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Post by danorak on Apr 16, 2024 8:34:06 GMT
Because East Thames Buses was such a roaring success...
Bit weird really given that the London model, of private contractors operating on tender, is apparently the panacea for all ills elsewhere. The supposedly successful municipals are just those that have survived: Thamesdown was bus company of the year ten years ago and what happened to that?
Where will the Mayor find the garage space required in London? Or will existing ones be compulsory purchased? If so, what happens to the routes that aren't up for tender at that point?
Or to put it another way, what's the point beyond posturing and dogma?
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Post by COBO on Apr 17, 2024 16:53:15 GMT
I wonder where TfL will get their new buses from? Who will be their chosen manufacturer to provide them with their new Electric buses? How would they gauge when a route would need new buses since they wouldn’t rely on a tendering system to help them?
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Post by COBO on Apr 17, 2024 16:55:37 GMT
Would TfL have to buy out from each operator so that the garages and fleet come under TfL ownership?
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Post by southlondonbus on Apr 17, 2024 18:28:33 GMT
Would TfL have to buy out from each operator so that the garages and fleet come under TfL ownership? Not sure. Technically TFL can terminate a contract or not award one (9, 139 being examples) but that would only work if they had their own infrastructure.
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Post by COBO on Apr 21, 2024 22:23:59 GMT
Fleet movement and Route movement shall be interesting.
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Post by COBO on Apr 22, 2024 13:32:49 GMT
I wonder if he’ll bring back the subsidiaries like Crntrewest, Metroline, London Northern and etc
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darz
Conductor
Posts: 100
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Post by darz on Apr 22, 2024 20:05:28 GMT
Ultimately this is just a marketing ploy to get more votes, this does nothing for the general public 😭 most of the public don’t even know that there are companies that run buses on behalf of TFL.
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darz
Conductor
Posts: 100
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Post by darz on Apr 22, 2024 20:07:43 GMT
Elaborate please - I am lost, what does public ownership mean in this case? All TFL Buses are run by private companies tho e.g Stagecoach. It is also odd that they refer to "bringing services into public ownership". The services have been in public ownership for decades. It is just the operation that moved progressively into assorted private hands from 1985 to 1994. Exactly that , he’s just saying it for votes 😭Makes little difference to the public 😭
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Post by ServerKing on Apr 22, 2024 20:45:37 GMT
Ultimately this is just a marketing ploy to get more votes, this does nothing for the general public 😭 most of the public don’t even know that there are companies that run buses on behalf of TFL. He should know this as "The Bus Driver's Son" but spends so much time in his armoured Range Rover he has become a little disconnected from reality. He has no money to take over all the buses in London from private firms. Sadly Susan Hall knows even less about public transport... so Khan is the better of two evils
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Post by beaver14uk on Apr 23, 2024 20:03:12 GMT
So listening to this nothing will change in London.
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Post by southlondonbus on Apr 23, 2024 20:23:35 GMT
So listening to this nothing will change in London. Yes I doubt it. Tbh I'm not sure how things will be once the election is over. At the end of the day for the most part the current tendering arrangements do work pretty well in my opinion.
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Post by redbus on Apr 23, 2024 22:06:06 GMT
I remember when all bus were run by LRT prior to the creation of TfL. They were no better and arguably worse as there were no performance criteria incentives. Managing routes was tougher then with no iBus. At least we didn't have continual delays due to the service being regulated.
Taking control of the contracts is the easy part, just wait until they expire. No doubt there could be a change to the law to allow for the compulsory purchase of assets (garages, buses etc) and slowly but surely it could be done, albeit at a large financial cost if market rates for purchase of assets are paid. Would the service improve or be cheaper, probably not. Today bus companies have incentives to provide a good service, if the buses are run by TfL what would be the incentive for good performance?
I can't see the law changing or the money being available to purchase all the necessary assets anytime soon even if the government were to change. It doubt it would be a priority. If the Mayor is re-elected will anything bad politically happen to him if doesn't carry this out? No, so given all this I can't see it happening unless TfL are forced to step in to save routes or an Operator from collapse.
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Post by rj131 on Apr 24, 2024 11:14:31 GMT
So listening to this nothing will change in London. Yes I doubt it. Tbh I'm not sure how things will be once the election is over. At the end of the day for the most part the current tendering arrangements do work pretty well in my opinion. I agree with you also, and disagree with the sentiment that the tendering system is ‘broken’. The only reason we’re seeing these handed back routes is because of soaring costs in 2022, meaning the inflationary increases put into the old contracts weren’t enough to cover the extra costs. Now inflation has settled down again (and hopefully for the foreseeable) operators can bid for new contracts factoring in these increased costs, so we’ll probably start seeing most routes from now getting to their full 7 year term. The only thing troubling me regarding this whole privatisation issue, is why it was done in the first place. I know it was a Thatcher policy so that’s obviously why it happened. But why is it more cost effective for TfL, when the prices operators are charging to run these routes include a profit margin for them to capitalise on. So why don’t TfL just run the bus network themselves, so all they have to pay is the operation costs, and don’t have to shell out extra for profit margins and QIS bonus payments etc. I’m certainly not business minded as I’m sure you can tell 😂 but it does make me wonder
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Post by busman on Apr 25, 2024 14:50:47 GMT
The important bit is how competent the governance and management will be. Public sector or private sector…as long as buses are frequent, reliable, clean etc then from a passenger perspective it is all good. What does TfL think it can do better than the private sector bus operators? What cost benefits will be delivered by a conversion to public sector ownership?
From a taxpayer perspective, if London buses are brought into public ownership then it has to be run excellently as a professional company with an aim to generate a surplus each year to reinvest in bus services and infrastructure. It should be financed without any additional burden on local taxes. If anything taxes should reduce as the share of profits due to the private operators is retained by TfL. There should be adequate protections in place to protect services from financial mismanagement in other public sector departments unrelated to transport or from being radically changed unilaterally by any mayor.
Until I see a concrete plan for how London’s buses will be run as a successful public sector service with transparency into the financial projections of making such a change, I think they should remain privatised under the current system.
Would be interested to hear what employees of bus operators think of this latest political campaigning sound bite.
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Post by vjaska on Apr 25, 2024 15:29:30 GMT
Not saying I agree with this proposal but East Thames Buses showed it can be done - they were mostly successful on the whole (201 was less successful IMO) in turning routes around that suffered under the previous operator. It really all depends on whether they can do it on a much larger scale.
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