South Yorkshire Bus Service Needs Improvement

[Resident 1,193]

6 hours ago, Planner1 said:

Budget levels for subsidising services are limited. They don't have enough to subsidise an ever increasing number of services, especially when costs are increasing too.

 

The government would have to give them more money to  subsidise services. It's a national problem isn't it? They're having similar issues in  a lot of places.

But he was given money from government. He chose to waste it on the city connect and giving adults access to child fares...

 

[Andy C 86]

Update on Powells bus company - all buses will be off road by 5pm today, administrators in. 

 

 

Details of services affected at https://travelsouthyorkshire.com/en-gb/newsupdates/service-changes

 

Edited August 5, 2022 by Andy C

[Guest busdriver1]

7 hours ago, Planner1 said:

Budget levels for subsidising services are limited. They don't have enough to subsidise an ever increasing number of services, especially when costs are increasing too.

 

The government would have to give them more money to  subsidise services. It's a national problem isn't it? They're having similar issues in  a lot of places.

So, a few years ago, a deal was done whereby a massive amount of tendered services were returned to commercial operation with the operators being allowed to cross subsidise services to allow this to happen. This was the Sheffield bus Agreement, the one introduced at gunpoint by the PTE. This resulted in a MASSIVE reduction in tendered services paid for by the PTE and yet more reductions in operators already poor profits. If we look back 20 years the tendered provision was approx 10 times what it is now and operators are running at a loss and its the operators fault?  All councils and PTE's for whatever reason have drastically cut their funding for tendered services and have been very keen to make this look like the operators being greedy. The whole concept of Deregulation hinged on ALL parties playing their part. In general, the bus companies have done so, (with one or two minor exceptions). Remember this when the Council / PTE say they want control of the buses. They have reneged on the small involvement they have had and brought about this crisis.

[BigAl1 143]

18 hours ago, LovePotion said:

Yes, it is correct. Let me break it down for you:- Each tram train will incur:-

 

Access charges from Network Rail, this will happen every time the tram goes beyond Meadowhall. 

 

Higher staffing costs, the driver and conductor will need to be trained in mainline safety, such as how to evacuate a tram on a mainline railway, route knowledge, track-side walking safety knowledge.

 

Penalties will be charged if the trams run late and delay mainline services. These can be hundreds of pounds for a single delay on the mainline railway. 

 

Are you telling me that carrying 28 passengers (on a good day), with most services only having 4 or 5 people going beyond Meadowhall is a financially viable operation? Bear in mind that not all of these will be paying full fare and some may be travelling on ENCTS cards, where Stagecoach will receive a minimal payment for the journey the passenger has made.

I would be very interested to know if you could tell us just how much has been paid in fines to Network Rail for the late running of the Tram Train.

 

Fines on the main line railway are imposed for trains that are either over 5 or 10 minutes late (depending on route) and I suspect that as far as Supertram are concerned that far more likely than late running they would divert/cancel a tram train to Meadowhall if it was likely to trigger any fine . Sure if it breaks down on Network Rail track they may well incur a liability but I suspect this is such a rare occurrence as not to be a significant cost

 

I do not know what the contract is with Network rail but worth remembering that compensation is also paid by network rail (and guilty train companies) to operators whose trains are delayed

 

I do not disagree with the thrust of your argument that this is a financial joke with no hope of turning a genuine profit (unless big write offs) but as previously stated this was an experiment to see if trains in the UK could run on network rail routes - a very expensive one albeit

[RollingJ 2,043]

4 minutes ago, LovePotion said:

How long before an experiment stops being an experiment?!

Dunno - but if you did a search, I'm sure you'll find the details of the trial.

[Bargepole23 337]

Just now, LovePotion said:

There are certain things that cannot be disclosed, as they are comercially sensitive data. I wish the public purse was better used on things that the public wants/needs.

Different sectors of the public want different things. You don't want trams, I do. I want more trams connected to more buses and more trains.

 

Letting the public decide is fine if they are fully informed about the benefits and consequences and they can be trusted to decide objectively. I would say that's not very often true.

[BigAl1 143]

19 minutes ago, LovePotion said:

How long before an experiment stops being an experiment?!

The pilot was I believe for a two year period  but once having bought the trams and done the construction work and spent some £75m in the process then Stagecoach/PTE are only looking at the marginal costs of operating. The question is therefore do they think they can get better value for money by using these trams only on the tram network and given that the introduction of these 7 new trams resulted in a reduced frequency from 6 trams an hour to 5 then probably not.

[BigAl1 143]

7 minutes ago, LovePotion said:

There are certain things that cannot be disclosed, as they are comercially sensitive data. I wish the public purse was better used on things that the public wants/needs.

would you care to be more specific as to what can not be disclosed

 

 there is plenty of information in the public arena already about the tram train and the idea that the data is commercially sensitive means simply if you believe that fine but really it is because we are embarrassed to disclose the information. Perhaps you might explain why the national railway and train companies are able to provide such detailed info on usage of their trains and not Stagecoach/PTE on the trams.

 

 

[BigAl1 143]

3 minutes ago, LovePotion said:

If you were in charge of the PTE, would you want the public to know about a scheme you participated in sinking money?

Oh please get real

 

There is masses of information in the public arena about the cost of the scheme and the budget and timing over runs it is not a secret.

 

You might consider answering the question rather than simply posing another one

[RollingJ 2,043]

25 minutes ago, LovePotion said:

There are certain things that cannot be disclosed, as they are comercially sensitive data. I wish the public purse was better used on things that the public wants/needs.

I am fairly certain the details of the trial will be available - might take a bit of digging, though.

 

**See posts above**

Edited August 6, 2022 by RollingJ

[RollingJ 2,043]

Just now, LovePotion said:

 

Feel free to submit a Freedom Of Information request. I doubt details such as the cost of training staff to work on the mainline and union agreements will be wilfully disclosed though.

I said 'details of the trial' - i.e. the aims and outcomes - not the costs, which are only of interest to those who want to complain. This was a viability trial.

[BigAl1 143]

1 minute ago, LovePotion said:

 

Feel free to submit a Freedom Of Information request. I doubt details such as the cost of training staff to work on the mainline and union agreements will be wilfully disclosed though.

keep digging LovePotion you are just getting desperate now and have hijacked a thread about buses with a load of uniformed tosh. Do you really think staff training  is the make and break of the experiment and any decision to keep the tram train.

 

You sound just like the PR people trying to muddy the waters as they attempt to evade the issue hoping people will believe  whatever they are told

4 minutes ago, RollingJ said:

I said 'details of the trial' - i.e. the aims and outcomes - not the costs, which are only of interest to those who want to complain. This was a viability trial.

she is in a world of her own just digging a deeper hole every time she responds and doesn't know when to shut up

 

There is of course the issue of what to do in the future in terms of do they continue to operate the service but the decision will not rest on the cost of staff training which is insignificant in the bigger picture of overall viability