Stagecoach Manchester

[gilesbus1]

RE: Stagecoach Manchester and Wigan

(05/03/2019 23:02)Quackdave Wrote:  Any dent in what? You imply a fleet renewal deficit, but apart from the Iveco school buses (which I believe are TfGM's), the oldest buses in the fleet are just over twelve years old - so to maintain a life span of circa 16 years, they must buy precisely nothing new for at least the next three years!

That means uneven buying practices in several years and I am aware this has happened in the past, in Stagecoach 2008 and 2009 were noticeable for this, In FirstGroup 2005/6/8 and 2012 are noticeable for it, this is not an ideal practice as it means if a company has a large loss when a large percentage of the fleet is due to be replaced they wont be able to afford it. Smaller quantities spread over several years is better, and to deal with the amount needed to be replaced then its better to act now and spread fleet renewal across the lifespan of vehicles.

The problem is large fleets tend to invest all resources were they think profitability is at a given time, or were they think the local authority will invest in bus priority measures, more to the point, 2008/9 was because they expected Congestion charging in Greater Manchester to be implemented, as soon as they knew it wasn't being, they cut it back, with First diverting buses to places such as Glasgow and West Yorkshire. Stagecoach just cutting back on investment, note they bought little 2010 for Manchester, except for the first few hybrids they had grant money towards out of the 2010/1 batch.

I will give GMPTE credit, in that they spread investment more or less equally from 1972 to 1986 to maintain a 12/13 year life span and give say 1972/3/4 and 1980/3 there were no large trofts of vehicles and that in 1972-1974 was due to replacing ageing fleets of the operators they had taken over, e.g Salford was running buses from 1952 as was Leigh and Oldham.