Buses And Trains Lose £9 (Nine) Million

[andrew]

Can any of the bus drivers on here confirm if OAP's are actually tracked when they use a bus - i.e can the bus company work out how much they would have made had they charged kids or OAP's? (I accept that some OAP's might not have made that journey if they had to pay for it).

 

On the few times I've been on a bus, I've seen OAP's get on and flash their card at the driver. Does the driver press a button on the computer thingy to register that an OAP has used the service?

 

Maybe the OAP's should have to say a ticket to wherever which is logged and printed but with a zero cost. That way the bus company can actually track who is using the buses and to where? In the grand accounting scheme, it would show what the cost of subsidising them was.....

[Utah 01]

We're all going to get there (hopefully) and sooner rather than later in my case but the age at which the free OAP pass is issued has to be looked at and means tested. There's no need for a new government department to administer this; the 'means' can be assessed via the annual tax return and a confirmatory letter issued with your tax coding that can then be used to obtain the pass. As for age at one becomes elligible, given that 50 is the new 40 (so they say) and 60/50, I would have thought 70 would be acceptable.

 

Au continent, shuttle minibus services work extremely well in and around and between small communities. I like the idea of government (if they have to) funding local hop-on hop-off services rahter than the grandiose fleet that some very clever salesmen have conned it into buying. For our major trunk routes large capacity vehicles are need but for a shuttle around Ramsey a small 14/15 seater is all that's needed.

 

In any event, the entire transport policy requires a thorough review.

[Shake me up Judy]

This is the logic of spending money to save money, and Mr Longworth explains it so well. Somewhere many years down the line there are projected savings in buying these. A bit like putting in double glazing. Eventually the initial huge capital outlay will be justified - as long as you don't have to buy new again in the meantime. Deferred savings. Simples.

[Roger Mexico]

Thanks to Chris Thomas for asking these questions and for posting earlier in the thread. Hansard now has the House of Keys exchange up (lines 166 - 270), though as it's still at 'rolling' stage you may need to check via the Recent HoK Business page to get to the latest version.

 

It's worth reading through if really want to see Manx politics at its most depressing. Teare tries to get in a constituency dig complete with the sort of fake folksiness that Manx politicians are so fond of :

 

[...]there are children from West Douglas, for example, who are getting a bus up to Bemahague new school. When I was a lad – and that is a long time ago, (A Member: Hear, hear!) the photographs of that are now all sepia, Mr Deputy Speaker! – you had to qualify for free school transport. You had to live more than three miles away from the school

 

Cregeen makes an intervention that is partly irrelevant ("buses are actually purchased and they are not leased"), though he did also say that "a consultation document is being currently put together for future use of public transport" whatever that means. Of course promising a future consultation is always a good excuse for doing nothing at the moment.

 

Naturally the questions were not actually answered with last year's figures for all of public transport being compared with the projected loss for just part of it[1] which others have already picked up, though it seems to have been enough to fool the Manx media.

 

Presumably Chris asked this question of Teare because it is really about why the two parts of Public Transport Directorate are not shown separately in the accounts. Naturally Teare responded:

 

The accounts of the Public Transport Directorate of the Department of Community, Culture and Leisure do not show the different operations separately – those operations being buses and the Steam, Electric and Snaefell Railways. Management and overhead costs are shared across the facilities.

 

which we knew anyway. The point is that it shouldn't be like this - any competently run business would separate out the figures, and overheads etc would be allocated by agreed principles. There would also be an indication of how much the free travel for school children[2] and OAPs 'cost' so we could see the efficiency of the main service.

 

 

[1] Teare claimed that "The Department of Community, Culture and Leisure has informed me that the deficit of bus operations in 2013-14 will be approximately £5.6 million". If you look at the Accounts for 2012-13 you can see that Expenditure (p42) for "Buses Operations" is £6,221,138 while "Bus Income" (p43) is £3,268,415, giving a difference of £2,952,723. So either there is going to be a big increase in losses (about 50%) from the Buses or Teare is getting his figures muddled.

 

[2] It's worth pointing out that the financial problem with school buses isn't just that they are free, but that the need to run them means that there are unavoidable costs that wouldn't apply otherwise. On the other hand if you don't supply the service there may be all sorts of other knock-on effects in the economy because of diverting parents' time and resources to getting children to school.

[Roger Mexico]

Can any of the bus drivers on here confirm if OAP's are actually tracked when they use a bus - i.e can the bus company work out how much they would have made had they charged kids or OAP's? (I accept that some OAP's might not have made that journey if they had to pay for it).

 

On the few times I've been on a bus, I've seen OAP's get on and flash their card at the driver. Does the driver press a button on the computer thingy to register that an OAP has used the service?

 

Maybe the OAP's should have to say a ticket to wherever which is logged and printed but with a zero cost. That way the bus company can actually track who is using the buses and to where? In the grand accounting scheme, it would show what the cost of subsidising them was.....

 

I'm not a driver, but when I've been a passenger I've noticed that they do seem to click something when someone uses an OAP pass (this seems to have only been done rigorously in the last few years however). They will also presumably do something for schoolchildren, either on dedicated buses or on the normal service ones, and I would think there is also a way of checking use of the various passes that people can buy or which entitle some people to free travel.

 

The new ticketing system seems to automate a lot of this, though I have my doubts about the effectiveness. In any case the data should all be being collected already and is supposed to be centralised, so there should be the ability to look at bus usage in more detail.

[Moghrey Mie]

https://www.gov.im/news/2013/oct/23/dining-car-open-day-saturday-26-october/

 

They seem to have omitted to mention how much this folly cost.

[P.K.]

The bus service costs about £175 per head for every single resident on the IOM!

 

Do this calculation again - this time show all working!

 

Take next year, the buses are projected to make an eye-watering £5.6 M loss.

 

5,600,000 / 85,000 = 65

 

However, we know that the buses are not costing schoolchildren and pensioners anything! If we take the gov demographics at 15k winkies and 15k coffin dodgers that means:

 

5,600,000 / 55,000 = 102

 

A couple of quid a week.

[Frances]

... For our major trunk routes large capacity vehicles are need but for a shuttle around Ramsey a small 14/15 seater is all that's needed.

 

In any event, the entire transport policy requires a thorough review.

there was once such a scheme around Ramsey (the Ramsey Skipper services) but Longworth decided that the #5 route should be diverted to serve Jurby etc effectively doubling the journey time from Peel to Ramsey for many on that route - I think the #3 also saw some diversion so that these small buses could be replaced by the larger ones from 'the major trunk routes'.

[MANANNAN]

 

 

... For our major trunk routes large capacity vehicles are need but for a shuttle around Ramsey a small 14/15 seater is all that's needed.

 

In any event, the entire transport policy requires a thorough review.

there was once such a scheme around Ramsey (the Ramsey Skipper services) but Longworth decided that the #5 route should be diverted to serve Jurby etc effectively doubling the journey time from Peel to Ramsey for many on that route - I think the #3 also saw some diversion so that these small buses could be replaced by the larger ones from 'the major trunk routes'.

Diverting Service 5/5C to serve Jurby is more efficient and provides Jurby with a better service, and a direct link to Douglas.

 

When Services 3/3A arrive at Ramsey they form a Ramsey Local Service (C/L/O/T) more efficient than a dedicated Bus operating Ramsey Local Services.

 

The new buses are to operate rural services/off peak services on Routes 13/16/17/18/19/20/28/29 and will improve the Services on these routes. Frequencies can be increased by running smaller, more effiecient buses for example.

[Chinahand]

PK - Bus services need £14 million odd a year - that is the total bill. When someone buys a ticket (total revenue 4 and a bit a year) they forget they are also paying the rest via taxes. You have to include total costs when looking at the viability of a service!

[MANANNAN]

PK - Bus services need £14 million odd a year - that is the total bill. When someone buys a ticket (total revenue 4 and a bit a year) they forget they are also paying the rest via taxes. You have to include total costs when looking at the viability of a service!

Almost every country in the world pays for public transport via taxes. Subsidised bus services provided for rural communities, which are of no use to me, are subsidised by my taxes. I'm paying for high speed rail services in england which will have absolutely no benefit for me whatsoever.

[doc.fixit]

imo. totally barking to re-route the 5/5c . It may benefit some but it penalises an equal number.

As a pensioner I am quite happy to pay my way even though I only have a very small income, I believe everyone, and I mean everyone should pay their way, fortunately, I don't smoke or drink so that helps a great deal.

Village mini bus idea seems quite feasible.

Part of the big losses are the cost of the new buses, BUT, surely as part of a business plan that on cost should have been catered for in the profit planning?

I would forego free buses and pursue the immediate privatisation or volunteerisation as appropriate for all public transport and it sinks or swims on its merits.

I live in the sticks so any transport losses would affect me quite badly but so be it.

We really do need some hard decisions taken for this, our fair isle, in all things governmental.

I'm in my late 60s now and it appears that communal life, as in all things, operates like a pendulum and at the moment we are at an extreme of the swing, unfortunately , over the past twenty years, the pendulum has been tied up in that extreme position and I don't know anyone with the guts to cut the tether...........including me.

[Donald Trumps]

Any photos of the new Mercedes minibuses?

[Declan]

It's easy to say let's subsidize the OAP's and Children when the cost of doing that is hidden.

 

Take the OAPs and Children out of this and everyone else is paying something like £400 a year just for the buses etc.

 

That isn't proportional.

Are you being wilfully obtuse?

 

They're paying to provide free travel to the children & OAPs. You can't say take them out of the equation and suggest the daily commuter service is being subsidised to anything like that amount.

[Terminal]

Any photos of the new Mercedes minibuses?

http://www.gov.im/lib/docs/publictransport/News/mercedesminibuspicture1.jpg