Homeward bound by road, rail and sea

Day two started with breakfast at Tiffany’s.  We were uninspired by the prospect of a Royal Albion fry-up, and worried about being swept up into a sea of coach parties and being whisked away for an inadvertent tour of Eastbourne - even if it would include a visit to Beachy Head, a cream tea and a nice sit down on the prom.

So we checked out of our regal accommodation and set off under Keith’s guidance in the direction of some local cafes that he had scouted earlier in the morning.

Along the way, we paused to admire Brighton & Hove’s new travel shop in North Street.  This really is an object lesson in how to present public transport in a positive, welcoming way.  Featuring a spacious, bright interior with plenty of information on display and advisors on hand, and situated right in the heart of Brighton’s shopping area, this outlet really brings public transport into a modern retail setting.

Further along the road, you might be forgiven for thinking that Brighton & Hove is not the only bus company to realise the importance of a strong retail presence…

Keith’s scouting trip had identified several possible candidates for breakfast, but the pictures of old buses hanging on the wall of Tiffany’s were clearly the clincher.  The friendly, helpful server was coping manfully despite running the whole show on his own having been let down by his business partner (“she’s still in bed, the lazy cow”).

He also had no change, and just to prove that the bus industry is not unique, several customers were sent to a shop next door to get change – although at least he didn’t refuse to cook their breakfast until they did so, or try to give them a change voucher.  In several cases, the problem was overcome simply by negotiating the price of breakfast to the nearest round number.

During breakfast we were again able to impress the locals with our ability to cover every available piece of furniture with maps and timetables and soon decided that the next stage of our adventure would be in the hands of new local independent theSussexBus.com – one of several companies to emerge following the demise of Countryliner in late 2012.

Brand names ending in .com were fashionable in the so called “dot com bubble” of the late nineties when – by coincidence – virtually all of theSussexBus.com’s fleet was manufactured.

Branding a nineties fleet with a nineties brand name is of course a genius attempt at creating a heritage fleet without anyone noticing.

If you buy a Bristol something-or-other from the fifties, paint it green with a cream stripe down the side and apply any fleetname in a suitably florid typeface, everyone can see what you’re up to straight away.  Drop words like “Tilling” and “superintendent” into the conversation and you need a drip tray for all the dribble hitting the floor as grown men are reduced to gibbering toddlers.

Replace fifties with nineties and write “.com” on the side and you’ve done exactly the same thing with Dennis Darts. And you don’t even need a drip tray.  Well you do, clearly, because they’re Dennis Darts so they will routinely leak from every orifice but at least that’s what the drip tray is designed for.

For proof that I’m on to something, look no further than the fact that theSussexBus.com is associated with a coach company called – guess what – Heritage!

The P-reg Dart that picked us up for a ride on the 40 to Haywards Heath even had period moquette – a red chequered pattern of a design commonly found on Plaxton dealer stock buses in the late  nineties.

But one thing to be said about theSussexBus.com is that they ooze enthusiasm.  The website – while doing its best to stick to the design principles of the late nineties – is packed full of useful and interesting information and they seem to have the customer very much at the heart of their thinking – an approach which of course endears me to them immediately.  Our driver lived up to the image – helpful and friendly, if slightly haphazard.

All was going superbly until we reached Burgess Hill town centre when the air system on our Dart decided that one morning’s work without a failure was too much to expect (this is an attitude shared by air systems on Darts everywhere) and the doors failed.

After much forelorn prodding of the “open” and “close” buttons, and with a short queue of nice old ladies waiting outside wondering why they couldn’t join the rest of us on board, our driver called for medical advice.

As he jumped out of the cab it became clear that what he made up for in enthusiasm he lacked in height, and when the fitter on the other end of the phone asked him to access the door controls situated in a locker above the door, we could see ourselves being there a while.

Sadly for the step ladder industry in Burgess Hill, our Keith spotted the predicament and raced to the rescue, and with the driver relaying instructions and the much taller Keith twiddling the pressure control, within seconds the doors were operational again.  As our fourth emergency service returned jubilantly to his seat (he is, after all, a very nice man), the elderly gent sat across the aisle enquired if he would be available to ride round on all their buses, all the time!

Meanwhile the heritage theme continued as I was descending into nostalgia.  The route of the 40 is almost identical to the all stations rail replacement route from Brighton to Haywards Heath – for no particular reason that I could tell you, my favourite of the many rail replacement routes upon which I have worked.

I hadn’t worked this route since 2007 so for me it was an “all my yesterdays” trip down memory lane.  At that time the newly created Go South Coast – with me in charge of the eastern front as Area Director for Solent Blue Line and Southern Vectis – was heavily involved in providing buses for Southern Railways weekend rail replacement.

When the Brighton main line was being dug up, the A23 between Crawley and the coast resembled an episode of Wacky Races, with double deckers of every shape and colour being fired off from each end every few minutes for the non-stop journey.

But for the more discerning driver, the opportunity was often available to borrow a coach from the newly acquired Marchwood Motorways, and work the slow road from Three Bridges to the English Channel, taking in Balcombe, Haywards Heath, Wivelsfield, Burgess Hill, Hassocks, Preston Park and Brighton.

A certain amount of smugness was called for as most drivers from our neck of the woods didn’t know the all stations route and it was nice to have one up on them.  It must be said my smugness diminished slightly the day a gentleman decided to count to two in his trousers on a particularly hot day with the heating stuck on in my coach.  And then after getting the coach cleaned out and virtually fumigated, he did the same on the way back.  But that’s a story for another day.

Back to the present day, and our arrival in Haywards Heath was enlivened by the sight of an Ikarus DAF SB220 still in full Wilts & Dorset livery and apparently recently acquired by theSussexBus.com.

This turned out to be the only memorable thing about our visit to Haywards Heath and within minutes we were on a First Capital Connect train bound for Gatwick Airport and our first busway of the day.

We emerged from the railway station into the South Terminal at Gatwick jostling with business people and leisure travels, bound for far flung cities on distant continents.  Our destination was Crawley.

For an international airport, the bus experience starts so well.  On all the signs within the terminal building are prominent directions to Metrobus local bus services – even incorporating the Metrobus logo, a rare feat on what are normally dull, neutral signs.  Metrobus have elevated themselves to the same status as the top level hotel brands and certainly have greater prominence than the car hire companies, and all credit to them.

Sadly the experience unravels slightly when you discover that the route pointed out by the signs takes you out through a fire exit, down several flights of stairs, along the side of a busy dual carriageway, through a dark, dingy underpass and back up the other side again.

Once you get there, the bus stop is superb.  A huge shelter, first class electronic information and a wide supply of timetable leaflets to pick up.

I have no idea whether the route from the terminal to the stop is an airport or highway authority issue, or indeed whether any improvements are planned, but it is desperately sad when compared with the first class infrastructure before and after, to have to endure this dismal hike through the back of beyond to connect the two.

I am a huge fan of Metrobus, can only dream of building a fleet and network as impressive as theirs and have particular admiration for the way they have transformed the image of public transport in an area where once it had been run into the ground.

It saddens me therefore to report that our short trip on Fastway 10 was an anti-climax.   I have never liked the Scania OmniCity, finding them to be claustrophobic, and this example seemed to have more bars and railings than a children’s playpen, giving the impression that we were incarcerated in a blue and orange prison.

Our prison warder, ensconced behind the steering wheel, did little to dispel this impression with his spartan approach to customer service.  Not actually rude, but no welcome, pleases or thank yous and the distinct impression that we passengers were merely an inconvenience to be endured for the eight hours between coming to work and going home from work.

We knew that we wouldn’t see much actual busway on this trip – most of the guided track is out to the south of the town centre so we had to make do with a short stretch across a roundabout.  But we stoked ourselves with anticipation nevertheless, enjoyed the moment when it came and it qualified as our first busway ride of the day.

Alighting in Crawley Bus Station, we briefly debated finding somewhere for lunch, but then remembered that we were in Crawley and that the best strategy was therefore to leave quickly.

Ideally, we would have liked to have wended our way gradually westwards in a mirror of the previous day’s trip, but Alex and Keith had to catch a train home from Southampton early that evening so we were constrained for time.  The next planned move was therefore a hefty jump by rail through the scenic Arun Valley to Portsmouth to sample our second busway of the day.

One of many things that Metrobus take seriously is timetables, and their bus station travel shop was festooned with interesting publicity.  I got quite excited about a possible option involving a quick trip to Horsham on the 23 to see the newest part of the Metrobus empire and a new bus station to boot.  We could have continued our rail journey from there, but a quick check of the National Rail website revealed that Southern Railway were having a bad day, and the train we would have needed to catch had been cancelled.

We therefore reverted to plan A and crossed the road to Crawley Station.  After settling ourselves into the relaxing surroundings of an almost empty Southern train and wallpapering the carriage with bus timetables to while away the journey, we were able to pass a very agreeable hour chilling out after a frenetic morning.

Our train was actually headed for Southampton and we were required to change in Cosham to reach Portsmouth, so somewhere along the way we realized it would be much more fun to leave the railway at Cosham and work our way into the city centre on the bus – particularly as it was not long since the network had been completely overhauled.

We soon found ourselves at the tiny little bus station just south of Cosham railway station, pondering our options.  The level of service available from here is excellent, with several high frequency services available.  We worked out that we had a choice of three routes for a direct journey into Portsmouth city centre, with a combined frequency of 16 buses per hour.

However, it seems a pity that despite all the fanfare surrounding the launch of the new network, First don’t seem to have found a way to present this kind of headline information drawing attention to the frequencies available.

The only way we could work out the offer was by wandering round to each individual stop and checking the timetable displays on the stops – and even then it helped to have a reasonable knowledge of the area to be able to filter out the options that were less direct.  So I got to the right answer by comparing four different timetables on two different stops, and I wonder how many potential casual users would have that level of patience and determination.

When the bus did arrive – after only a few moments of waiting - it was a pretty standard corporate First Group Dart, tidy and cleanly presented and gratifyingly busy.   The driver helpfully guided us to tickets that would cover us for all our planned journeys across the First Hampshire network and we sat down.

Immediately on so doing, I was propelled about seven years back in time.  This bus had clearly been based at Southampton depot at some time in its history and since moving east, it appeared to have evaded any efforts to update its internal adverts.

Among the usual depressing selection of posters highlighting the perils of sexual diseases, domestic abuse and drug addiction was a particularly aggressive message apparently produced by Southampton City Council and partners, telling us in no uncertain terms that we WOULD be prosecuted (What for?  Riding on a bus in Portsmouth?)

The poster attracted my attention only because it featured the Solent Blue Line logo from the mid-2000s, and one which disappeared from use in 2007 shortly after I too disappeared from use at Go South Coast!.  An unexpected reminder of my past in an unexpected place!

It was of course superseded by the Bluestar identity, so if nothing else it gave me another excuse to remind the award-winning Alex Hornby that the award-winning Bluestar brand was invented by me!  To be fair he has never been slow to acknowledge this, but I still enjoy gently winding him up about it from time to time.

Finding ourselves at the Hard Interchange some half an hour later, flanked by the ultra-modern Gunwharf Quays development on one side and the immaculately restored HMSVictory on the other, the next stage of our adventure was to take to the high seas aboard the Gosport Ferry.

This delightfully municipal affair shuttles backwards and forwards all day on its five hundred metre voyage across the mouth of Portsmouth Harbour (and that’s not as simple as it sounds – in 2005 during the preparations for Trafalgar 200 I was present when the US Navy lost a boatload of cadets for around half an hour somewhere between the two).

The slogan of the Gosport Ferry – “it’s shorter by water” – was clearly inspired by the same advertising genius who coined such memorable phrases as “a lot less fuss by bus”.  It lives up to its billing though, and in no time at all we were marching up the gangway filled with excitement at the prospect of our long-awaited ride on Eclipse.

Even more excitement was generated by the presence of no fewer than two information offices in Gosport Bus Station.  Most towns this size would be lucky to retain one such outlet these days, but as you enter the terminal you find yourself torn by the attractions of the tourist information office on your right or the First enquiry office on your left.  A quick check of both revealed a virtually identical stock of transport publicity so we were soon in possession of yet more timetables for our collections.

Eclipse is a superb project.  Many years in the gestation, the heart of it is an arrow-straight dedicated busway built on the trackbed of an old railway line.  Buses using the busway can escape the chronic traffic congestion of the parallel A32 to provide a fast, comfortable journey along the Gosport – Fareham peninsula.

It seems a pity therefore that the start of the Eclipse experience is very low-key.  I had imagined the departure bays would be decorated in the brand identity, with welcoming messages to make potential customers feel that they were going to experience something different.

Instead, while there is an information panel in the bus station concourse, the bays themselves only identify themselves with small standard corporate signs referring to “First E1 E2”.  It is left to the potential user to work out for themselves that this is the gateway to the region’s most exciting, state of the art transport link.

Once aboard the bus, everything is different.  With a fleet of new vehicles boasting a very high-spec interior, it is clear that no effort has been spared to consider how to make the service as attractive as possible.  And despite a slow journey out of Gosport, once on to the busway we could really appreciate the quality of the infrastructure.

The vehicles, the “track” itself and the bus stop amenities are all very impressive and it is clear why this project will attract people for whom public transport would never previously have been an option.

Fareham Bus Station seems to have benefitted from a little more effort to promote the new link, with prominent welcoming messages at the entrance, but still with those dreaded “First E1 E2” signs in the bus station itself.

I suppose the conclusion is, fantastic product, shame about the terminals!

The last leg of our trip – simply to get Alex and Keith back to Southampton to catch their homeward train – consisted of an hour-long ride aboard Solent Ranger X4.

This is a new First route that emerged from last year’s network changes across the region, all part of an impressive effort to tidy up the historically messy service offer in the semi-urban sprawl west of Fareham.  The route runs all the way from Southampton to Portsmouth, meeting myriad requests for a through service between the two, albeit with a long journey time.  And whatever one thinks of the First livery, the brand looks impressive in the flesh and certainly gives a big lift to the S-reg Darts to which it is applied.

Sadly all this excitement hadn’t quite succeeded in energizing our driver.  Arriving early at 1551 for a 1555 departure, but with a crew change required, the new driver emerged from the office at 1558 and it was around 1602 before we were underway.  The full seated load however was impressive all the same, and it’s just a pity that the road network in the area frustrates any attempt to provide a journey time that lives up to the “X” in the service number.

Back in Southampton at the end of an intense two days roaming the public transport network of the south of England, we managed to summon up just enough energy to drag ourselves to a restaurant for food and beer before my travelling colleagues set off for home.

Before we started, we had been afraid that we might have found this trip boring.  Compared to our previous European adventures where we had new places to explore and different cultures to experience, on this occasion we were relying solely on the transport to provide the excitement.  We had wondered whether there was enough entertainment to be found in sitting on buses all day.

But to our pleasant surprise we had found that on each leg of our journey there had been something of interest – whether it be the staff, the vehicles, the infrastructure, our fellow travellers, or a combination of all of them – we had never been bored and never been short of things to talk about.

All we have to decide now is where to go next!

You can help some of the people...

While I love all our customers unconditionally, some are easier to help than others.  I'm not sure whether the passenger I met on Saturday in Hedge End should be chided for his stupidity or commended for his honesty, or maybe both!

Two teenage boys got on together and one of them asked me how much it would cost for a return to Eastleigh.  "Five pounds", I replied.  Crestfallen, he turned to his friend and said, "sorry mate I haven't got enough, we can't go."

Not one to lose a sale easily, I asked how old he was.  He looked at me as if I was his parents, and asked why I wanted to know.  I explained, with heavy emphasis, that child fares apply up to fifteen, so if he told me he were fifteen, the fare would only be three pounds.

The penny dropped with his mate straight away, and we each looked expectantly at our friend while we waited for him to spot his cue.  Eventually, after much thought, he got ready to speak...  "Aw man, that sucks, I'm sixteen!"

End of an era

Yesterday saw a certain 'coming of age' for Velvet as we retired the last of the Volvo B10M double deckers - the vehicles that brought us into the world in the first place right at the start of 2008.

For a long time we ran three - F302, 303 and 309 MYJ.  But 302 and 309 were retired last summer, leaving 303 to soldier on in isolation for another year.  We might not have bothered to keep it through the whole year, but it cost us £4000 to get through MOT last August and I was going to get every penny of value out of it!  Finally its MOT expired at midnight on the 16th and it will pass into history.

We won't dwell on 302.  It was a good bus but to be honest was always the odd one out.  Acquired a good six months after the others, it never had the same zest for life as 303 and 309 and plodded around at a sedate pace.  Apart from a starring moment appearing behind Michael Portillo in Great British Railway Journeys, it has few claims to fame.

303 and 309 are the ones that have a special place in my heart, for they were our first ever bus purchases back in late 2007.

Our plan when we started was to acquire four single deckers for a three PVR local service (which wasn't going to be the A, that was a last minute change of plan) and two double deckers as back-up and to take advantage of rail replacement opportunities etc.  The obvious candidates were Leyland Olympians, so Taz and I toddled off to Ensign one day armed with the details of two Northern Counties Olympians.

At that stage I was aware that Ensign had the Citybuses, but Taz didn't even know they existed.  I had however ruled them out of my thoughts as I was fixated on the idea of Olympians, knowing that they had such a good reputation.

However, when we looked at the Olympians we were underwhelmed.  Mechanically they seemed fine and went reasonably well - but not sparkling - on road test.  But the interiors were severely battle scarred, and would have needed a lot of TLC to make presentable for public service.  We had neither the time, money nor inclination to take on that kind of project at that stage.

Since we were there the ever-helpful Ross Newman showed us round the rest of their yard, including - I think - some Dublin Olympians that might have been candidates but for their very spartan interiors, and also the fact that they were rather more than we wanted to pay.

Then Taz spotted one of the B10Ms lurking in the shed and asked what it was.  The rest - as they say - is history.  It was 309, and one road test later we were both absolutely hooked.  And apart from having an old-fashioned moquette, they were ready to go to work.

So we agreed on the spot to buy 306 and 309.

Then, after we had driven out, I could see something was exercising Taz's mind, so I stopped the car and shone the interrogation lamp in his eyes.  It turned out that one of them had square headlights and one had round headlights - a detail I had completely missed - and Taz wanted them both the same.  So I rang Ross from just outside the gate, and the order was changed to 303 and 309 on the grounds of matching headlights!

It would be almost two months before we would get the benefit of our purchases.  We made the mistake of sending them to a recommended paint shop in Essex, who's name I still cannot bring myself to utter without adding copious swear words, and who proceeded to take absolutely ages to do two of the most awful paint jobs I have ever seen.

But eventually we did manage to collect both vehicles.  I had forgotten how good the B10M chassis really is, and it was a joy to drive 309 back, which of course was accomplished without missing a beat.  Then a few weeks later it was Taz's turn to bring 303 back, and we each had our own adopted bus!

Between us, we have had many adventures in these two vehicles.

The most distressing was one of the first.  On 8^th March 2008 – the second Saturday of us operating route A – I made a last minute substitution to put 303 on to a mid-afternoon departure from Eastleigh because I realised the scheduled Dart was low on fuel.  Three minutes later, a car ploughed head on into 303 at the junction of Campbell Road and Southampton Road.  The car went straight under the front of the bus and I still have no idea how the car driver survived.  Our vehicle was off the road for about three months such were the extent of accident repairs.

In happier times, one memorable occasion for me was 303’s deployment on a Three Bridges – Brighton non-stop rail replacement diagram one Sunday.  Six round trips plus positioning mileage, 22 hours from depot to depot all at high speed running without missing a beat.

303’s real finest hour for me though was also on rail replacement, working for South West Trains on an overnight job between Eastleigh and Poole.  For reasons that are not relevant here, I’d given myself a seemingly impossible task to get back empty from Poole after my first trip, to do the 0243 Eastleigh – Southampton Central.  I drove 303 the 36 miles from Poole Station to Eastleigh Station in 43 minutes, and arrived back in Eastleigh with 2 minutes to spare!  303 was on a pedestal for me after that night, and although Taz would never agree, that was the night it became mine!

For comedy value though, you could not beat the visit of 303 and 309 to the Isle of Wight for the 2010 Isle of Wight Festival.  Southern Vectis were, as usual, superb hosts and looked after us well, but with most of their fleet being around 14 feet tall or less, when they made the ferry bookings they didn’t give a thought to the implications of us bringing buses 14ft 10ins in height!

We were booked on Wightlink’s Portsmouth – Fishbourne route, a route comprising four boats, only one of which – as it turned out – happens to have enough deck height to accommodate these buses.

Taz and I dutifully turned up for our booked sailing only to watch the one suitable boat just leaving the berth on the previous sailing.  We parked in the assigned lane, and were then greeted by a marshaller strolling up, peering skywards and declaring there was no way our buses would fit on the next boat.

So we watched our booked sailing come and go, then the marshaller reappeared with a senior colleague and a very long stick.  They held the stick against the front of 309, measured the height and declared that it would – just – fit on the next boat.

The next boat appeared and I set off down the ramp in 309 with Taz in 303 behind me.  Once on deck, I crept as gingerly as I could into the covered section below the passenger accommodation, with a very nervous looking marshaller in front of me watching me.  I reckon I got just over halfway through when his anguished looks turned to blind panic and much shouting and waving and gesticulating.  I was now wedged against the roof!  I was all for carrying on and popping out the other end, but this wasn’t deemed an acceptable solution, and there was nothing for it, but for Taz and I to reverse in convoy off the Isle of Wight Ferry and back up the ramp onto dry land.

Eventually we made it to the Island almost two hours later than planned, having had to wait for the one decently sized boat – the St Clare – to come back round.

After that, we barely saw 303 or 309 for the rest of the weekend.  Or to be accurate, we saw plenty of them, but being driven by a variety of Southern Vectis staff.  Such was the appeal of these vehicles that they were seemingly passed from one driver to another in a continuous relay, without us getting a look in.  Which was absolutely fine by me, because it meant we got to drive all their buses instead!

The trip home was also entertaining.  We were not the only operators working on hire to Southern Vectis that year – Reading Buses were also present with four Spectras and Emsworth and District had one Olympian on parade.  Originally we were all booked home Fishbourne around 1400 hrs on the Monday, after the rush of homebound Festival-goers had abated.  However, due to some kind of administrative error, those bookings were found not to exist and we were all rebooked onto the 0100 hrs sailing on the Tuesday.

An eleven hour delay in the homeward journey was not a huge issue for us or for the Emsworth driver.  We simply went home, on foot, having done a deal with Vectis for their staff to put the buses on the boat at their end at the appointed time, so all we had to was turn up at Portsmouth to meet them off the boat.

For the Reading drivers who, it must be said, had not really entered into the spirit of the weekend right from the start, this was a nightmare.  They couldn’t go home, they simply had to wait with their buses on the Island and eventually set off eleven hours later than planned.

So it wasn’t a huge surprise, when the boat docked at Portsmouth at 0145 hrs, as we stood on the quayside waiting for 303 and 309 to be brought off, that the four Reading buses roared past us with scarcely a smile, let alone a wave as they set off for the long journey home.

303 and 309 appeared moments later, as did the Emsworth bus, but there was no-one waiting to collect it!  The Vectis driver was panicking as he had to go back as foot passenger on the same boat, so Taz and I took responsibility for the Emsworth bus, parked it, isolated it and secured it as best we could.

Subsequently – and I only have it as hearsay that this is true – we learned that the Emsworth driver had been in Portsmouth, in plenty of time, but became so bored waiting that he decided to go over to the Island as a foot passenger to retrieve his bus himself.  Whether he didn’t realise that there was more than one boat on the route, or whether he simply misunderstood the timetable is not clear, but evidently as he sailed across the Solent, he passed his bus going the other way about half way across!

This delayed Taz and I by about five minutes, but it was with huge satisfaction that we caught up with the Reading Spectras on the M27 at Bursledon and romped past them with theatrical waves galore!

303 and 309 went back to the Island the following year, with much less excitement on very capacious Red Funnel ferries, but in doing so gave me the opportunity to capture this shot of 309 on Shanklin seafront.

By this time next week the likelihood is that these vehicles will be no more, but they will always be fondly remembered as the vehicles that gave us our first start in the world of bus operation!

A Life Changing Experience

Some people might think things have been a little quiet here lately. That’s partly due to pressure of work – we started operating two new routes in Winchester on 11th June, and the workload involved for a company of our size to get those kind of routes off the ground is immense.

This is particularly true when we are also bringing new acquisitions into the fleet in the form of our four ex-Dawson Rentals DAF DB250 double deckers, all of which are being refurbished internally.

 However, sometimes life has a way of deflecting you from your intended course, and so it proved one Wednesday night in June, when my 66-year old mother fell down a concrete staircase at her home in Bedford, fracturing her skull and two vertebrae in her spine, breaking ribs and puncturing her lungs.

 After a night in Bedford Hospital she was transferred to a neurological ward at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, where she spent a few nights clearly very ill, but apparently alert and in fighting spirit. However, a sudden and sharp decline in her condition saw her taken into intensive care in the Neurosciences Critical Care Unit (NCCU) at Addenbrooke’s, where she has been ever since.

Over the first few days in NCCU – and despite a successful operation to repair a vertebra in her thorassic spine – her condition continued to deteriorate, with a serious chest infection taking hold. She was placed under almost constant sedation, kept alive by a series of machines. Eight days after the accident, the senior medical staff there raised the possibility for the first time that they might have to withdraw treatment and let nature take its course.

However, the following day they decided she was well enough to undergo further surgery and performed a life-saving operation to repair the spinal column in the base of her neck – a delicate procedure that required entry through both the front and back of her neck.

 This proved to be the turning point, and since then Mum’s condition has very slowly but surely improved. She is now awake and alert much of the time, no longer breathing or feeding through machines. Use of her limbs is gradually returning, and her mental faculties are returning to the point where she can usually – though not always - recognise visitors and identify our names and what relationship we are to her. She is also sometimes able to construct very simple sentences of a few words, to communicate that she is hot or cold or thirsty or whatever.

 It is hoped that she will be out of NCCU in a day or two and back in a normal ward, where they can begin the process of rehabilitation and teaching her how to carry out very basic functions for herself, such as eating or getting dressed. Nobody knows how much cognitive ability she will regain, or how quickly, and we sense that we are in for a long, slow process.

 For me, ten trips to Addenbrooke’s in the first two weeks meant that everything else in my life was placed on hold. Luckily I have an excellent team at Velvet who have kept things going superbly well, despite all the challenges of the additional routes and vehicles. I am now travelling to Cambridge two or three times per week and gradually getting back into a more normal work routine.

 I have toyed with writing about this episode several times before now, but always shied away from it for fear of appearing self-indulgent. But many friends and contacts have been aware that something was wrong with Mum and haven’t really known what, so this post allows me to put that right, as well as thanking the many people who have very kindly offered their support in all sorts of ways. It is deeply appreciated.

 As someone who has always hated hospitals it seems odd to have one of Europe’s largest hospital campuses as my second home, but without this experience I would never have come to appreciate the work of some of the world’s leading neurological specialists and the fine team that supports them,

 To enter the NCCU is to enter a science fiction film set. In beds all around the room lie motionless bodies, each sprouting a multitude of lines and tubes connecting them to a profusion of machines. Everywhere you look are blinking lights, computer screens, graphs, wires and unfeasibly large syringes, silently and relentlessly pumping their subjects full of the most specialised drugs you will find.

 But rather than paint a picture of my own, I can do no better than highlight this article from the Daily Telegraph in 2010, which emphasises the delicate tightrope they continually tread in making decisions about whether people should live or die. I am in awe of these people.

 But for now the important thing is that Mum appears to be out of immediate danger and slowly on the mend, and my attention can start to return to the usual mixture of rambling travelogues, amusing observations and occasional outbursts on matters of topical importance, for which many people very kindly come to this blog!

i recommend this blog

One of my long-standing criticisms of the bus industry - and one of the reasons for setting up my own company, although we are barely out of the starting blocks ourselves - was because I have always felt that bus companies get the relationship with the customer entirely the wrong way round.

For any retail business, the process of designing a product ought to start by developing an understanding of what the likely market is, what are the expectations of that market, what are the important factors that will drive purchasing decisions, and then how to position the product to take best advantage of the opportunity that exists.

In other words, good product design should be a response to the market signalling what it wants. The marketing and branding strategy for that product should then follow through in one seamless process, communicating to the market how the company has met the perceived demand.

Sadly in too many cases, bus companies fail to understand that they are retail businesses and look at product design through the wrong end of the telescope. Faceless bureaucrats in remote offices (and by the way, that used to be me) decide what the market shall have. There is no research base or evidence base to substantiate their decisions, the whole process is based on educated guesswork.

The role of marketing in this case is reduced to dressing a pre-determined product, which is entirely wrong. Marketing (and within that, branding) is seen as a bolt-on activity, designed to make the output of the faceless bureaucrats look somehow appealing to the potential users.

Because this is not marketing in the true sense, it doesn't necessarily attract people with the right skills or motivation. Their efforts may therefore be limited to short run promotional campaigns, that are not applied consistently to all media, or may rely too heavily on one-off photo opportunities and press releases, and fail to understand the need for sustained (and 'open all hours') dialogue with users.

Now I'm not saying that this never produces the right result. As luck would have it, the faceless bureaucrats are often very experienced, skillful, talented people who may know have a good understanding of what they are trying to achieve; and the marketing people may well be very creative, inspired communicators who know how to bring life to even the most mundane of products.

So all is not lost. But to achieve success in this way is to achieve it despite, rather than because of, the business's approach to product design. Because of this, I would argue that the results are generally harder to achieve and inferior to what would be achieved if the company understood and implemented the process properly from the start.

One company that epitomises how to do it properly is trent barton. At this point some readers will groan and think "not them again", as they are no strangers to the trade and local media. But yes, them again, because the reason they achieve the success they do is precisely because their whole business is aligned to understanding the needs of their customers and then designing products to address those needs, rather than designing products in isolation and then trying to make them fit the customers.

I mention them because they are currently in the process of relaunching rainbow 4 as i4, and a more comprehensive approach to refreshing a product it would be hard to find anywhere. In my opinion, they have taken product design in the bus industry to the next level with this project.

You can read more about the actual relaunch here, but the real purpose of my post today is to draw attention to a new blog, transportdesigned, which looks very promising and has got off to a great start today with a really insightful post analysing trent barton's approach to product design, with particular reference to the relaunch of i4. Strongly recommended reading - you can do so here.

Overheard...

A new Travelodge has opened in Eastleigh, opposite the railway station. It's perfect for me, being half way between the yard and the office. I need never go home! I'm looking forward to being invited round to view and select my personal suite in the very near future.

Meanwhile the new hotel was the hot topic of conversation between two senior citizens chatting in Eastleigh bus station one morning this week.

"There's absolutely no need for the new Travelodge", said one of them, "nobody ever needs to stay the night in Eastleigh anyway".

"You're right", agreed the other, "and Eastleigh's traffic is gridlocked. The Travelodge will just push it over the edge!"

Reasons not to get BSOGged down

It is not very often that I use this blog to comment on topical issues. However, one subject has been troubling me greatly of late, so I am interrupting the usual stream of travelogues and whimsical observations on daily life in a bus company, to bring you my thoughts on the forthcoming cut in BSOG.

As most readers will know, the rate of Bus Service Operators’ Grant will reduce by twenty per cent from the start of April, as part of the government’s wider assault on public expenditure in all its forms.

The industry in England found out about this cut nearly eighteen months ago so we have had plenty of time to prepare for it.

However in the last few weeks, as the realisation dawns that this change is imminent, there seems to have been a sudden increase in the volume of protest, with much comment from industry insiders and observers predicting dire negative effects for bus companies as a result of this reduction.

I find myself unable to agree with those taking this position, and I really worry that this crescendo of dissenting voices could cause far more damage to the industry than the cut itself ever will.

Clearly it is always going to be difficult to swallow any reduction in support for our industry. We can all recite many reasons why a strong and prosperous bus network is an important feature of a well functioning society. While the industry cherishes the opportunity afforded by its deregulated status to innovate and attract new users, most would agree that interventions in the form of BSOG, support for socially necessary services and (perhaps more contentiously) concessionary fares, strengthen the quality and quantity of service provision overall.

However, there are many other industries whose fortunes rely to a greater or lesser extent on government funding, and all could no doubt put up an equally impassioned argument as to why that support should not dwindle.

In Norman Baker MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, it seems to me that the industry has a friend. I have not met him, but I have heard him speak on several occasions and been impressed every time. The impression gained from those who have regular dealings with him is that he is positively inclined towards public transport, and bus travel within that.

In the context of cuts faced by other parts of government, and recognising that prior to the October 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review there were widespread predictions that BSOG would be further reduced or would disappear altogether, my impression is that the industry has got away far more lightly than we might have done.

For Velvet, the reduction in BSOG will increase our total costs by two per cent. Unwelcome certainly, but hardly the end of the world.

From some of the comments I have seen whistling about in the last few weeks, you would gain the impression that this will bring the industry to its knees. Frankly, if the industry is in such a state that a two per cent increase in its costs will have that effect, we are in a very poor state indeed.

Yes there may be a need for some fare increases to bridge the gap – we are businesses after all and do have to balance the books – but these need hardly be at a level that will drive customers away in their millions. And to be honest, with eighteen months’ notice, I would hope that any commercially aware company would have been planning for this change long ago, and using the range of tools and skills at our disposal to improve our products and drive organic growth.

There are those who would argue that by accepting this cut with minimal protest, we send the message that we are an easy target for further cuts in the future.

By contrast, I would argue that by accepting that we cannot be exempt from reductions in public expenditure, by acknowledging that we have avoided a potentially far worse fate, and by adopting a positive “can do” approach to continuing to develop our businesses and attract more people to public transport, we will demonstrate to the minister, to government as a whole and to other observers that we can be trusted as responsible custodians of public money.

The alternative position – to resist and oppose this cut – will portray us as negative and uncooperative. If I were the minister faced with such a volume of opposition to what seems really to be a pretty tame measure, I might just be asking myself how much I would really want to place my faith in these private bus companies, and whether it might be time to look again at the commercial freedom we enjoy.

That’s why I cannot support those of my colleagues who have chosen to adopt a confrontional stance towards this measure, even though I hold many of them in the highest regard as individuals and respect them greatly. Instead I would exhort my fellow operators to invest our time in showing the watching world that we have the energy, spirit and self-belief to overcome the challenge that the reduction in BSOG represents, and that we will not allow it to deter us from our mission to showcase the bus as the mode of choice for the nation’s future transport needs.