Buses

The House of Commons and the House of Lords have no cars.  Seriously, I asked them and they both said they didn't.  I have to be honest and state that this shocked me because I wondered how the Mps and Lords get about the place. It also made me wonder about another thing which is public transport. Surely they must use something to get them about the place. So let's have a little look into the wonderful world of public transport.

First off, let's have a little think about buses.  First of all, all bus companies have to have guidance from the Ministry for Transport.  So what guidance do they give when making a bus company?  It turns out that the Ministry of Transport published a whole heap about this topic.  This is good for us, isn't it?  It doesn't tell us, however, how much the buses cost and how many you need.

For those of you not in the know, buses are massive cars that people go on to move about the place. Great.  Surely thought, there should be some information on how much they cost and how many you need; only one way to find out.  So who would you contact on the cost of buses and how many they had?  How about Cardiff City Transport Services Limited & Newport Transport Limited.  They are both Welsh and they both run buses, so they could help couldn't they?   It turns out that Cardiff is much better than Newport on answering FoI requests (proof, if proof were needed, Nathan)…  So it turns out that Cardiff has 210 buses in operation and they cost upwards of £100,000.  Hmmm…  Costs a lot doesn't it?  This doesn't give us the comparison that we need.  What happens if we were to ask Blackpool, Ipswich, Reading, Rossendale, Thamesdown, and Warrington too?  Maybe this will show us what we need.  

Something else for us all to think about is CCTV on buses.  Thanks to Barbara for this one who asked how long Halton keeps CCTV footage.  It is also worth noting that she (and someone else asked the question to the above companies too.  So a little look through the pile also shows people who are asking some very big questions about bus routes, for example, Mark Smith asking for all of the bus routes that are in Merseyside. There are some who are very specific questions about buses, such as Sian Berry asking for the reliability of a specific bus route.  Another little look showed this one from James Mclean…

One thing that is pretty interesting is that I asked all the bus companies how much their costs cost and how much maintenance costs were.  Well, the reply from newport Buses tells you everything:

The release of purchase prices of vehicles (which are negotiated between purchaser and supplier) would release information to other competing suppliers and would also release this information to other bus operators.

This may allow other operators to drive down their purchase costs based on our information or allow suppliers to price match each other.

In regards to maintenance costs this would release information that would form part of our route profitability and, when involved in tender processes, competitive operators knowledge of a cost line that would be used to price the tender.

Cool isn't it kids?