Services which don't exist but there could be demand for

[knutstransport]

RE: Services which don't exist but there could be demand for

(20/09/2015 11:30)wirralbus Wrote:  These days though you might find it was a case if you don't operate those journeys commercially then there would be no money to run them as subsidised services as the councils continually look for savings in public transport budgets and the service would be lost.

I think that's a major problem. Operators won't trial a route unless they are confident the patronage is there. Awarding a 3 month subsided contract could result in an operator seeing patronage is there and registering the service commercially. However, as it stands operators are more likely to register duplicate services commercially in an attempt to win passengers from another operator.

Quote:Independents also have a lower profit viability figure than the bigger bus concerns like Arriva , First and Stagecoach.

The 288 was hourly and operated using modern buses under small independent Starline Travel in the early to mid 90s before they were taken over by British Bus t/a North Western Road Car Co (who obviously became Arriva North West.) Most buses used at the time of takeover were M reg like this one: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rossendali...otostream/ (I know that's on the 300 route but it would have been more common to see that type of bus on the 288 route and smaller buses on the 300 route) The bus that was involved in a crash in 2007: http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42...ash203.jpg http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/07/1...68x576.jpg was typical of the type of bus running the route 12 years later.