Swindon to Royal Wootton Bassett bus services

[whole diary]

[grahame]

Not sure if we've had a thread on this.

Background.   For years, Stagecoach provided the main Royal Wootton Bassett to Swindon services - route 55, buses every 20 minutes, mostly continuing to Lyneham, Calne and Chippenham.   There was also an hourly Coachstyle service which continued to Malmesbury.

Thamesdown Transport was bought / taken over by GoAhead - from council to commercial company - a few months back (beginning of this year, I think?) and the result has been competition between the two operators in Swindon in a way that's not what residents were used to.

On the Swindon to Royal Wootton Bassett run, GoAhead introduced their service R1.  It runs every 15 minutes on virtually the same route as the 55.  And Stagecoach have increased their service up to every 10 minutes.   Along with the Coachstyle service, I make that 11 buses per hour where previously there were four.   

I'm sure that GoAhead felt they had a good business opportunity, based on populations and proximities, and local unhappiness with the Stagecoach service.  However, it would appear that people have not flocked to desert Stagecoach who have taken at least the significant frequency improvement step to make their service better, and (what a surprise) the route can't support 10 commercial services per hour where previously it supported just 3.   So we have an announcement from GoAhead

https://swindonlink.com/lack-of-customers-forces-closure-of-thamesdown-bus-route/

Swindon bus company Thamesdown has announced it will no longer run its R1 service between the town and Royal Wootton Bassett.

The company introduced its new route during May this year in response to local demand, but the number of passengers travelling on the R1 dropped, after a promising start.

“When we created the R1, we did so after listening to the views of local people who felt they needed an improvement on existing services here,” said Thamesdown general manager, Alex Chutter.

“We introduced the route at our own cost, and were very happy with feedback from those travelling on the R1 with us. But this popularity prompted another local operator to increase the frequency of its number 55 service, also serving Royal Wootton Bassett.

“That meant too many buses serving the same area, and fewer people travelling on each vehicle – something we just could not sustain for the longer term. There weren’t enough users to cover our operating costs.

“In view of this, we have taken the decision to de-register the R1, and withdraw it from Sunday 22 October.

“With the 55 route currently serving the area every 10 minutes, we do not expect this move to have a detrimental effect on bus passengers here.”

[grahame]

Further data for newcomers to this story ...

Royal Wootton Bassett has a populaton of around 12 to 14,000 and is situated 6 miles from Swindon (population now over 200,000).   Those are centre to centre distances; with Swindon's sprawl, there's now only a couple of miles of countryside between them. The main London to Bristol and London to South Wales railway lines pass through Royal Wootton Bassett, but the station there was closed in the Beeching Era.

RWB is within the unitary / transport responsibility of Wiltshire Council; although Swindon has a Wiltshire postal address, it's an indepenedent authority.  Both Wilsthire and Swindon are part of the SWLEP (Swindon and Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership) area.  A junction on the M4 motorway between RWB and Swindon serves both towns; a further junction also serves Swindon at the other end (East).

Both the R1 and the 55 buses run pretty direct from Swidnon centre to RWB; comments have been made that school children and others who live in West Swindon but go to school in RWB have a poor to non-existant service. [Subject to verification].   This would seem to be logical from a commercial viewpoint, since only a small proportion of customers would get on the slower bus if it went "around the houses".

[bobm]

It will be interesting to see if Stagecoach now withdraw the extra Swindon to Royal Wootton Bassett buses they added in response to the R1 and the service returns to the three an hour (plus the Malmesbury bus) as it was before May.

This is the latest skirmish between the two operators.  Stagecoach put on service 3 from North Swindon to the Great Western Hospital.  Thamesdown were in the process of splitting two of their cross town routes (the 13/14s) because of unreliability caused by regular congestion near the Outlet Centre.  The northern part of the route was made route 5 and followed the same path as the new 3 and went to Park North.

A fortnight ago Stagecoach withdrew route 3.  They told the Traffic Commissioners back in June, but very few others.  The timetables were simply removed from the stops over the weekend.

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/15477137.Stagecoach_announces_end_of_road_for_hospital_bus_service/

This may all settle down to how it has been for a few years.  Thamesdown running most of the town services with Stagecoach picking up a few but mainly running inter-urban services to Chippenham, Cheltenham, Devizes, Trowbridge, Cirencester and Oxford.  The problem Stagecoach have is that most subsidies for rural journeys are disappearing so they need to explore the more lucrative town market.

[JayMac]

It's interesting that this bus war only started after Thamesdown was sold by the local authority.

Could it be that Stagecoach didn't muscle in on Thamesdown urban routes before for fear of upsetting the authority responsible for paying subsidies to them?

Bus wars typically go the same way. Skirmishes on the most profitable routes, leading to over provision. Before returning to the status quo.

[eightf48544]

Can someone please explain to me the point of having competing bus services?

[grahame]

Can someone please explain to me the point of having competing bus services?

Were you looking for the official answer  ?

[ChrisB]

Probabky for the same reason trains compete on some routes?

[grahame]

Probabky for the same reason trains compete on some routes?

Can someone please explain to me the point of having competing train services?

With thanks to eightf48544 for the original question

[ChrisB]

Slightly off-topic? Would you like to hive this off?

Answer: to hold fares down? (And to raid the routes farebox!)

[TaplowGreen]

Probabky for the same reason trains compete on some routes?

Can someone please explain to me the point of having competing train services?

With thanks to eightf48544 for the original question

Customer choice and competition drives improvements in quality of service and reductions in price, as well as non price competition.

[trainer]

Customer choice and competition drives improvements in quality of service and reductions in price, as well as non price competition.

Allegedly.

[TaplowGreen]

Customer choice and competition drives improvements in quality of service and reductions in price, as well as non price competition.

Allegedly.

I think you'll find that it's a generally accepted principle that price competition results in lower prices, but non price competition could take many forms - better customer service for example? Right now that wouldn't be too difficult to achieve!!!

[JayMac]

Price competition on buses does often result in lower fares.

Until one of the competiting operators can no longer sustain the cuts and withdraws, or goes bust.

What then often follows is a price hike by the remaining operator, beyond the original fares prior to competition, to claw back revenue lost during the period of competition. What also often happens is the remaining operator reduces the service frequency too. Again, beyond what was there before competition.

Price competition isn't always good news for bus users in the long term.

[grahame]

It will be interesting to see if Stagecoach now withdraw the extra Swindon to Royal Wootton Bassett buses they added in response to the R1 and the service returns to the three an hour (plus the Malmesbury bus) as it was before May.

According to a resident of Royal Wootton Bassett I spoke with yesterday, Stagecoach's service reverts to 3 an an hour about a month after the R1 ends.  The resident was very disappointed at the loss of the R1, as it took a different route in Wooton Bassett, and called at the end of their road rather that the nearest point being a mile away.

[ellendune]

It will be interesting to see if Stagecoach now withdraw the extra Swindon to Royal Wootton Bassett buses they added in response to the R1 and the service returns to the three an hour (plus the Malmesbury bus) as it was before May.

According to a resident of Royal Wootton Bassett I spoke with yesterday, Stagecoach's service reverts to 3 an an hour about a month after the R1 ends.  The resident was very disappointed at the loss of the R1, as it took a different route in Wooton Bassett, and called at the end of their road rather that the nearest point being a mile away.

So Stagecoach push the new entrant out then reduce the frequency again.  Couldn't that be considered anti-competitive behaviour?