Warrington's Own Buses

[Bevan Price]

RE: WBT Network Warrington

(02/12/2017 21:03)iMarkeh Wrote:  I think it is very much a war of Link/Fairbrothers vs Network Warrington. Unsure what you guys see but at Warrington bus station, especially in the morning and evening, there are 6 NW buses all parked at the back blocking Fairbrothers and Link from heading there for layover and are even starting to park the staff minibus there on occasions despite Stand 1, 13 and 19 being completely empty for almost all day, everyday. NW are consistently departing late on 16/21 to get those few passengers from Fairbrothers. The reason I mention Link is because the manager at NW knows Link is associated with Mr Fairbrother (MD bus & coach) so throws both eggs in one basket despite Link not being any competition apart from Winwick Road and Sankey Bridges. I would definitely say it is a war. Fairbrothers and Link both can compete with lower prices as premises is cheaper as are driver costs. Though Fairbrothers don't have loads of buses to flood routes and stuff, people will start to wait for the price difference.

Fairbrothers do run on Saturdays though unsure of proper times as the Fairbrothers website says one thing, traveline says something completely different. Again, morning and evenings are slightly different on all the different websites. According to Fairbrothers timetables, the 16 runs early.

Network Warrington are being daft. 2 fares of £2 are much better than 1 fare of £3. Charge high, less people will use the service. 3 has First along it's entirety. Sankey and Penketh already have 8 buses per hour with Arriva, Link on 110 and Arriva 7. 21, 1/2, 16/16A all have competition with Fairbrothers. Also Halton on the way to Stockton Heath. All this competition and yet they are still charging rocket high prices.

I genuinely think it will come to a point where Warrington won't have it's own bus company and it will have to be taken over by Rolta or someone like that because the routes just simply won't be viable if Halton, Arriva, Link or Fairbrothers expand locally. There are quite a few routes which make money and could be jumped on. All the companies need is vehicles, licences and drivers. Sounds like a lot but I think companies can get hold of things a lot quicker these days.

They need more than that - they need a lot of money. It is foolhardy to expand too much unless you have plenty of spare money. Just look at the number of small independent operators that have got into trouble, and ceased operations, because they tried to expand too far, too soon.

Either maintenance standard decline, or operations become unreliable, and they get an invite to the traffic commissioners, or they run out of money and cannot get finance to continue.