Press Cuttings Thread - Printable Version +- North East Buses (https://northeastbuses.co.uk/forums) +-- Forum: Local Bus Scene (https://northeastbuses.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: Operations, Management & Infrastructure (https://northeastbuses.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=3) +--- Thread: Press Cuttings Thread (/showthread.php?tid=458) |
RE: Press Cuttings Thread - MurdnunoC - 09 Jul 2013 One thing I like about Lothian's set up is its cheap fare structure. As I've said in the pricing thread, I'm very much in favour of a 'flat fare' structure rather than a zonal one. Cheap fares offer an incentive for people to use public transport. A 'flat-fare' makes the fare easy and simple to understand. Lothian combine the two resulting, as of March 2013, a cheap flat fare is £1.50 with a day ticket costing just £3.50. A night ticket costs just £3.00 and is valid for multiple journeys. A weekly pass is just £17.00 a week and is also valid for use on night services. Just a shame that this sort of simplicity doesn't exist elsewhere. RE: Press Cuttings Thread - eezypeazy - 09 Jul 2013 Re monopoly: The industry had a huge investigation into this, and, generally, the Competition Commission had very few recommendations to make. Pure competition in the industry would require each bus depot to have an equal sized competitors’ depot alongside it, and that’s simply not how the bus industry works. There’s no evidence that operators exploit their geographical positions; if anything, we end up with a ‘Mexican stand-off’, where operators make reasonable returns doing what they do, but don’t feel tempted to risk trying competing services; this isn’t ideal, but it doesn’t make a state-controlled monopoly ideal, either. Re manipulation of survey results: that was your word, not mine. Are you now calling into question the sampling techniques used by Passenger Focus? You seem to me to be hell bent on discrediting their work. Re dividends: without reasonable dividends, the shareholders wouldn’t be prepared to lend the bus companies their money. Without dividends, there would be no money to invest in transport. In a state-run system, local or national government would have to raise the money instead; and instead of paying dividends, they’d pay interest and have debt on their books. And the UK can’t afford more public debt. Under a quality contract, the winning bidders would still have to make enough of a return to justify any investment required; so I can’t see it driving costs down to any great extent. Re “a transport organisation owned by a local authority”: I’m sorry, that’s not what I was looking for; I am sure there are many of those. I should have made the question clearer. I was looking for examples of local authority control that don’t require public money to prop up the system. The three you gave – Nottingham, Lothian and Blackpool – are poor examples, I’m afraid. Nottingham’s and Blackpool’s trams need public subsidy; and as for Edinburgh, well....!!! I’m pleased that you admit that Amsterdam’s public transport system needs public investment, because that proves my point. here in the north east, Nexus is pursuing a quality contract not in order to put more money into the system, but to take money out. Re Fencehouses: well, you’ve got me there. I’m afraid I don’t know the local circumstances (it’s a foreign land to me). If there’s a real demand for through services to Newcastle, have you thought of suggesting this to GNE? If the demand’s there, I’d hope they’d consider it. I’d be surprised if they had done this sort of thing to “force” people to change just to keep the patronage figures up, though. I’ve always thought that people don’t like changing buses, and this would drive people away, thus reducing patronage rather than inflating the numbers. RE: Press Cuttings Thread - Andreos1 - 09 Jul 2013 We will agree to disagree on the other points - just going around in circles. With regard to Fencehouses. Nobody likes changing buses, nobody likes hanging around the poor 'interchanges' at Houghton, Chester or indeed the Galleries and Concord. Nobody likes seeing fares increased massively either. However, taking 3 double deckers off an hour and replacing them all with 13 single deckers in each direction per hour, forcing them to change buses along with the location of the village in relation to the buzzfare and county boundaries only tells me one thing... And it has more to do with increasing buzzfare ticket sales than it does anything else. Washington is the same. Several services that worked through the villages of Washington going to Newcastle, Sunderland or beyond have been cancelled, with replacements all feeding into the Galleries or Concord. Wonder if they would have done that if there was competition in those areas? RE: Press Cuttings Thread - MurdnunoC - 09 Jul 2013 Are there any examples of privately-owned bus companies operating in the UK which don't require public subsidy? RE: Press Cuttings Thread - Andreos1 - 09 Jul 2013 @AdamY No, there probably isn't. It's a bit like the 'privatised' rail network... But that's a whole new discussion for another time RE: Press Cuttings Thread - MurdnunoC - 09 Jul 2013 (09 Jul 2013, 4:07 pm)Andreos1 @AdamY No, there probably isn't. Hold on, I think I've found the perfect solution. The private bus companies can run services based on market-demand without any of the subsidisation they currently enjoy. And local authorities, using the BOSG and any other available funding on offer, can continue to provide services to areas overlooked or under-served by privately-owned bus operators. Because bus companies evidently care a great deal about their passengers, a framework for multi-operator ticketing can be thrashed out and implemented using an organisation such as the NEBOA. And Nexus can create their own ticketing, valid only on the Metro, trains between Blaydon and Sunderland, and any contracted bus services. Everyone's a winner. I was actually going to bring up the case of the railways before, but, as you say Andreos, that's a different argument for a different time. We truly live a commercialised world, albeit one that has huge amounts of public subsidy attached to it. RE: Press Cuttings Thread - eezypeazy - 09 Jul 2013 Please don't confuse 'public subsidy' with 'paying for concessionary travel'. Let's try a flight of fantasy... Suppose that, one day, the government decides that every pensioner in the land shall be entitled to a free pasty once a day. Greggs (and other bakers) are forced, by law, to give them out and claim reimbursement on a 'no better, no worse off' basis. The government guesses how much money it will cost and gives the money to local councils; but then, the local council's money gets bundled up into a single lump from the government and reduced by ten per cent per year. Greggs sends its bill to the local council, based on the government's formula; but the local council hasn't got enough money. Two questions arise: 1. Whose money is it? 2. Who is the beneficiary? Remember, Greggs have supplied the pastys 'up front'; they've paid for the ingredients, the overheads of the shops, the wages, etc. All they want is paying. To me, it's Greggs' money that the government and the council are dithering over paying. And the beneficiary is the pensioner, not Greggs. Greggs make no extra profit, because the formula leaves them 'no better, no worse' off, even though they've already paid out for their costs. Next, imagine that the price of cheese on the world cheese market doubles overnight. Greggs main ingredient cost has gone through the roof, their costs have gone up, so using the government's formula, they ask for more money (and the retail cost of the pasty has jumped too!). But the council's budget is frozen and they can't pay any more money. Greggs can't afford to just give away the pastys, so what do they do? They close their shops in the little outlying villages, where the returns had been marginal to start with. In this scenario, there's little point in having a free pasty entitlement if you haven't got a pasty shop! And so... 'concessionary travel reimbursement' is simply the councils' fulfilling their obligation to pay for something that bus companies have already provided. It's not 'public subsidy', just as the councils paying their electricity bills for their offices isn't a 'subsidy' to the energy companies. Strip out concessionary travel from Tyne and Wear's bill, and you're left with about £10 million of public money buying bus services - split roughly one third on school buses, one third on early morning/late evening and works services, and one third on the 'battleship grey' services. You can't avoid having to run school buses; you might be able to avoid some of the rest, but these are services that we, as a 'society', decide are worth having. And I'll bet there'll always be some services like this, that will never be able to cover their costs from fares. To me, we have a crazy system that simply leads to an increasing conflict between the bus companies and local councils, from which there is no easy escape. When I become Britain's first Benign Dictator, my solution will be simple: Concessionary travel costs about £3 per pensioner per week. So, instead, I'd remove the entitlement, but give every pensioner £3 a week more in their pension to do with as they please. I would encourage bus companies to make use of the concessionary travel smartcards by selling a simple £3 weekly, £10 four weekly off-peak multi-operator ticket for pensioners. The net effect on the Treasury remains the same: what they save on concessionary travel they give away on pensions. The effect on pensioners is either neutral or beneficial: they can pay the same (or slightly less) for their travel, or use the money as they wish. In all likelihood, some would choose to travel a little less and spend a little more at their local shops, so there would be a downside for bus companies but an upside for the local retail economy ... but that, in itself, could provide enough of a boost to lift bus patronage (more money to spend in the shops = more people working in retail). The bus companies find themselves free from the political shackles that concessionary travel entails. They are essentially selling a commercial ticket, but at a price linked to pensions. If there aren't enough pensioners (and other passengers) willing to buy tickets, then, like any other service (bus or otherwise!), it gets taken off if it can't cover its costs. If it needs some council support, then that's up to the council to make that decision, but the maths is rather more clear cut than present arrangements. Oh, and I must admit, I'm not a fan of BSOG, either. Take it away, make bus fares reflect true costs, and let local councils support services where required. Sadly, I'm not likely to be offered the job of Benign Dictator very soon! (Edited for typos) RE: Press Cuttings Thread - MurdnunoC - 09 Jul 2013 Are you saying that the BSOG is not a form a public subsidy? Also, while I'm asking, what about the Green Bus Fund? RE: Press Cuttings Thread - eezypeazy - 09 Jul 2013 No, I'm saying that BSOG is the ONLY subsidy; in practice, it's a refund of part of the fuel duty that bus companies already pay. I think I read in The Journal last week that it only accounts for about 5% of bus costs; I seem to recall a Tyne and Wear figure of about £12 million before it was cut by 20%, which would make it about £9.6 million today. Railways and airlines don't pay any fuel taxes - now that's a huge subsidy! Green Bus Fund isn't really a subsidy to bus operators - it's a subsidy to the manufacturers of green buses. The bus companies get part (but not all) of the difference between the cost of a diesel bus and the cost of the green bus, so the maths of the bus company's investment case stays about the same. The other beneficiaries, though, are the local people who get better air quality as a result. RE: Press Cuttings Thread - MurdnunoC - 09 Jul 2013 (09 Jul 2013, 6:14 pm)eezypeazy No, I'm saying that BSOG is the ONLY subsidy; in practice, it's a refund of part of the fuel duty that bus companies already pay. I think I read in The Journal last week that it only accounts for about 5% of bus costs; I seem to recall a Tyne and Wear figure of about £12 million before it was cut by 20%, which would make it about £9.6 million today. Railways and airlines don't pay any fuel taxes - now that's a huge subsidy! Granted, this article's a bit out of date now. But The Observer reported in July 2010, when the BSOG first came under threat, that the profit margins of bus companies would be wiped out if the fuel subsidy was withdrawn. End of fuel subsidy 'will wipe out bus company profits' If that was true back then, and if what The Journal reports is true now, then it might appear to some that the BSOG has been used, not to lower fares, but to help prop up the share price as fares continue to rise. RE: Press Cuttings Thread - eezypeazy - 09 Jul 2013 Don't quite see how you leapt to "propping up the share price"... ... but the figures seem about right. If what I read is right and BSOG is about 5% of T & W's turnover, and removing all of it before it was cut would have reduced services or hiked fares by 7%, then it seems that the bus companies, on average, across the country are only making a return of 5 to 7 per cent (but I suspect averages hide big differences!). The cut in BSOG last year did force bus fares up and cut some services. But there isn't a straight-line relationship between BSOG and profits or share prices... this looks to me like a little bit of "journalistic licence". RE: Press Cuttings Thread - Adrian - 11 Jul 2013 Tyne and Wear Metro cleaning staff walk-out 11 Jul 2013 12:30 Good on them. Solidarity to the RMT members taking part in the action. RE: Press Cuttings Thread - Adrian - 12 Jul 2013 Buses diverted as vehicles block route to station stops Published on 12/07/2013 12:00 RE: Press Cuttings Thread - Adrian - 22 Jul 2013 Article added to the Quality Contracts thread: "‘War’ on the way over Tyne and Wear bus route takeover." RE: Press Cuttings Thread - Adrian - 03 Oct 2013 Another pedestrian hit by bus in Newcastle city centre The scene of the accident on Blackett Street By Sophie Doughty | 3 Oct 2013 09:36 Another pedestrian has been hit by a bus in Newcastle city centre, bringing the casualty toll to 10 in 18 months. The man, who is in his 40s, became the latest victim of the Blackett Street bus black-spot when he was struck by a double-decker yesterday morning. Police and paramedics were quickly at the scene at junction between Pilgrim Street and Blackett Street. Onlookers watched on as the injured man was rescued from underneath the front of the Stagecoach vehicle, and carried into an ambulance. He was taken to hospital but his injuries are not thought to be life-threatening. The bus driver was left shaken by the incident. Stagecoach says its initial investigations have revealed that the bus driver was travelling within the speed limit, and it is thought the pedestrian was using a mobile phone when he was hit. But the incident has once again sparked calls for new safety measures. Lyn Holmes, who works close to where the incident happened, said she believed buses drive too fast on Blackett Street. The scene of the accident on Blackett Street The scene of the accident on Blackett Street The scene of the accident on Blackett Street The scene of the accident on Blackett Street The scene of the accident on Blackett Street The 52-year-old, from Cullercoats, told the Chronicle: “The buses along here go far too fast. I don’t know how they get away with it and I don’t know how somebody is not killed every day. It’s just ridiculous.” Police closed off Blackett Street for more than an hour as investigations into the cause of the incident began. Stagecoach will also carry out its own inquiries. A spokeswoman confirmed: “We can confirm that there was an incident today in Newcastle when a pedestrian walked out in front of a Stagecoach bus. It is our understanding, from witness statements, that the gentleman was using a mobile phone and walked out from between parked vehicles without looking. “We are conducting a full investigation and will assist the police with any information they need. The driver is understandably quite shaken but we are pleased that reports so far suggest that the injuries to the pedestrian are not serious.” The spokeswoman added that speed recording equipment on the bus indicated that it was travelling within the speed limit. Peter Gray, Newcastle city council’s head of highways, said: “I am sorry to hear about this accident. The city council takes very seriously all traffic accidents which result in personal injury. We analyse information from the police and our own internal procedures to determine the precise causes of the accidents and help develop road safety proposals. We have recently made a number of physical changes to the highway including road narrowing.” http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/another-pedestrian-hit-bus-newcastle-6130774 RE: Press Cuttings Thread - tyresmoke - 03 Oct 2013 (03 Oct 2013, 4:24 pm)aureolin Another pedestrian hit by bus in Newcastle city centre So the pedestrian was apparently using a mobile phone at the time and walked out from between parked vehicles.... I fail to see how that has anything to do with the road layout or its safety. I must admit as a driver myself, Blackett St is a nightmare as it is, and narrowing the road has made it worse as you can barely get 3 buses (1 stopped either side) down there as it is. Also, Stagecoach spokeswoman says they have speed recording equipment? Greenroad when it was installed did not include the speed part of the software as it was too expensive, have they now gone ahead with this? If not, I fail to see what "speed recording equipment" they may have other than in-cab CCTV with which they could check the speedo?? RE: Press Cuttings Thread - Adrian - 03 Oct 2013 (03 Oct 2013, 4:30 pm)tyresmoke So the pedestrian was apparently using a mobile phone at the time and walked out from between parked vehicles.... I fail to see how that has anything to do with the road layout or its safety. I must admit as a driver myself, Blackett St is a nightmare as it is, and narrowing the road has made it worse as you can barely get 3 buses (1 stopped either side) down there as it is. GPS perhaps? You'd get a fairly accurate speed recording with that. I'd assume they have something though, as it's a fairly bold statement for something that would potentially come out in an enquiry anyway. Blackett Street has two problems in my opinion; 1) People oblivious to what is around them. It's scary how many people just float across the road without even looking. I realise it's a pedestrian zone on a stretch of it, but even towards the far end, people still walk out without looking. 2) Buses quite often come through like a bull in a china shop. Maybe within the speed limit, but it's primarily a pedestrian zone. I've been half way over the pedestrian crossing further up the street, only to feel a bus come flying past me at speed. Something that alarms me is a paper produced by Newcastle City Council circa 2000, which says, and I quote: "The resulting conflict between buses (and other traffic) and pedestrians has produced an environment, which is not only perceived to be dangerous, but is actually creating an unacceptable level of accidents. Other vehicles in the area, whose drivers choose to ignore the traffic restrictions, exacerbate the problem. The accident trends are shown overleaf in Table A" Full document attached. RE: Press Cuttings Thread - stagecoachbusdepot - 03 Oct 2013 I really don't think the pedestrianised look of the road does anything to help the situation and have no idea why the council gave it this appearance. Obviously people should look where they are going when crossing the road, but making the road look like a road (as it does outside Eldon Gardens) would surely help. Even just having a higher kerb with crossing places rather than being able to walk across without even noticing would be an improvement. RE: Press Cuttings Thread - Adrian - 03 Oct 2013 (03 Oct 2013, 7:17 pm)stagecoachbusdepot I really don't think the pedestrianised look of the road does anything to help the situation and have no idea why the council gave it this appearance. Obviously people should look where they are going when crossing the road, but making the road look like a road (as it does outside Eldon Gardens) would surely help. Even just having a higher kerb with crossing places rather than being able to walk across without even noticing would be an improvement. It's a designated pedestrian zone, so surely you'd expect it to look as such? The same way you wouldn't expect to see block paving on the A1M. RE: Press Cuttings Thread - stagecoachbusdepot - 03 Oct 2013 (03 Oct 2013, 7:22 pm)aureolin It's a designated pedestrian zone, so surely you'd expect it to look as such? The same way you wouldn't expect to see block paving on the A1M. I'm talking about the actual roadway that buses run along - the road isn't a pedestrian zone, but looks like one. |