Stagecoach MCSL - Chester & Wirral Depots

[cumbria0902150]

RE: Stagecoach Chester & Wirral

(27/08/2013 17:28)clarkethomas94 Wrote:  Hi guys. The city sightseeing service will be stopped at the end of the season as we know. This is probably due to stagecoach breaching the city sightseeing franchise. City sightseeing buses are bought from ensign. stagecoach however have transfered there buses from london. So city sightseeing obviously arent happy so stagecoach are going to run the tour themselves. This is ok, however it doesnt stop city sightseeing bringing in another tour to the city. So it to me looks a risky move by stagecoach. It depends if city sightseeing decide to compete.

Or not. It's entirely Stagecoach's decision.
Franchise operators can use their own vehicles refurbished to City Sightseeing specification, there's no requirement to have vehicles from Ensign at all. Chester is the only Sightseeing tour that Stagecoach operate using leased vehicles from Ensign, due to First leasing the Leylands rather than using their own. All other Stagecoach franchises use Stagecoach's own vehicles. Ensign were previously the UK "co-ordinator" for City Sightseeing but I believe they no longer are.
City Sightseeing don't operate any buses in the UK, and they don't contract work either. Bus operators choose to pay City Sightseeing for use of the brand and for the online sales & marketing on an open top service they operate, so City Sightseeing won't compete, however another operator may decide to start an open top service and then pay to take up a City Sightseeing franchise. The fee to City Sightseeing has to be paid regardless of service income.
Stagecoach are trying to improve the networks to turn around the finances of Chester & Wirral, paying a management fee to CS when they can do the work themselves at lower cost wouldn't really help. I'm not 100% sure on ticketing, but if it's a case of Sightseeing tickets only valid for travel at the moment then it'd open the service up for Stagecoach to accept local daily and weekly tickets, which would be a much better value option for passengers, and potentially increase usage. It works fine on the 2 services in the Lakes.