Manchester bus franchising

[Winston]

RE: Manchester bus franchising

(24/02/2023 12:00)Barney Wrote:  I think that has yet to be determined. Stagecoach, who fought in the courts to prevent franchising, has lost a lot of work in Wigan and have a number of options. It either transfers its fleet to other parts of its empire, sells it to the successful franchisee or another operator or scraps buses that have several years' life left in them. Presumably, these options also apply to Arriva and other unsuccessful bidders.

A similar but not exact scenario occurred recently when Yellow Buses in Bournemouth went into administration and ceased trading. It had a modern fleet and, as far as I am aware, most have subsequently seen service elsewhere.

I believe that, in the fullness of time, TfGM plans to have a standardised fleet of EV vehicles and this process has already begun with recent orders to be operated by the successful franchisees.

Stagecoach are retaining all their Wigan based vehicles including Wigan depot.

Existing operators from Tranche 1 had two choices, they either retain all their vehicles for cascade or sale elsewhere, or they could sell them to TfGM's RV Pool, which then sells & distributes to the new Franchise operators. The vehicles which operators were selling to the RV Pool & their allocation was predetermined by existing operators & TfGM in Tranche 1 before bidding took place. There will of course be some minor changes since.