Bus Back Burning

Every day, invitations to online seminars appear in my email or elsewhere requesting my presence at events discussing Bus Back Better (BBB), Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIP), Mobilitiy As A Service (MaaS), Dynamic Demand Resposive Transport (DDRT) or some other current buzzphrase (with accompanying acronym) which is going to be the magic panacea to make…

A Blueprint for Commercial Progress

Several pressure groups are using the current situation and funding to call for greater long term regulation to be brought in to the bus industry. Knee-jerk reactions to such an opportunity to make sweeping changes would almost certainly deliver disasterous results as such things need careful consideration to ensure they are fit for purpose. In…

Part of a story

This Monday, the BBC aired a Panorama documentary on Britain's Bus Crisis (their words, not mine). It is available to watch on iPlayer here. Richard Bilton followed a number of journeys across the North from Redcar to Blackpool and (spoiler alert) came to the disappointing conclusion that the system isn't working. Lets look at some…

Fermeture définitive

Apologies for those of you expecting a tirade about some aspect of the bus industry. This post reports upon a different transport obsession of mine, but bear with me as i attempt to make a point. Although it may be considered divisive in these times, a longstanding refrain of transport campaigners is to repeat their…

Competence

Competence is a big word in transport these days. Passenger and Freight service operators have to prove they are competent in order to gain an operators' licence. Drivers must carry a card of their professional competence to prove they are capable of delivering the service they are employed to do. Yet Bristol City Council apparently…

The Blame Game: Timsbury Chronicles 2/2

This is a companion piece to Sold Down The River, my own experiences of providing a bus service serving Timsbury and the surrounding area from 2014-2016. A bit of background From the 28th October, First made changes to their service 179 between Writhlington, Midsomer Norton, Paulton, Timsbury and Bath. Although it isn't the main service…

Control, Control, Control

"Jeremy Corbyn takes the bus route to victory" bellows the headline of The Guardian in response to the Labour leader's somewhat unexpected raising of the issue of the decline of bus services at Prime Minister's Questions. (I say decline, you should read this as crisis if you read any of the material shared on Facebook…

Failure of the Middlemen

Aside from the obvious drum beating by the hard left over the vulnerability of the private sector, the collapse of Carillion and concerns over the future of similar business Interserve raises some interesting issues over public sector procurement. The problem is that government only appears to be able to deal with big corporations (and charities)…

A little more on Avoiding a Crisis

On Tuesday 9th May, BBC Wiltshire dedicated a significant swathe of their breakfast show to discussing bus service cuts, funding and primarily Faresaver's 33/X33 services between Chippenham, Calne and Devizes. Edited highlights are available here, or the whole thing can be found here for the next month or so. There was about 20 minutes of…

Expand to Survive

A couple of weeks ago, i stayed up late watching an awkward film on BBC Two. Dennis Quaid and Zac Effron starred as father and son of a dysfunctional family whose business centred around corn and farm machinery in the American Mid-West. During an opening movement which showed the business to be under threat (and…