Diamond Bus North West

[M113 YKC]

RE: South Lancs Travel

(22/03/2015 09:13)Mayneway Wrote:  Absolutely true. Although I'm not old enough to remember regulated bus transport I do remember that a company I followed very closly, Maynes of Manchester, saw a lot of thier services start and finish at thier depot on Ashton new Road, but as you say it's very rare now to see the larger companies run positioning journeys etc, instead choosing to run dead.

It's odd (unless I've missed something about it) that companies don't run buses in service to/from places (particularly ones that are far away from each-other) to start on their main service(s) for the day/night. Even if they don't pick anybody up (but if they did, it'd be an added bonus), they're still eligible to claim BSOG for the mileage. The timings could be exactly the same as they would be if running dead, albeit with a few additional timing points if the journey is long. If the buses are going to a particular location, they may as-well open the doors to potential passengers.

Ace Travel did this quite a bit - as do Avon, especially with their cross-river positioning services.