Blacon Buses

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RE: Blacon Buses

(18/10/2016 16:17)iMarkeh Wrote:  I was told yesterday by Arriva Chester that their drivers are on £130 per day. Bus drivers won't exactly work for me if I pay minimum. Though that would be better for me, not best for staff morale ect.

In fairness, I only want to have less than 10 drivers. 2 would be exclusively for the Sunday so I can aim that job at people who already have a job, are retired and would like something to do or just someone who has other priorities in life so route training would be done all together if I could. I would do route descriptions and maps ect for the driver to have in cab so hopefully that could reduce 1 day of training. I am only looking at these routes. Ice Cream Farm would be a non started until I had the main route started and I had done some market research. The main route is viable just majors are too greedy. I am not expecting an overnight success. I want it to be a almost community run bus service. Not like SC who want loads of money, if someone asks for the route to go a different way for whatever reason, I will look to solve the problem. I want the buses to be very community orientated and attend community events like Blacon Festival. Stuff to get people involved. SC and Arr run buses for money and in most cases, the people along the route dont matter. That is where I hope to pull in the passengers. Attend local events, listen to the community and help them where we can.
Ahh, sorry. I didnt realise. I know in the long run, having a tank would be better however it would cost more and would be a lot more trouble to have one from the offset especially with what people are saying thinking this could be a fail. It is best to look into it if everything works out.
I am looking at 2 buses if I can. 2 small singles (1 would run Mon - Thurs and the other Fri - Sun to keep both buses running and if we have a problem, one can be fixed hopefully in the time). I am not looking to have loads of stuff on site or anything like that, I am looking to pay someone when a bus breaks down for them to come out, repair it or tow it to their area to fix it. The depot would have minimal and basic repair things as I dont anticipate hiring mechanics as that just adds. Again, in the future I can look at it but in the short term, it is a lot easier to see how everything goes then expand or enhance what we have. If a bus breaks, I would have to cancel one or two trips unless a driver is able to pick up the spare bus. I cant afford like 5 buses incase one goes then the next and so on. We can have 300 just in case buses.
All the fees would be high. I just need to get a general idea of the costs (which I am doing at the moment) then see if I can work with it. I would like a business partner to help with bits and bobs but I dont know anyone with the money to help and the expertise. I personally would happily work for free the first few weeks while I get the company going.
I would be working from home as much as I could to save on office fees. Depot will be as close to the route as possible to save dead millage. Anywhere that I can cut costs, I will do.

You might be best off going to MD Bus and Coach and perhaps having a word with them. See what advice they could give you as they've been going for 10 month or so. Or perhaps they could be expanding but I can't see them moving into wales just yet.