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Post by capitalomnibus on Apr 26, 2024 10:18:52 GMT
tangytango.proboards.com/post/803097All I'll say is....I told you so! 😉 This has been coming for a while now - sheer market forces at play increasingly making private sector contracting impractical. The way I interpret this is direct publicly-owned operation like East Thames Buses or even the LT of old. Legislative changes make direct award operation possible now. East Thames Buses was NOT anything to be proud of. I would rather it be the last years of London Buses when the operations were getting better than they were of the 70's and 80's
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Post by capitalomnibus on Apr 26, 2024 10:21:03 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? It would have to be by garages, on paper it sounds good, but it would be a mess to do if via contract ending dates. The squabbling over who owns what in the depot, fuel usage, which managers etc are responsible for which set of staff.
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Post by capitalomnibus on Apr 26, 2024 10:22:28 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. Easiest way around it, is buying out the whole operator one by one. In the same way that the operations were sold off from 1994.
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Post by southlondonbus on Apr 26, 2024 12:43:12 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. Easiest way around it, is buying out the whole operator one by one. In the same way that the operations were sold off from 1994. Operators may find they get better deals selling the land to a developer and keeping the buses for themselves to redeploy around the country which could make it even harder for TFL.
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Post by M1104 on Apr 26, 2024 13:11:56 GMT
Easiest way around it, is buying out the whole operator one by one. In the same way that the operations were sold off from 1994. Operators may find they get better deals selling the land to a developer and keeping the buses for themselves to redeploy around the country which could make it even harder for TFL. Quite a number of depots mind you are on land that are leased out to the operators, some examples being C, GM and QB. I'm not sure if TUK actually own any of their lands with WL I believe actually belonging to TfL.
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Post by londonbuses on Apr 26, 2024 13:21:27 GMT
Easiest way around it, is buying out the whole operator one by one. In the same way that the operations were sold off from 1994. Operators may find they get better deals selling the land to a developer and keeping the buses for themselves to redeploy around the country which could make it even harder for TFL. I agree, I can't see TfL being able to undercut the prices developers will offer, with the added benefit that the operators can keep their existing vehciles and send them out of London as you say. The only existing garages which TfL can probably take over quite easily are the ones they already own (which I believe are AE/HK, BT/EW, FW/TF, WL and UX?), but they would likely have to source their own vehicles.
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Post by vjaska on Apr 26, 2024 13:37:10 GMT
tangytango.proboards.com/post/803097All I'll say is....I told you so! 😉 This has been coming for a while now - sheer market forces at play increasingly making private sector contracting impractical. The way I interpret this is direct publicly-owned operation like East Thames Buses or even the LT of old. Legislative changes make direct award operation possible now. East Thames Buses was NOT anything to be proud of. I would rather it be the last years of London Buses when the operations were getting better than they were of the 70's and 80's East Thames Buses ended up stabilising some awfully run routes so they wern't that bad - the last years of London Buses in the 90's wasn't great so not sure where your getting that image from.
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Post by mark on Apr 27, 2024 11:16:40 GMT
Operators may find they get better deals selling the land to a developer and keeping the buses for themselves to redeploy around the country which could make it even harder for TFL. I agree, I can't see TfL being able to undercut the prices developers will offer, with the added benefit that the operators can keep their existing vehciles and send them out of London as you say. The only existing garages which TfL can probably take over quite easily are the ones they already own (which I believe are AE/HK, BT/EW, FW/TF, WL and UX?), but they would likely have to source their own vehicles. TfL also owns WH and, I think, DS. Not sure about LI which, like WH, was built to replace a site lost beneath the Olympic park. As for Fulwell/Twickenham, my understanding is that it's only the part occupied by TUK that TfL owns (it had been used by London Bus Sales for some years and was not operational when the London Buses' subsidiaries were sold in 1994).
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Post by capitalomnibus on Apr 28, 2024 12:58:20 GMT
East Thames Buses was NOT anything to be proud of. I would rather it be the last years of London Buses when the operations were getting better than they were of the 70's and 80's East Thames Buses ended up stabilising some awfully run routes so they wern't that bad - the last years of London Buses in the 90's wasn't great so not sure where your getting that image from. LBL East London was not that bad in the end. They were running better than many of the neighbouring ex LT subsidiaries.
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