Making an impact

While I know that two posts in the same year represents a 100 per cent increase in my normal productivity levels on here, I thought it was time for an update. Many people seem to have been aware that things changed for me job-wise recently, but from the questions I've received it's clear that many people (of those who are kind enough to be interested) aren't too sure what it is I'm actually doing now, and even more don't know enough about my employer. So, let's start with where I am now, then fill in a bit of history and finally talk about some exciting stuff that's going on.

In Defence of Local Brands

Almost a year since my last post (I know, but I’ve been busy) I’ve decided to bring the old blog roaring back to life, as I feel moved to respond to an article by the Creative Director of MHD Partnership, published in the most recent issue of Passenger Transport magazine.

Mapping The Future

Yesterday, Citymapper reinvented the bus for the smart city era and gave us... a bus.

The Way Ahead for Bus Advertising?

While it may not be the highest profile issue confronting the industry today, the merit of on-bus advertising is a subject about which many industry professionals hold strong opinions, and occasionally the debate gets an airing in public.

Is 'transport on demand' the future for rural public transport?

 

Rural bus services are under threat.  Increasingly we hear of local authorities threatening drastic reductions or even complete removal of their budgets for supporting unprofitable bus services, with the risk that communities may be cut off from the public transport network.

 

Understandably, those affected protest against such cuts, for fear of being isolated and unable to access essential services for education, health, shopping, work or the simple independence of being able to get out and about without having to drive a car or rely on a lift.

 

They are joined in their protests by observers with an interest in good public transport, who bemoan the loss of any service, every cut in public expenditure on buses, as a threat to the future of the industry.

 

But is a reliance on heavily subsidised but often lightly used fixed route bus services, really the best way forward for public transport in deep rural areas?  Or is there an alternative solution that couples the imagination of operators with emerging technology to provide a more flexible, agile solution with commercial potential?

Skylink Flying High

It's exciting enough that I get to spend a healthy chunk of my time doing network design and commercial planning for trentbarton.  But for an aviation geek like me, when it involves airports as well, the enjoyment level goes off the scale!

What makes a MAN a man?

Amid all the glamour and sparkle of life at the sharp end of the East Midlands bus industry, we've been quietly getting on with a little refurbishment project in the background at TM that is actually one of the most rewarding things we've done.

Access all areas

Despite my best efforts to think of myself as a young, up-and-coming manager, still in the early stages of what will one day prove to be a long and distinguished career, I can't ignore the mounting evidence that I'm getting older.

2016 will mark the twenty fifth anniversary of my arrival in the industry.  I work with people who weren't even born when I first graced the offices of Buffalo Travel in that long hot summer of 1991.  (I have no idea whether it was actually long and hot but I was eighteen and the world was my oyster so that's how I choose to think of it).

The latest damning evidence of my ascension to middle age will arrive at the stroke of midnight tomorrow.

Star gazing

Photo:  Ray Stenning

One of the landmark moments of my career was the creation of the Bluestar brand in 2004.

Eleven years on, the brand has gone from strength to strength.  Many of the original routes have seen repeated investment in new vehicles and marketing, frequencies have grown and the network has expanded.  Within the last year, an outbreak of intense competition in the Southampton bus network has resulted in the creation of a number of new routes within the city area.  Most recently, a fleet of brand new Enviro 200MMCs - among the first in the country - has been entering service on the busy cross-city Bluestar 18.

Taking advantage of a rare midweek trip back to the south coast, I decided it was time to go for a ride and see how they are protecting my legacy!

Making The Point Beautifully

One of the most absorbing and stimulating blogs around is The Beauty of Transport, written by freelance transport writer Daniel Wright.

In it, he highlights the role of design and architecture in the world of transport, and the relationship between transport and culture.

His articles typically feature detailed descriptions of big transport projects of architectural significance, or analysis of particular examples of art and design - or the artists themselves - and their influence on the world of transport.

It's the best kind of blog, where you head there planning to have a quick look at whatever's new this week and then find yourself clicking on another title that looks interesting, and another, and another, and hours later realise you've been completely absorbed and totally failed to do whatever it was you were planning to do before you decided to just spend a couple of minutes in front of the computer.

That's one of the reasons why I'm a little late bringing you this post.  I've been meaning to do it for a while, but each time I sit down to write it I end up reading more of his older articles and then find I've run out of time.

But two months ago Daniel wrote one article in particular that I want to highlight.  It explains in as clear a fashion as I've ever seen, why good design and branding are important in creating successful, attractive transport systems, and why those of us involved in providing transport should aspire to high standards of design in all that we do, and not settle for bland, mundane, unappealing design that will simply turn off potential users.

You can find the article here.

Rapid response bus stop team

It's not normally my style to name and shame fellow operators publicly, but as I was giving Cardiff Bus and NAT what I hope were largely positive reviews of their services - and they both appear to be doing a good job, let's be clear about that - I didn't feel bad about giving them each a gentle poke in the ribs for one or two things that were not as good as they could be.  But they could have taken exception to my comments.

All credit therefore to Gareth Stevens of Cardiff Bus for a very positive response.  Within 24 hours of my post, he had scrambled the Cardiff Bus rapid response bus stop maintenance team.  The unsightly bus stop flag that I had spotted on my travels was immediately replaced, and here's the evidence:  (Apologies for the poor quality of the photo, which my phone appears to have mangled somewhere during the process)

 
Twelve years have passed since I left the South Wales bus scene, but it's nice to know I can still wield some little influence.  I'm sure the good citizens of Cardiff will be holding street parties to celebrate my efforts on their behalf.  But of course the credit goes to Gareth and his team - it's much appreciated guys!

Cardiff in the rain

One of the more intriguing outbreaks of competition recently in the UK bus industry has been in Cardiff, where the large and growing independent NAT launched a new cross-city route X1 against incumbent Cardiff Bus in May 2015.

The new route was of particular note because NAT acquired ten brand new Optare MetroCity single deckers for its operation - a huge investment in such a speculative new project.  At the time, the Managing Director of NAT Kevyn Jones stated that the new project was a genuine attempt to grow the bus market in Cardiff by providing among other things quality vehicles, new cross-city links, a high frequency including on Sundays and a new link to the western retail area of Culverhouse Cross.

After Cardiff Bus got into rather a lot of trouble last time they tried to fend off competition, there was a great deal of interest in how they would respond to this challenge.  NAT then added further spice to the mixture with their infamous "ride me all day for £3" campaign promoting their day ticket.  And indeed most of the competitive sparring between them seems to have been around pricing and ticketing, with not much apparent sign of Cardiff Bus having made any network changes in response to the new offer.

Using the excuse of Luton Town's visit to Newport County as justification for a weekend in Wales, I braved gale force winds and torrential rain to sample the service today along with a couple of journeys on Cardiff Bus routes around the city.

At Large In Prague

Tourism is clearly a vital part of Prague's economy and I don't begrudge them a single penny that they earn from the thousands of tourists that flock to the city's many attractions each day.

Indeed, with the benefit of such stimulating and erudite company as Ray Stenning, I thoroughly enjoyed half a day wandering round sights that I would never normally give a second look.

However, my personal interest in a strange city does not come from its tourist hotspots.  Instead, I like to get out into the suburbs and see where and how people live.  Those fearsome matriarchs guarding the entrances to the monuments and cathedrals; the hotel receptionists and restaurant waiters and waitresses - I want to see where they go back to each night.

Maybe it seems a little voyeuristic, or even patronising.  But it's not borne out of anything other than a genuine curiosity to see what makes cities different from each other, and to gain a little more insight into what makes a place tick than can ever be found by trailing round ancient monuments.

And of course, it's a damn good opportunity to try out the public transport.

Prague (part 3): On the tourist trail

If you've spent the last week gripped with suspense and eager anticipation, awaiting insightful analysis from Prague's premier exposition of railway carriage accessories, you'll just have to wait a little longer.

Like a pair of opportunistic tarts hoping to achieve fame and notoriety with a sordid kiss-and-tell exposé, Ray Stenning and I have granted world exclusive rights to the story of our visit to the Railway Interiors Expo to the leading trade journal.  So you'll have to go there for your gratification - I'll tell you how to find it once I know whether they are actually going to publish it, or whether we are doomed to end up as a forgotten afterthought on the cutting room floor.

In the meantime, I'll fill in with some thoughts from a day and a half on the tourist trail and exploring Prague's public transport network.

Estonian Air is dead. Long live Estonian air

I am sad to learn that Estonia's national airline, Estonian Air, has ceased operations as of today.  Evidently the European Commission has ruled that subsidies paid to the airline amount to illegal state aid and must be repaid, and as the airline is in no position to pay back the reported £85 million owed, the Estonian Government has declared that it has no alternative but to close it down.

While I have not followed their recent fortunes closely, it's an airline that has a place in my heart because they provided me with one of my more memorable flights, when I flew from Helsinki to Tallinn in 1993 on an old Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-134 just like this...

Prague (Part 2): Terminal Tedium

I have never been bumped off a flight before.  I'm sure I have been on many that have been overbooked where other people might have been "denied boarding" (that's the polite phrase for it) but it has never happened to me.  And I'm not sure I really ever thought it would.  But it did, and that's how I came to spend seven and a half hours in Terminal 3.

Prague (Part 1): Setting the Scene

Although many bus companies have made great strides in improving the quality of the bus interior, I still believe that there is a lot for the industry to learn in this respect.  Although we are very good at creating interior designs that are pleasing to the eye and highly functional, the vast majority of the industry has no marketing insight into how our customers feel about what we give them.

The Witchway Saves The Day

In the interests of full disclosure, I am an admirer of Alex Hornby, CEO of Transdev Blazefield, and lucky to count him as a good mate so I might be slightly biased.

 

But today Alex drew my attention to this short film produced by his team and it deserves the widest possible audience. 

 

So much bus industry marketing and promotion is stale and formulaic and wouldn't know a boundary if it saw one - far less push it. So it is really refreshing to see something that is genuinely creative and original, and well put together. 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday

Yesterday was a very important day - deregulation was 29 years old.

26th October 1986 was the day.  I'd love to say I remember it well but actually nothing much happened in my world.

I was a mere thirteen year old living in the sleepy Bedfordshire town of Shefford at the time.  I was certainly interested in Buses and just becoming a regular reader of BUSES magazine, so I was fascinated by all these stories about dramatic bus wars in other parts of the country, but in mid-Beds a kind of phoney war was underway.

The View Ahead

I caught up with the November issue of BUSES Magazine today.

In passing, I thoroughly enjoyed the article about how bus services are provided in Stockholm - of particular interest because I was in Sweden briefly earlier this summer, albeit in the very south of the country around Malmö and Helsingborg, and it's always fascinating to compare different approaches to service provision.  I might even write about that trip at some point.

However the best bit of the magazine was the 'Inside Track' article by Roger French.  Some people might know that I have the privilege of writing that column myself every three months, but in Roger and Julian Peddle I am flanked by two much more knowledgeable, experienced and lucid fellow columnists and I always go straight to their columns.