Bus Vannin in Crisis

[ellanvannin2010]

13 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

 

Gef also has a large picture of the accident.  Who is that white-haired figure in sunglasses hanging on to the tram?

 

Cannot see anyone hanging on the tram ( but they probably desperately were a short time before).

The person in sunglasses standing next to the tram looks like the man himself

[Passing Time]

2 minutes ago, Two-lane said:

A while ago a conductor sustained permanent damage to his central nervous system from a 500v shock. Someone made an FoI request, which was denied because a court case was still in progress.

When I became aware that a settlement had been reached, I made another FoI request. The response was:

"While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, under section 21 of the Act
most of the information you have requested is absolutely exempt from disclosure as it
is contained in a document placed in the custody of a person conducting an inquiry or
arbitration, for the purposes of the inquiry or arbitration.
The remaining information is also absolutely exempt under section 25 of the Act
(absolutely exempt personal information). The Department believes that its content,
with the addition of a small amount of publically available information, would disclose
the identity of parties involved. This is personal data of which you are not the data
subject"

The sub judice aspect still puzzles me - for example the Shoreham air-crash, where the AAIB published a report and the CAA modified its public air display regulations long before the pilot ended up in court. And names were named.

In this case the name of the conductor is known. So whose identity is being hidden?

 

They may as well have just told you to fuck off, because that's all that blurb amounts to

[finlo]

16 minutes ago, Two-lane said:

 

In this case the name of the conductor is known. 

 

I see what you did there.

[Bandits]

This was published by Jason Moorhouse yesterday in advance of questions he’s asking tomorrow. So it appears that BV would rather remove a public bus service from the public that is paying for it than ask a private company to undertake contract work that they presumably undercut the private company to get in the first place. 

Good Evening,

In recent weeks, I have been contacted by an increasing number of frustrated Bus vannin customers. There now appear to be, almost daily updates on social media about cancelations. Unfortunately, many of their customers use the traditional bus timetable and are simply left waiting.

Earlier this month I asked the Minister for Infrastructure – How many scheduled bus services were cancelled in April 2022 because of a) staff shortages and b) operational constraints? Page 20 https://www.tynwald.org.im/.../hansard/20002020/k220503.pdf

There was a total of 77 scheduled bus services cancelled over the month of April 2022.

 

There appears to be insufficient drivers, to enable the recently increased timetabled services to be fully operated.

In answering my questions the Minister announced that they will be doing, ‘An all-Island review very shortly, and if it turns out that actually we have got too many services on and not enough drivers, then we will also look at that’ 

 

One particular issue appears to be Cruise ships and the manner in which Bus vannin appears unwilling to work with Tours IOM. Having spoken to the company, they appear to have been two recent occasions when Bus Vannin cancelled services when Tours had the capacity to deal with the cruise ship passengers.

Bus vannin cancelled services without speaking to Tours, something which happened on a regular basis several years ago. That MUST change… On Monday 16th May 2022 it seemed wrong that Bus vannin cancelled commuter buses, but had at least one vehicle parked at the pier waiting for the visitors.

Earlier this month Minister Crookall stated in the House of Keys when answering one of my Questions ‘Regarding key customers, absolutely first and foremost is the public-scheduled service and the school services; and then it becomes cruise liners or any other private parties that Bus Vannin are asked to look at and price for. But the public service and the schools are first and foremost’.

Page 22 the final paragraph covering the answer to Question 8.

https://www.tynwald.org.im/.../hansard/20002020/k220503.pdf

 

Having seen the cancellation, photographed the bus and spoken to key people at Tours, on Tuesday I will be asking the Minister for Infrastructure – What plans are in place to guarantee the availability of bus services for cruise ship passengers.

 

• Has the Minister now had the opportunity to meet with Tours and agreed to work with them when the need arises, because that will be mutually beneficial? (That meeting should have taken place when I ask the Question!)

 

• Four cruise ships will be arriving before the end of TT, given the challenges in staffing when will the All Island review of the current services be available and is this being prepared by Director of Transport Services?

• The Minster stated in a recent interview there are 9 FT driver short to fully operate the current timetable. Is that correct and is there anybody in the Department able to produce a new timetable that works before the end of this week?

Is there anything else I need to be considering ahead of Question time with regard to this question?

Jason

[0bserver]

3 minutes ago, Bandits said:

This was published by Jason Moorhouse yesterday in advance of questions he’s asking tomorrow. So it appears that BV would rather remove a public bus service from the public that is paying for it than ask a private company to undertake contract work that they presumably undercut the private company to get in the first place. 

Good Evening,

In recent weeks, I have been contacted by an increasing number of frustrated Bus vannin customers. There now appear to be, almost daily updates on social media about cancelations. Unfortunately, many of their customers use the traditional bus timetable and are simply left waiting.

Earlier this month I asked the Minister for Infrastructure – How many scheduled bus services were cancelled in April 2022 because of a) staff shortages and b) operational constraints? Page 20 https://www.tynwald.org.im/.../hansard/20002020/k220503.pdf

There was a total of 77 scheduled bus services cancelled over the month of April 2022.

 

There appears to be insufficient drivers, to enable the recently increased timetabled services to be fully operated.

In answering my questions the Minister announced that they will be doing, ‘An all-Island review very shortly, and if it turns out that actually we have got too many services on and not enough drivers, then we will also look at that’ 

 

One particular issue appears to be Cruise ships and the manner in which Bus vannin appears unwilling to work with Tours IOM. Having spoken to the company, they appear to have been two recent occasions when Bus Vannin cancelled services when Tours had the capacity to deal with the cruise ship passengers.

Bus vannin cancelled services without speaking to Tours, something which happened on a regular basis several years ago. That MUST change… On Monday 16th May 2022 it seemed wrong that Bus vannin cancelled commuter buses, but had at least one vehicle parked at the pier waiting for the visitors.

Earlier this month Minister Crookall stated in the House of Keys when answering one of my Questions ‘Regarding key customers, absolutely first and foremost is the public-scheduled service and the school services; and then it becomes cruise liners or any other private parties that Bus Vannin are asked to look at and price for. But the public service and the schools are first and foremost’.

Page 22 the final paragraph covering the answer to Question 8.

https://www.tynwald.org.im/.../hansard/20002020/k220503.pdf

 

Having seen the cancellation, photographed the bus and spoken to key people at Tours, on Tuesday I will be asking the Minister for Infrastructure – What plans are in place to guarantee the availability of bus services for cruise ship passengers.

 

• Has the Minister now had the opportunity to meet with Tours and agreed to work with them when the need arises, because that will be mutually beneficial? (That meeting should have taken place when I ask the Question!)

 

• Four cruise ships will be arriving before the end of TT, given the challenges in staffing when will the All Island review of the current services be available and is this being prepared by Director of Transport Services?

• The Minster stated in a recent interview there are 9 FT driver short to fully operate the current timetable. Is that correct and is there anybody in the Department able to produce a new timetable that works before the end of this week?

Is there anything else I need to be considering ahead of Question time with regard to this question?

Jason

All of the cruise work should be contracted to Tours. 

[TheTeapot]

6 minutes ago, Bandits said:

photographed the bus

Hahaha. He knows that everyone just lies and lies and lies so he made sure they can't. Good stuff.

[Bandits]

10 minutes ago, 0bserver said:

All of the cruise work should be contracted to Tours. 

The issue is government should not be tendering for contracts where there are commercial providers able to provide services. Less still if it doesn’t even have the capacity to deliver under that contract.

It makes the procurement process a nonsense if the above is true. How can BV have priced the delivery of this contract at a fair commercial rate compared to a commercial operator when it’s well known they’ve been offering drivers 2 or 3 x their hourly rate to provide cover needed to keep operating elsewhere? Longworth should be the next one marched out of the building. 

[Numbnuts]

Longworth just needs to go. Until he does everything to do with transport will not improve. God knows how he managed such a hold on DOI etc.

[Roger Mexico]

There's a very revealing FoI (non-) response recently published (Case ID: 2412581; Title: Forecast Losses) where someone had asked for the budgeted Operating Costs, Forecast Revenue and therefore Operating Loss for each of the railways and for the horse trams.  They had asked this before but been fobbed off with the excuse that this couldn't be finalised till the Budget was passed.

The response they got was:

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance, the Department is still working on the apportionment of budget to services within the Department in order to mitigate the anticipated challenges facing the Department in the coming financial year, notably the rising fuel and electricity costs. As such the Department is not yet in a position to provide the figures requested.

Now they should still have given out the original budget which was what was actually requested.  But this suggests they didn't even do this level of planning  In any functioning organisation you'd expect budgeting to done at much lower levels than this.  Here they claim not even to have worked out an estimate of how much each of their main functions is going to cost or take.  Either they're lying or they are really clueless.  In either case both politicians and Treasury should act.

[0bserver]

1 hour ago, Bandits said:

The issue is government should not be tendering for contracts where there are commercial providers able to provide services. Less still if it doesn’t even have the capacity to deliver under that contract.

It makes the procurement process a nonsense if the above is true. How can BV have priced the delivery of this contract at a fair commercial rate compared to a commercial operator when it’s well known they’ve been offering drivers 2 or 3 x their hourly rate to provide cover needed to keep operating elsewhere? Longworth should be the next one marched out of the building. 

I've heard 5x hourly rate is the latest offering for TT Fortnight. Only confirmed by one source but I wouldn't be surprised at all. 

When they tender for work they don't factor in any capital costs and depreciation as you would in the private sector. They treat the capital budget like a multi-million pound magic money tree that just procures new Mercedes and Volvo buses out of thin air. They literally price it as drivers hourly rate plus fuel and a tiny percentage on top for other bits.

[0bserver]

31 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

There's a very revealing FoI (non-) response recently published (Case ID: 2412581; Title: Forecast Losses) where someone had asked for the budgeted Operating Costs, Forecast Revenue and therefore Operating Loss for each of the railways and for the horse trams.  They had asked this before but been fobbed off with the excuse that this couldn't be finalised till the Budget was passed.

The response they got was:

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance, the Department is still working on the apportionment of budget to services within the Department in order to mitigate the anticipated challenges facing the Department in the coming financial year, notably the rising fuel and electricity costs. As such the Department is not yet in a position to provide the figures requested.

Now they should still have given out the original budget which was what was actually requested.  But this suggests they didn't even do this level of planning  In any functioning organisation you'd expect budgeting to done at much lower levels than this.  Here they claim not even to have worked out an estimate of how much each of their main functions is going to cost or take.  Either they're lying or they are really clueless.  In either case both politicians and Treasury should act.

 

I have followed this one with interest. 

 

When you consider that in 2019 every single passenger journey on the heritage railways was bailed out to the tune of C.£25 for every individual journey it really begins to give you an idea of the level of competency they have when budgeting. 

So one person travelling Douglas - Ramsey and back on the MER cost the taxpayer C.£50. 

They claim their losses are less as they don't add in the capital budget items. 

[Bandits]

11 minutes ago, 0bserver said:

They literally price it as drivers hourly rate plus fuel and a tiny percentage on top for other bits.

Yes that’s their usual MO. This is surprising too as it must have been one of the most horrendous trading periods for a company like Tours with the borders being closed. To still have civil servants stealing work in this environment as tourists are starting to come back is fairly inexcusable really when so many companies in the tourism and holiday sectors are struggling to survive. But then I suppose their Dining Train with its £32 TT meals is taking trade off pubs and cafes. And it’s on demand service in the north is putting most northern taxi operators out of business.

[Numbnuts]

Ethically and morally its just wrong for Government to pitch against private sector. Even more so if there not doing a proper budget and profit and loss exercise before embarking on it. 

Edited May 24, 2022 by Numbnuts

[Non-Believer]

[Declan]

A coach is more accessible than no bus.

Bus Vannin are happy for the passengers to wait for the next bus rather than lose the revenue.