Bus Vannin in Crisis

[Banker]

10 hours ago, Nellie said:

While departing Douglas on the steam train today, I noted several more brand new Mercedes Sprinter mini-buses at the bus depot. Checking on the registration database there are at least twelve. That's around a £1m worth. 

Why on earth do we need these, when there are already dozens of super-low-mileage ones parked around the Island doing nothing?

They need lots for patients transport which they do all over the island eg they do lots of runs to Ramsey every day for appointments including 2 dialysis clinics every day.

[Nellie]

17 minutes ago, Banker said:

They need lots for patients transport which they do all over the island eg they do lots of runs to Ramsey every day for appointments including 2 dialysis clinics every day.

They already had 56 (!!) before these new ones. 

https://buslists.uk/fleet.php?ownerid=76

Most of them are parked around the Island doing nothing. 

[Banker]

2 minutes ago, Nellie said:

They already had 56 (!!) before these new ones. 

https://buslists.uk/fleet.php?ownerid=76

Most of them are parked around the Island doing nothing. 

Do you monitor them all day? They also use them for the northern bus on demand thing 

[Mouthpiece]

2 hours ago, Banker said:

They need lots for patients transport which they do all over the island eg they do lots of runs to Ramsey every day for appointments including 2 dialysis clinics every day.

No they don’t. They had 60 already. How much hospital work do you think there is in a day to justify 60 Sprinters? The rest they use to try to put private taxi firms and other carriers out of business doing transfers effectively for free with public money. 

[Ringy Rose]

38 minutes ago, Mouthpiece said:

The rest they use to try to put private taxi firms and other carriers out of business doing transfers effectively for free

Do they? Do they really? Where?

[Mouthpiece]

7 minutes ago, Ringy Rose said:

Do they? Do they really? Where?

See my first post. You can’t get a taxi up north as no taxi can make a living with Bus Vannin providing a £2 taxi service into Ramsey and it’s rumoured another company now is selling and/or will be shutting up shop due to very little work being about because it’s largely been taken by a taxpayer funded carrier that will literally do work for free. 

[Andy Onchan]

I think it was a big mistake when DHSC/DOI did away with the Red Cross patient transport service. From a procurement point of view that was a bad move.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Andy Onchan

[Ringy Rose]

10 minutes ago, Mouthpiece said:

You can’t get a taxi up north as no taxi can make a living with Bus Vannin providing a £2 taxi service into Ramsey

Except they don’t. They provide a £2 bus service. 

Demand-responsive transport isn’t a taxi service. It’s a bus service.

[Mouthpiece]

1 minute ago, Ringy Rose said:

Except they don’t. They provide a £2 bus service. 

Demand-responsive transport isn’t a taxi service. It’s a bus service.

Nobody in the trade would agree that point. You call up and book a ride. But because it is government it magically isn’t a taxi service. Anyone else running that type of service would need a private hire license 😂 You can’t get a taxi up north now as there is no business to be had because of BV. Another private hire firm due to go too according to rumours specifically from being under cut by a taxpayer funded service. 

[Banker]

1 hour ago, Mouthpiece said:

No they don’t. They had 60 already. How much hospital work do you think there is in a day to justify 60 Sprinters? The rest they use to try to put private taxi firms and other carriers out of business doing transfers effectively for free with public money. 

Bollocks ! No one would book a taxi just to go into town anyway, they use taxis at night , to airport etc. reason a taxi doesn’t do well is it’s in wrong place. Don’t work nights & too expensive 

[Ringy Rose]

9 minutes ago, Mouthpiece said:

You call up and book a ride. But because it is government it magically isn’t a taxi service.

It isn’t a taxi service- it’s a bus service that only runs when there’s passengers. It’s not a door-to-door service. And, despite the PR fluffery, it’s not on-demand either: it runs when it’s convenient for Bus Vannin to run.

It replaced the service bus to Jurby and the northern villages.

Taxis will struggle for the same reason the service bus was unsustainable- apart from Jurby, no bugger lives north of Ramsey.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Ringy Rose

[Two-lane]

A bus travels a route. A taxi goes point-to-point.

"We offer a door to door service and can pick you up from your front door". That is a taxi service.

I used to get annoyed at seeing the mini-bus stopped right outside a supermarket front door. Then, one day, I saw a mini-bus stopped outside The Trafalgar. Front door of the house to the front door of the pub for the price of a heavily subsidised bus ticket.

 

 

[Mouthpiece]

3 minutes ago, Banker said:

Bollocks ! No one would book a taxi just to go into town anyway, they use taxis at night , to airport etc. reason a taxi doesn’t do well is it’s in wrong place. Don’t work nights & too expensive 

Nice to see so many “experts” all in one place. 

Anyway said all I wanted to say. Watch this space I believe but looks like government is actively ensuring that there is no private work left for anyone because they’re buying all these brand new vehicles and then having to find jobs for them to do which takes work off tax paying businesses.

[Ringy Rose]

5 minutes ago, Two-lane said:

A bus travels a route. A taxi goes point-to-point.

 

A demand-responsive bus service goes where and when there are passengers. That’s the point of it- it replaces the lightly-used service bus.

It doesn’t go point-to-point, it bounces round the villages to collect passengers then drops them off in Ramsey. Same in reverse. If there are no passengers it doesn’t run. If it’s not convenient it doesn’t run.

There’s a reason why they had to put fixed times back in at Jurby. The residents were up in arms because people couldn’t get a bus when they wanted it.

Most of the minibuses aren’t for ConnectVillages anyway. IIRC only 10 are equipped to do it. Most are on schools and patient transfer work. And yes, I’d rather PT work was run by Bus Vannin and not by private taxis.

Edited September 29, 2023 by Ringy Rose

[Two-lane]

1 minute ago, Ringy Rose said:

It doesn’t go point-to-point,

In my post above, I quoted the text from the gov. website - "We offer a door to door service and can pick you up from your front door".