30 minutes now. I guess this will free up buses for the new M6 Skipton service to replace the current deckers. Also seems that the Mainline has reverted back to running every 10 minutes now, as it was many years ago.

Wi-Fi and USB for the 2 and 5 is apparently in the form of ex Keighley Solos although I believe there's only three coming so far, not enough for the PVR for both routes. Some of the Mellors are due to be redeployed on the 1, 3 and 4. Bigger buses are planned to help out at busier times.

There's going to be some very interesting times ahead if Alex Hornby doesn't return. It's been reported that there's been a £2.9m loss in the most recently available accounts to the end of 2021, and I can't see that loss being reduced by too much (if at all) throughout 2022. Whoever replaces him will have the unenviable task of turning things around financially which will no doubt mean lots of cost cutting. I wonder if the Team Pennine operation could be sold off? It's hard to see what it actually adds to the existing Transdev network. Rosso made more sense considering a lot of the routes fell within the existing network.

 

[Deerfold]

Yorkshire Tiger was formed from K-Line and the Huddersfield bit of Yorkshire Traction that Stagecoach didn’t want. It was formed as a joint partnership between Centrebus and Arriva, “Centrebus Holdings”, and Arriva subsequently bought Centrebus out. So clearly there was enough about it for Arriva to actually buy Centrebus out, rather than give it to Centrebus for a song.

At one point it was well on the way to pushing First out of Halifax, but clearly has fallen back whilst under Arriva control and is now back to being tenders and estate buses.

I imagine a lot of is linked to Transdev winning the airport work and acquiring the Idle depot site.

Not forgetting the Halifax Joint Committee that Centrebus Holdings bought out - HJC had forced First off various routes by putting higher frequencies than First on (and, originally, also having conductors). I don't think any of the remaining routes are still at a higher frequency than First ran them. Post-Centrebus Holdings buying them they only gained tenders from First (plus a couple of route swaps with them).

 

[peterblue]

I thought it would make sense to run the Wizz every 30 minutes but additionally serve Earby, while withdrawing the M5. It would provide a boosted service for Barnoldswick, and a faster service Earby-Burnley. About 15 mins slower end to end but at the benefit of an increased service.

The problem with the Wizz is it took an awkward 1h9m to get to Skipton on an hourly service so there's a fair amount of dwell time.

 

[Andyh82]

A fast bus from Burnley to Colne via the motorway is probably one of those ‘nice to haves’ that just don’t stack up in the current world. Skipton has been served by the Mainline before of course.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Not forgetting the Halifax Joint Committee that Centrbus Holdings bought out

I must confess I thought they’d gone bust before Centrebus came in. Now HJC really was an “eclectic” operation.

 

[158756]

A fast bus from Burnley to Colne via the motorway is probably one of those ‘nice to haves’ that just don’t stack up in the current world. Skipton has been served by the Mainline before of course.

As part of the Witch Way it was half hourly until the pandemic. Splitting the service up probably helped reliability for the operator but combined with the reduction to hourly on the Skipton leg will have decimated the through traffic. The pandemic was a terrible time to launch a new service, and with the frequency reduction as well (was it intended to be permanent or was it a Covid service level at the time?) the Wizz never felt like it had the same effort put in as the other branded routes.

 

[M803UYA]

Whoever replaces him will have the unenviable task of turning things around financially which will no doubt mean lots of cost cutting. I wonder if the Team Pennine operation could be sold off?

Transdev will know what a vehicle costs to operate to themselves. It's simply a figure that gets multiplied until the 'number' is reached. Eliminating 20-30 buses across the whole operation would eliminate the 'losses'. It's a matter of being clever in achieving it. If they hired someone from Arriva, that'd give them a head start!

 

[Andyh82]

As part of the Witch Way it was half hourly until the pandemic. Splitting the service up probably helped reliability for the operator but combined with the reduction to hourly on the Skipton leg will have decimated the through traffic. The pandemic was a terrible time to launch a new service, and with the frequency reduction as well (was it intended to be permanent or was it a Covid service level at the time?) the Wizz never felt like it had the same effort put in as the other branded routes.

A version of the Wizz timetable running every 30 minutes was indeed published but never happened due to the lockdown starting.
Obviously since then the reduced passenger numbers and driver shortages means the temporary hourly timetable became permanent

 

[SCH117X]

This web page is possibly worth keeping an eye on; currently Alex Hornby is still listed as a director along with two presumably from Transdev HQ - Pierre Jaffard appointed in July 2021 and Henri-Vincent Rohard on 9 Feb this year, two days before Alex went on holiday to the USA. Noticeable also the secretary resigned on 13 Jan

TRANSDEV BLAZEFIELD LIMITED people - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

TRANSDEV BLAZEFIELD LIMITED - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity

find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk

​

 

[Deerfold]

As part of the Witch Way it was half hourly until the pandemic. Splitting the service up probably helped reliability for the operator but combined with the reduction to hourly on the Skipton leg will have decimated the through traffic. The pandemic was a terrible time to launch a new service, and with the frequency reduction as well (was it intended to be permanent or was it a Covid service level at the time?) the Wizz never felt like it had the same effort put in as the other branded routes.

I'm sure when the idea of the Wizz was first announced it was supposed to be half hourly. It's a shame it was never increased to that (it did get an extra couple of peak buses on top of the launch timetable).

I'm not sure it if was originally supposed to finish earlier than the Witch Way used to.

We're a far cry from the 4 Transdev buses an hour between Skipton and Burnley there were just after Pennine buses called it a day.

 

[RustySpoons]

We're a far cry from the 4 Transdev buses an hour between Skipton and Burnley there were just after Pennine buses called it a day.

The 4 buses per hour from Transdev between Skipton and Burnley was said to be a retaliation move as Pennine refused to sell out to Transdev.

 

[Andyh82]

The 4 buses per hour from Transdev between Skipton and Burnley was said to be a retaliation move as Pennine refused to sell out to Transdev.

And was before Alex Hornby before anyone goes there

 

[Deerfold]

The 4 buses per hour from Transdev between Skipton and Burnley was said to be a retaliation move as Pennine refused to sell out to Transdev.

I'm talking about after Pennine finished. It stayed at 4bph with revised routes for quite a while.

 

[Ken H]

Barnoldswick seens to be over bussed. the 280 Skipton - Preston goes that way as does the Wizz and the M5. Maybe a Pendle - Skipton bus via Earby would do better.

 

[RustySpoons]

Barnoldswick seens to be over bussed. the 280 Skipton - Preston goes that way as does the Wizz and the M5. Maybe a Pendle - Skipton bus via Earby would do better.

I've often wondered why Earby isn't better connected to Skipton. The current options from Burnley/Colne to Skipton seem to go the long way round, Earby would be much more direct. As you say, the 280 has Barnoldswick and Skipton covered and would suit anyone who just needs to travel between the two towns.

 

[Deerfold]

Barnoldswick seens to be over bussed. the 280 Skipton - Preston goes that way as does the Wizz and the M5. Maybe a Pendle - Skipton bus via Earby would do better.

That's only 2bph to Skipton and 3bph to Burnley. The population of Barnoldswick is more than twice that of Earby - though it did used to have regular services to Skipton.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 6 Mar 2023 ==

I've often wondered why Earby isn't better connected to Skipton. The current options from Burnley/Colne to Skipton seem to go the long way round, Earby would be much more direct. As you say, the 280 has Barnoldswick and Skipton covered and would suit anyone who just needs to travel between the two towns.

Transdev used to run 2bph between Earby and Skipton fairly recently - I'm guessing they didn't get a lot of passengers as they abandoned that link. The connections between the M5 and Wizz at Barnoldswick seem fairly good in most hours.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I'm talking about after Pennine finished. It stayed at 4bph with revised routes for quite a while.

Cynic that I am, I think Transdev kept the frequency going just long enough to avoid any anti-competition investigation. It was never sustainable. I can’t believe 2bph isn’t though.