New Buses Orders

[Polo Mint]

RE: New Buses Orders
I am also surprised at the lack of double deckers in a major city like Liverpool. Leeds is a similar sized city as Liverpool and appears to have a lot more double deckers. It is difficult to spot single deckers in central Manchester as nearly every single route is a double decker.

(13/03/2013 22:27)507009 Wrote:  Absolutely agree Gillmoss, very well said.

I was in Manchester last Saturday and their buses are surely worse than ours in terms of vandalism. One of their 10-plate hybrids in particular had a number of etched windows, most seat backs near the rear having graffiti damage, burns or both and the window seals also graffitied. To me it looked worse than an unrefurbished Speke B7TL which is four years older. I like Manchester as a city but it's clearly got issues with vandalism that aren't preventing buses of the same size from being ordered as seen here. Evidently Birmingham has the most serious vandalism problem on buses in the country, yet it has a large proportion of deckers too.

I'm not sure Arriva have directly used vandalism as an excuse despite their Green Lane fleet being unacceptable in terms of its capacity - I'd add Bootle as well which uses double deckers mainly on routes which avoid city centre Liverpool. Stagecoach Merseyside's approach is absolute nonsense in my opinion and for Rock Ferry to be receiving Enviro400s of 2006 vintage while Gillmoss struggles on the 20/21/82/86 with Enviro300s, Darts and dated Tridents is a disgrace.

It's also worth mentioning that Birkenhead's 59-plate Pulsars have their fair share of vandalism, certainly comparable and arguably worse than Speke and Bootle single deckers. I would suggest Green Lane has the highest level of vandalism on Merseyside but hardly enough to prevent deckers. The St Helens Pulsars, however, seem to have little vandalism and are used amongst others on the Liverpool route which needs double deckers the most in my opinion, the 10/10A.

Is it really worth loosing/missing out on revenue for the sake of vandals?

Both First and Stagecoach use brand new hybrids in some of the roughest areas in Manchester (routes 18 and 43).

Hopefully it is some kind of shortage and will eventually be sorted out.

[First Class]

RE: New Buses Orders
I wonder what % of Merseytravel/DfT revenue and funding each mode of transport receives, and how this looks in comparison with other cities.

I suspect rail services in Merseyside receive the highest amount of subsidy within England (excl. London), leaving the bus as a secondary mode of transport.

Most other cities it is the other way round, buses are primary, trains are secondary.

If non-subsidised "for profit" bus companies are expected to compete against a popular but highly/ entirely subsidised rail network, then the profit margins for the bus companies probably aren't going to be as good as in other places where bigger buses exist.

I also think the Saveaway is probably too cheap. The All Zone Saveaway, for example, sees 67% (last time I recall anyway) of revenue going to the rail operators, 5% to the ferries, 1% as administration costs. Buses then only get 27%, which, from £4.80 is only £1.20 per passenger.

Split that £1.20 between each of the bus companies, (how many of them operate within the All Zones area?!), and you are left with minimal pence per passenger. There is no incentive to provide bigger buses, as they are still going to get the (small) Saveaway and PTE tickets payout regardless.

The Manchester "System One" ticket allows Buses, Trains, Trams for £8.30 a day (after 09:30).
London Zone 1-6 Travelcard is £8.90 (after 09:30)
West Yorks Train & Bus DayRover is £7.50
South Yorks TravelMaster Day is £7.55

So, in comparison, the Saveaway product (and the TRIO/SOLO etc) are seemingly priced well under what it should be, and possibly to the detriment of services in Merseyside.

A £7/£8 All Zone Saveaway would still be excellent value.

[wirralbus]

RE: New Buses Orders

(16/03/2013 21:32)First Class Wrote:  I wonder what % of Merseytravel/DfT revenue and funding each mode of transport receives, and how this looks in comparison with other cities.

I suspect rail services in Merseyside receive the highest amount of subsidy within England (excl. London), leaving the bus as a secondary mode of transport.

Most other cities it is the other way round, buses are primary, trains are secondary.

If non-subsidised "for profit" bus companies are expected to compete against a popular but highly/ entirely subsidised rail network, then the profit margins for the bus companies probably aren't going to be as good as in other places where bigger buses exist.

I also think the Saveaway is probably too cheap. The All Zone Saveaway, for example, sees 67% (last time I recall anyway) of revenue going to the rail operators, 5% to the ferries, 1% as administration costs. Buses then only get 27%, which, from £4.80 is only £1.20 per passenger.

Split that £1.20 between each of the bus companies, (how many of them operate within the All Zones area?!), and you are left with minimal pence per passenger. There is no incentive to provide bigger buses, as they are still going to get the (small) Saveaway and PTE tickets payout regardless.

The Manchester "System One" ticket allows Buses, Trains, Trams for £8.30 a day (after 09:30).
London Zone 1-6 Travelcard is £8.90 (after 09:30)
West Yorks Train & Bus DayRover is £7.50
South Yorks TravelMaster Day is £7.55

So, in comparison, the Saveaway product (and the TRIO/SOLO etc) are seemingly priced well under what it should be, and possibly to the detriment of services in Merseyside.

A £7/£8 All Zone Saveaway would still be excellent value.

One main problem each operator would then find that there own company product is then priced too cheaply as well and you have a fares spiral then .

[H101GEV (Administrator)]

RE: New Buses Orders
In short, if the All Zone Saveaway was hiked in price to £8 or even £7 any time soon I would never use it again. That would be a total and utter rip-off for what the ticket offers. You have to bear in mind how much bigger the London Zones 1-6 and Greater Manchester regions are. They are massively larger areas than Merseyside and you could argue both provide a more comprehensive network of public transport overall than here.

Charging £7-8 for a Saveaway would be outrageous and I am certain the trains would take a big hit in revenue if that were to happen as people desert that obscene price in favour of the bus day tickets which represent very good value for money in a larger region than the Saveaway if multiple journeys are required.

[wirralbus]

RE: New Buses Orders

(17/03/2013 00:57)507009 Wrote:  In short, if the All Zone Saveaway was hiked in price to £8 or even £7 any time soon I would never use it again. That would be a total and utter rip-off for what the ticket offers. You have to bear in mind how much bigger the London Zones 1-6 and Greater Manchester regions are. They are massively larger areas than Merseyside and you could argue both provide a more comprehensive network of public transport overall than here.

Charging £7-8 for a Saveaway would be outrageous and I am certain the trains would take a big hit in revenue if that were to happen as people desert that obscene price in favour of the bus day tickets which represent very good value for money in a larger region than the Saveaway if multiple journeys are required.

The problem being is the trains have there own day pass which would probably be kept down , but one problem would be instead of joined up travel options everybody would start going there own ways , the saveaway is the multi modal ticket of choice for most people.

[First Class]

RE: New Buses Orders

(17/03/2013 00:57)507009 Wrote:  In short, if the All Zone Saveaway was hiked in price to £8 or even £7 any time soon I would never use it again. That would be a total and utter rip-off for what the ticket offers. You have to bear in mind how much bigger the London Zones 1-6 and Greater Manchester regions are. They are massively larger areas than Merseyside and you could argue both provide a more comprehensive network of public transport overall than here.

Charging £7-8 for a Saveaway would be outrageous and I am certain the trains would take a big hit in revenue if that were to happen as people desert that obscene price in favour of the bus day tickets which represent very good value for money in a larger region than the Saveaway if multiple journeys are required.

I think £7 to travel from Meols Cop to Chester via Liverpool AND return again by train, and to have unlimited use of buses and ferries is excellent value.

You make my point well though. People would ditch the Saveaway and buy operator specific tickets, giving them 100% of the revenue, and making their services more profitable. In relation to this thread, more profitable services are likely to result in better capacity amongst other things. At the moment, busy does not equal profit.

I don't think there is anything wrong with cheaper operator specific tickets and higher priced multi-mode ones like the Saveaway. If you want more, you should pay more.

[H101GEV (Administrator)]

RE: New Buses Orders

(17/03/2013 13:00)First Class Wrote:  I think £7 to travel from Meols Cop to Chester via Liverpool AND return again by train, and to have unlimited use of buses and ferries is excellent value.

You make my point well though. People would ditch the Saveaway and buy operator specific tickets, giving them 100% of the revenue, and making their services more profitable. In relation to this thread, more profitable services are likely to result in better capacity amongst other things. At the moment, busy does not equal profit.

I don't think there is anything wrong with cheaper operator specific tickets and higher priced multi-mode ones like the Saveaway. If you want more, you should pay more.

Thank goodness we have the set up we have then and the current people at the helm. If you think £7 to travel from Meols Cop to Chester represents good value compared with Bolton to Wilmslow via Manchester and the sheer glut of potential travel options then I really don't know what to say. £4.80 is about what you should expect to pay for a ticket of its type. You have these travelcards in order to encourage people to use public transport, not dissuade them. Your policy is akin to scrapping the Saveaway entirely and thus inconveniencing passengers even further (as if they need any more inconvenience).

Be that as it may, this discussion is irrelevant to the number of deckers Liverpool currently has. If it's a profitability issue, I'm sure that would have been said by either of the major operators by now. Some straight answers on the current lack of capacity is required though.

[First Class]

RE: New Buses Orders
Well the Saveaway IS certainly being scrapped within the next year or two, how the PAYG product replaces it is yet to be seen. A "daily cap" is likely, but I wonder what it will be.

I still think the lack of deckers is down to PTE ticketing and the amount of concessionary passes in use.

[wirralbus]

RE: New Buses Orders
To do that merseytravel will have to provide card readers on the stations which doesnt seem to have moved on from the position we was in a year ago , with regards the smartcard.

Concessionary renumeration for some routes can be a problem , particulary i would say on routes in the Southport area , the X2 got double deckers due to summer passenger loadings. Some double decker journeys in Southern England are full of concessionary passes with no revenbue taken , the concessionary bus pass has been a bitter pill in some areas.

Some of the higher frequency routes would have to come down in frequency to start off with to make operation with double deckers viable and increase the frequency from there if and when it becomes viable and the loadings take off .

[H101GEV (Administrator)]

RE: New Buses Orders
Transport for London have neither introduced a cap nor replaced paper Travelcards so I don't see why Merseytravel wouldn't do the same with the Saveaway.

A number of the routes we have outlined as requiring deckers have a younger than average population for much of their length, e.g. the 12/13 and 10/10A. Both of these routes cover a fair few deprived communities before reaching the suburbs so I can't imagine concessionary passes would be an issue.

Routes like the 10/10A, 12/13 and 52/52A don't require a frequency reduction to make deckers viable - they are so badly overcrowded as they are now, deckers would be able to take over at the same frequencies to better handle the loads, as we saw when the 79 finally went over to double deckers.