Change at the top at Stagecoach

Matt Cranwell, out-going MD at Stagecoach Cumbria & N Lancs.

         (c) Stagecoach

Bus industry trade journal Route One has reported big changes at Stagecoach. The company has created a "Business Change Team" to be run by a yet-to-be-named director and run by senior managers to create a major change to the way its UK bus division is run.

Stagecoach says: “The innovative new programme is designed to ensure Stagecoach is fit for the future across all parts of its UK Bus business and includes aspects relating to people, customers, commercial, safety and technology.”

The programme will be led by a newly-appointed Business Change Director. Stagecoach is “currently finalising this appointment and expects to confirm details shortly.”

But this development also has local implications, with a number of senior managers moving to new roles within the group.  One such is Stagecoach Cumbria and North Lancashire Managing Director Matt Cranwell, who is moving to manage Stagecoach East Midlands.

Matt Cranwell began his career in Stagecoach South through the company's graduate training programme in 2004. After holding several managerial posts, he joined Stagecoach Cumbria and North Lancashire in 2012 as Operations Director. He then moved to Stagecoach North East as Operations Director in 2013 before being appointed MD, Stagecoach Cumbria and North Lancashire in 2015.

Mark Whitelocks (c) Stagecoach

He will be replaced in the top job at Carlisle by Mark Whitelocks, also a product of Stagecoach's graduate training scheme,  who has previously held managerial positions at Stagecoach West and Stagecoach South West. In September 2013 he took on the role of Operations Director at Stagecoach East Scotland before being appointed MD, Stagecoach North Scotland in 2016.

Whilst it would appear that "our" bit of Stagecoach (Cumbria & North Lancs.) is seen as a stepping stone for Stagecoach's younger high-fliers bound for greater things, the Bus Users' Group will be sorry to see Matt Cranwell go.  Matt and his team have been co-operative with the Group and always ready to listen to what we have to say.  Under his leadership the company has actively sought out the views of bus users before making changes and, where possible, has adapted those changes to better suit the needs of passengers.

In a message to the Bus Users Group following the announcement Matt said:

I have very much enjoyed my time here and so I will be sad to go. I really appreciate all the support and constructive feedback we have had from the Lancaster Bus Users Group during my time here, that has helped shape our ideas and business to meet the needs of the customers. 

My successor will certainly appreciate this continued strong relationship we have. It is currently looking like the 18th June as a start date, once he has tied up lose ends in North Scotland.   

The Bus Users Group is looking forward to welcoming Mark Whitelocks to his new role and to working with him to continue to develop the good working relationship that has grown up between the Group and the company.

Shock Change to Bus Service Registration Procedure

The application form available today on the DaFT website (note the date at the top)

The Department for Transport's official abbreviation is DfT, but sometimes (quite a lot of the time actually) it appears to live up to its unofficial acronym DaFT!

One such example has just come to light with a significant change to the procedure that bus operators must follow to notify changes to their services being introduced with no notice whatsoever, not even to the government body responsible for processing applications!

Bus industy publication Bus and Coach Buyer reported:

Concern has been raised over the lack of communication between the government and the PCV industry over changes made to bus service regulations.

The Public Service Vehicles (Registration of Local Services) (Amendment) Regulations 2018 came into force on 24 April and apply only to England. A key change is to the notice period to start or vary a bus service, which has been reduced from 56 to 42 days. It calls for every authority through whose area the service passes to be sent a form to confirm that they have been pre-notified.

The OTC will start the 42-day period when it receives an application with the relevant local authorities’ confirmations attached. If a council does not respond within 28 days, the operator can submit the registration anyway. The regulation change also means that when a service is reduced or cancelled, the authority can require information on the number of passenger journeys, details of the types of passenger, the journeys they make and the fares they pay.

The government’s intention to make the changes were announced while discussing secondary legislation under the Bus Services Act.

Stone King: ‘operators caught out’

Andrew Banks, partner at Bus & Coach Buyer’s legal experts, Stone King LLP, said: “The key change in the regulations is that although the notice period to start or vary a bus service has been reduced from 56 to 42 days the OTC will only start the 42-day time period when an application is received from the operator together with confirmations from local authorities who have bus stops on the route that they have been pre-notified of the change. The local authorities effectively have 28 days to confirm as if they fail to respond after that time the operator can submit the registration in any event. The impact on operators will be to introduce what may amount to an additional 14 days before a variation can be introduced.

“If a local authority does not respond or uses the full notice period it could be effectively 70 days before a variation completes the notice period. The current requirements can be cumbersome enough for operators but this potentially makes planning ahead more vital and further reduces flexibility in an operator’s practice. It is a pity there was no consultation on this change as operators were caught cold regarding the change. In terms of planning operators will probably need to be pessimistic and consider a 70-day lead in time to be the norm rather than the 56 days that provided some certainty before.

“Whether at this late stage it is worth making representations to the DfT is a moot point but the regulation is here to stay, at least for now.”

CPT’s Chief Executive, Simon Posner, said: “It is very disappointing that such a fundamental change to the bus service registration process has been made without warning. This has caused huge concern for operators seeking to register services, and has allowed no time for the industry or local authorities to adapt their processes.

CPT has raised this with DfT officials who have confirmed that guidance and advice to operators and local authorities is being prepared as a matter of urgency. DfT has also agreed to consider whether a period of grace could be offered in respect of registration applications made after the immediate introduction of the new arrangements.”

Public Service Vehicles (Registration of Local Services) (Amendment) Regulations 2018 can be seen in full here: https://goo.gl/z3rLMh

BUG Chair, Jim Davies commented:

"Although the bus industry is often described as "deregulated", in practice it is subject to a number of restrictions on the way it operates, not all of which act in the interest of passengers. Previously, operators had to give 56-days notice to the Traffic Commissioners and local authorities of their intention to start, end or alter bus services.  Part of the reason for this was to allow local councils to evaluate the changes and to decide, in the case of a service reduction or withdrawal, whether to organise a replacement service. However, with more and more councils, including Cumbria and Lancashire, deciding not to replace withdrawn buses as a matter of policy this has become less and less relevant. But the notice period applies equally to operators wishing to make improvements to timetables or introduce new services. In these cases the notice period was designed to protect other bus companies who may be running similar services and to allow them time to respond, but the reality these days is that such instances of on-road competition are few and far between. The main effect of the notice period is therefore to delay the introduction of improvements unnecessarily. That 56 days has now been extended potentially to 70 days and operators will in effect have to make two separate applications - one to the traffic commissioner and one to the council. It also introduces a degree of uncertainty as to when a proposed change will be approved, depending as it now will on the speed of response of the local authority.

Irrrespective of the merits of the revised procedure it is almost beyond belief that a responsible government department could make such a significant change to procedure WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE AT ALL!

Next Stop Please! (Whatever it's called)

The Bus Users' Group has long held the view that one of the biggest barriers to people using buses for the first time - or to go somewhere they haven't been before by bus - is uncertainty and the fear of waiting in the wrong place at the wrong time for the wrong bus.

The best way of overcoming this is to ensure that information - on where stops are, when buses run  and which bus goes where - is presented logically, clearly and consistently.  Consistency is important because research has shown that a prospective passenger will often make several enquiries, using different sources, before committing themselves to an unfamiliar journey. Unfortunately some bus operators - and other information providers -  don't help here, especially when it comes to telling people where to wait.

Once public transport information started to become available online the need to identify the name and location of bus stops became apparent. The location of every stop in Britain is now contained in a database, together with a unique identity code and an official stop name. This data is made available to online map providers, such as Google Maps and is a great help to passengers needing to find out exactly where their buses go from (and arrive at).

Here are some screenshots from Google Maps showing the stop at Carlisle Bridge on the Lancaster to Morecambe road.

Bus stop locations clearly shown

Clicking on the stop symbol brings up information
(note the stop name and ID code)

A third click gives you the times.

For this system to work to maximum potential the bus stop names need to be shown consistently across all sources of information.  A potential passenger that has discovered via Google Maps or Traveline that he needs to catch a bus at, say, "Carlisle Bridge" would be disconcerted if he or she then discovered that the stop had been given a different name on the "bus stop" sign or in the timetable leaflet they had also consulted.  This can happen. One of the Bus Users' Group's first projects was to get Lancashire County Council and Stagecoach to agree on common stop names for a lengthy section of Greaves Road in Lancaster where some stops had one name on the map, another one on the sign and sometimes a third on the shelter or the timetable display!

For reasons best known to themselves, bus companies have been slow to adopt the official names in many cases.  Perhaps it's a case of "not invented here" as stops are named by the county council, which controls the database. As we shall see, in some cases the official names appear to have been arrived at without the benefit of local knowledge and therefore don't match the names used by passengers (who ought to know best!).

But the BUG was pleased to see that in the latest (22 April 2018) Stagecoach timetable leaflet for services 6/6A (Lancaster - Westgate - Morecambe) a number of timing points have been renamed and now follow the official designations in the national database.

Compare  the previous (29th January)  timetable. . . .

. . . with the latest version:

Ignore, for the moment, the use of "Lancaster, City Centre Bus Station". This description, with varying punctuation ("Lancaster City Centre,  Bus Station" at times) replaced the former "Lancaster, Bus Station" on most, but not all, timetables in the January editions. The BUG doesn't think this is a good idea. It's not the official name, it suggests that Lancaster might have more than one bus station, which is not the case and whatever its other merits the station itself is not particularly "central" to the shopping area.

On a more positive note, "Westgate, Gringley Road" has become "Westgate, Hawkshead Drive", which is its official name. There is more than one stop on Gringley Road so the new designation makes it clearer where the timing point actually is.  Similarly, "Westgate, Bartholomew Road" has replaced "Westgate, Hampsfell Drive/Altham". Again the name now matches that shown on the map, whilst "Morecambe, Morrisons" is now "Morecambe, Festival Market" which not only matches the name shown on the map but actually makes it clear which side of the dual-carriageway Central Drive is being referred to.

But this policy, whilst welcome, is not without its pitfalls.  Take the stop at "Asda, Lancaster". This stop also serves the nearby Salt Ayre Leisure Centre and prior to January was described in timetables as "Asda / Salt Ayre Leisure Centre". The use of the official name (with "Lancaster" added) unfortunately means that there is now no reference to the Leisure Centre in the timetable at all.  Similarly, there is now no reference to Hampsfell Drive in the timetable, despite this being shown as the destination on the front of service 6 buses. (Perhaps a simple "Westgate" would be better?)

There is another problem with "Asda" in that the two stops on Northgate, on the opposite side of Ovangle Road, also served by the 6A, are also officially designated "Asda" thus creating confusion as to where the timing point actually is.  The solution here is for the county council to redesignate the stop outside Asda as "Asda / Salt Ayre Leisure Centre" and to rename those on Northgate, perhaps after the large AXA Insurance building that is adjacent?  

In the new 6A timetable "Westgate, Altham Road" has been replaced with "Westgate, William Mitchell", which is a local pub. As well as matching the national database, the pub is a much better landmark for intending passengers. But here again there are problems:

The timing point "William Mitchell"for buses heading towards Morecambe is the stop immediately to the left of the pub shown on the map. However, the two stops either side of the "Payphone" symbol on Westgate itself are also designated "William Mitchell" thus introducing an element of confusion into where to wait. Despite being nearer to the pub than either of the stops on Westgate, the stop on Altham Road for buses coming from Morecambe (shown above opposite Holmside Avenue) is named simply "Altham Road".  Stagecoach, quite sensibly, uses "William Mitchell" for both directions.

Another issue with stop names is keeping them up to date.  This can be tricky: passengers will sometimes insist on using old names for stops long after the feature they were named after has disappeared. But sometimes a new landmark is so obvious that it passes quickly into informal use and displaces the old, official name.  There is an example on the 6/6A on Morecambe promenade:

The bus stop outside Aldi on Marine Road West, is a timing point on service 6 to Westgate and 6A to Lancaster and on previous timetables was shown, unsurprisingly, as "Morecambe, Aldi". However, its official name on the national database is "Morecambe, Empire Shopping" (the stop across the road used by buses in the opposite direction is "Empire Shops"!) and Stagecoach's leaflet has been changed to come into line.  But here is a classic case of official names not keeping pace with reality. The "Empire Shopping Arcade" was the building behind Aldi, back towards the Midland Hotel. "Was" because it is no more, having been demolished to make way for a bigger Aldi store currently under construction!

The developer's impression of the new Aldi on the site of Empire Shopping Parade

Presumably the present Aldi shop will close when the new one opens. The "Empire Shopping Arcade" is already no more and soon the Aldi that gave its name to the bus stop will disappear. At the very least Stagecoach seems to have chosen an unfortunate time to re-name the stop!

But despite the difficulties, the Bus Users' Group feels that Stagecoach's approach is the right one. We will be taking up the issue of the out-of-date or inappropriate stop names with the county council and hope that Stagecoach, and other bus companies, will continue to move towards ensuring the stop names in their timetables (and on their tickets) match those that appear in the national database.