Warrington's Own Buses

[RSTurbo50]

RE: WBT Network Warrington

(19/11/2016 21:00)Dentonian Wrote:  Nowadays, duplicate journeys have to be registered and treated just like a normal journey. There are already 1530 & 1543 journeys on other services from stand E in Altrincham Interchange, paid for by the relevant Operators, so NW would not be allowed on stand between 1525 & 1548 inclusive with an additional 5 (or 35), so presumably it is starting at the first stop after the Interchange, or is racking up penalties every schoolday.

The 5 dupe doesn't start its journey from Altrincham Bus Station. It starts at the next stop I.e. Fairbank House ahead of the 15.35 number 5 from the bus station. As said it's about taking pressure off the other 5 due to about 40 school kids boarding..

[RSTurbo50]

RE: WBT Network Warrington

(20/11/2016 17:14)Dentonian Wrote:  Should still be registered though, as if it has a normal service number, surely it can be used by all passengers (once capacity is created by the first schoolkids getting off)

Yep it's open to all passengers and it's a registered service

[knutstransport]

RE: WBT Network Warrington

(20/11/2016 17:21)Dentonian Wrote:  If other Operators challenged this through the OFT/CMA, Warrington Council could be in trouble. Due to financial constraints, TFGM award all contracts to the lowest bidder anyway - provided they are on an approved list of Contractors based on basic legal requirements. However, in the past (certainly in GMPTE/ITA days) they were pressurised by the MMC (as was) into not doing this. This is believed to part of the reason Stagecoach suddenly lost a lot of Eve/Sun contracts in Stockport a few years ago. MMC/OFT/CMA don't give a flying c**p about increased fares for passengers. As a public body, TFGM's first loyalty is to the Council tax-payer, not the bus passenger.

They used to win contracts for village services in the Northwich and Knutsford areas by proposing to run them as through services to Warrington which was why villages like Lach Dennis and Lower Peover had direct services to Warrington and why services got reduced significantly when they lost contracts to Tomlinson Travel which then didn't survive. That happened well before the current trend of cutting costs and reportedly was the result of a dispute between Warrington Borough Transport and Cheshire County Council - apparently the operator wanted a higher subsidy to keep the same level of service and the council weren't interested in paying more for providing a service above the minimum level they specified. WBT also never got the Cheshire Show contract after they lost those contracts.

Anyway I wasn't originally asking if Network Warrington automatically got awarded every contract, I was asking if anyone other than Network Warrington had contracts for services in Warrington or if Network Warrington had them all.

[Mayneway]

RE: WBT Network Warrington

(20/11/2016 16:54)knutstransport Wrote:  Not automatically lowest bidder, there has to be a quality score as well. It's easier for NW to include something like integrated ticketing or running multiple contracts as one through service

Sadly that's not the case in Manchester with one operator in particular!

[knutstransport]

RE: WBT Network Warrington

(21/11/2016 12:38)Mayneway Wrote:  Sadly that's not the case in Manchester with one operator in particular!

Doesn't mean there's no quality rating. If it's 80/20 the bids might hypothetically be:

MCT - 78/1
Stagecoach - 55/15
Arriva - 62/10
Go Goodwins - 68/8

Winner - MCT.

[Nicholas]

RE: WBT Network Warrington

(20/11/2016 17:14)Dentonian Wrote:  Should still be registered though, as if it has a normal service number, surely it can be used by all passengers (once capacity is created by the first schoolkids getting off)

Not necessarily. Is the duplicate journey permanent? How long will it run for? Is it to cater for a spike in demand? Is it within a frequent service period?

Short term duplicates don't need to be registered, but longer term or permanent ones do unless they are within the frequent service period.

[knutstransport]

RE: WBT Network Warrington

(21/11/2016 14:23)Dentonian Wrote:  You'll have to translate into English! - But as I say, lowest bid has to win, as TFGMC have decided* that all TFGM's savings (6% net every year until 2020/1) must come from Tendered Bus Services or staff costs.

*with a lot of pressure from the legal eagles concerning things like Capital Debt Repayment.

I meant cost scoring 80% of the points and quality 20% of the marks meaning a very low priced bid can get enough points to win even if it's rubbish, so hypothetically a MCT bid scoring 1/20 for quality beats a Stagecoach bid scoring 15/20 for quality.

[knutstransport]

RE: WBT Network Warrington

(21/11/2016 15:25)Dentonian Wrote:  Right. I don't know how you would measure "Quality" though. If an Operator is deemed safe, has all the criteria VOSA need to be in business; have pre-registered with TFGM to be on the "approved contractors" list, and are not banned from bidding due to major amassing of Penalties on existing contracts, then they simply win by putting in the cheapest bid. All I would say is that the latest report to TFGMC suggests the quality of tendered service Operation (incl. punctuality) is as high as its been for a long time - I VERY much doubt the same can be said for commercial services, mind you.

I'm not sure exactly how they do it but the TSS (Cheshire East) ones mention a score of up to 100 for quality and up to 60 for price: http://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:...XT:EN:HTML

However, I have observed the 27, 88 and 200 awards are all above the estimated value. Apparently in the case of the 88 D&G won with a bid which meant they get a higher subsidy for running the service in exchange for TSS getting a higher proportion of the revenue taken. In the case of the 38 Arriva won with a bid which was slightly below the estimated value while High Peak put in a bid comprising both the 19 and P1 - presumably they identified a way of reducing operating costs if they had both routes.

[Mayneway]

RE: WBT Network Warrington

(21/11/2016 15:25)Dentonian Wrote:  All I would say is that the latest report to TFGMC suggests the quality of tendered service Operation (incl. punctuality) is as high as its been for a long time - I VERY much doubt the same can be said for commercial services, mind you.

I'm sorry but that's just laughable. How do they actually measure this quality of tendered services? And I suppose the fact tendered services have been severely cut dosen't effect the fact quality is as high as it's ever been.

Are customer complaints taking into account why measuring quality?? Course not because TFGM simply pass complaints onto the operator concerned.

[knutstransport]

RE: WBT Network Warrington

(22/11/2016 01:41)Mayneway Wrote:  I'm sorry but that's just laughable. How do they actually measure this quality of tendered services? And I suppose the fact tendered services have been severely cut dosen't effect the fact quality is as high as it's ever been.

Are customer complaints taking into account why measuring quality?? Course not because TFGM simply pass complaints onto the operator concerned.

I'm not sure exactly how quality is scored but it's worth noting that sometimes contracts are awarded to operators who have no previous experience of running public bus services in the area.

I would imagine offering something over and above the minimum specification like an additional service at peak times, promising to obtain brand new buses for the route, offering wi-fi, extending a service etc. would all gain quality points even if they can get a good quality score by effectively meeting the minimum requirements.