Bus Vannin in Crisis

[Roger Mexico]

16 minutes ago, Banker said:

And not costing the taxpayers c£6m pa

No the subsidy is about 4.6 million a year.  But Jersey is quite a bit smaller with a slightly larger population.

[manxfisherman]

3 hours ago, offshoremanxman said:

It at least looks like one island has an attractive, dependable, bus service that’s attractive to infrastructure investors 

https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2022/09/15/libertybus-sold-to-adelaide-based-transport-group/

The Isle of Man has historic reasons to carefully consider and then reject the idea of an Australian transport company taking over crucial infrastructure.

[offshoremanxman]

Just now, manxfisherman said:

The Isle of Man has historic reasons to carefully consider and then reject the idea of an Australian transport company taking over crucial infrastructure.

They couldn’t fuck it up worse than we do already.

[manxman34]

[snowman]

11 minutes ago, manxman34 said:

So what 

[offshoremanxman]

7 minutes ago, snowman said:

So what 

Ha ha you can see the account log in on that shot. 

Edited September 17, 2022 by offshoremanxman

[0bserver]

They didn't get the memo that the end of season demolition derby was on Sunday. The Ben got in on the action yesterday and today a Bus Vannin Shitaro smacks some scaffolding.

Let's hope it's not one of the new crop of Bus Vannin drivers. 

 

https://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/a-bus-crash-in-castletown-causes-police-to-close-road-565741

Edited September 27, 2022 by 0bserver

[forestboy]

33 minutes ago, 0bserver said:

They didn't get the memo that the end of season demolition derby was on Sunday. The Ben got in on the action yesterday and today a Bus Vannin Shitaro smacks some scaffolding.

Let's hope it's not one of the new crop of Bus Vannin drivers. 

 

https://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/a-bus-crash-in-castletown-causes-police-to-close-road-565741

Longtail not back driving is he??

[manxfisherman]

The bus cap thing starts soon. Here is one of our political elite demonstrating his incisive intellect on the subject.

 

[b4mbi]

On 9/15/2022 at 3:54 PM, manxfisherman said:

The Isle of Man has historic reasons to carefully consider and then reject the idea of an Australian transport company taking over crucial infrastructure.

Are you suggesting that "Lessons have been learned"? How unusual!!!

[Roger Mexico]

51 minutes ago, manxfisherman said:

The bus cap thing starts soon. Here is one of our political elite demonstrating his incisive intellect on the subject.

 

Well at least it means he's not auditing accounts.

The confusion arises from the information given in a reply to a Written Question from Ashford[1].  As usual with Ashford's questions since he's been sacked, this had asked for enormous amounts of data, which would have taken years to produce (and which he wouldn't have understood anyway).  As the reply pointed out:

Although there is software, Ticketer, that allows the Department to collate this information there are limitations with the ability of the software to provide the necessary data. Reports can only be collated for a maximum of 7 days at a time and would be required to cover 19 fare stages and 5 fares. This would generate over 14,000 separate reports in order to produce the 3 years of data requested.

You get the impression that Ashford's questions are mainly designed to show how clever and hard-working he is, rather than produce useful information.  Of course they usually just illustrate how petty and clueless he is.

Bus Vannin did what they could however and produce the figures in the link stating:

It should be noted that this data is taken from cash and card payments and does not include any journeys where the passenger has used a saver or concessionary card.

For all three financial years, the inner urban fares account for approximately 50% of adult tickets issued and 20% of all passengers carried.

So what it means is about 60% of passengers are using some sort of Go card.  Not just OAP and disabled free travel, but various forms of season ticket or discounted fares used by frequent travellers, tourists etc.  The latter are probably more likely to be longer journeys as well.   20% of passengers are on shorter journeys (not just within Douglas/Onchan, but for example Port Erin to Colby) and 20% longer journeys that might benefit from the £2 cap.

 

[1]  Actually published on 17 October, so you can see the Manx media are as quick on the ball as ever.

[Declan]

I suggest though that many on those 20% shorter journeys may not be paying full fare anyway - they'd be OAPs, kids, using some sort of discount card. 

So Ashford's concern is for those paying £1.30 or less. Would reducing their fares proportionally really help with the cost of living they're experiencing? Also those doing the journey regularly would get discounts by buying 12 journey cards. Those doing more than one return journey a day would benefit from the reductions to the daily, weekly, monthly go passes. He's basically trying to save infrequent bus users a few pence on the times they use the bus.

[John Wright]

4 minutes ago, Declan said:

I suggest though that many on those 20% shorter journeys may not be paying full fare anyway - they'd be OAPs, kids, using some sort of discount card. 

So Ashford's concern is for those paying £1.30 or less. Would reducing their fares proportionally really help with the cost of living they're experiencing? Also those doing the journey regularly would get discounts by buying 12 journey cards. Those doing more than one return journey a day would benefit from the reductions to the daily, weekly, monthly go passes. He's basically trying to save infrequent bus users a few pence on the times they use the bus.

In Catalonia regional and local services, and across Spain, rail fares ( not long distance express or premium services) have been waived for 6 ( I think) months as a cost of living help. Commuting is free.

Its got to be worth that here as a trial.

[Cambon]

Some European countries have one standard fare. For example, £2 regardless of distance. This encourages use for longer journeys instead of using a car, and discourages use for short journeys, better to walk and get some excercise. 

Basically, iom bus and rail makes so little money, if it were made free iomg would probably save money on not having to administer concessions, collect fares, audit and bank. Got to be 20-30 people minimum, wages, pension, cost of office space, sick pay, holidays, etc. Plus the green credentials it would give the island. But then, iom are not really interested in that. 

 

[Declan]

Well that's a debate we can have. The way it's been done here is the COMIN decided on the cap without seemingly talking to Bus Vannin about how to impliment it or much thought about how buses are used. Bus Vannin then adhere to the letter of the decision, but rather disjointedly. 

Personally, I find it hard to justify that my commute to work is subsidised when people worse off than me who are forced to use cars etc don't get that help.