Bus Station Round-Up

There have been a number of developments at the bus station lately, all of them positive!

Firstly, and most welcome is the re-opening of the refreshment kiosk, which has had a complete refurbishment and is now under new management.  The chance to get a cup of tea and a snack whilst waiting for a bus is greatly welcomed by passengers.

                         The kiosk is now open again.

Passengers also find the electronic bus departure board very useful, especially now it has "real time information" added, although it would be even better if all buses were being tracked in "real time"

The display board with real time information added (on some departures)

The board is maintained by IT specialists at Lancaster University, who took on the task when the County Council shut down the previous board to save a little bit of cash.  The Bus Users Group works with the team at the University to improve the way information is presented on the board. We are aware of some problems, such as service 80 going to "Community Centre" (which is actually in Ingleton) and the 81 going to "Booth's Supermarket" (which is the one in Kirkby Lonsdale and not the one in Hala (or Milnthorpe or Carnforth for that matter!). Getting these put right is taking some time as the board uses information from the national public transport dataset and tracking down the right people who deal with these out-of-county locations has not been easy.  But we are working on it!   In the meantime, if you do spot anything else that could be improved or needs correcting please let us know by leaving a comment below.

We now have a link from this website directly to the board, so you can see what it is showing at any moment from wherever you and your "device" happen to be. It can be found at the top of the right-hand sidebar, just above the similar links to the train departure boards at local stations or by clicking on the link below.

             LANCASTER BUS STATION LIVE DEPARTURES

Last, but by no means least the Bus Users Group now has its own display board!  Ours is a non-electronic version and uses good old paper-and-ink, but we can use it to explain the work of the group, advertise our meetings and forthcoming events and for promoting bus services in and around the city.  The poster case was kindly donated and erected by Lancaster City Council and we are also grateful to  the Facilities Department at Lancaster University for help in preparing the contents. If there is anything you'd particularly like to see shown in the case then please let us know.  You'll find it on the left, just inside the Damside Street entrance near the telephones.

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!