Refocusing Blazefield

Gareth Evans talks to Alex Hornby, CEO of Transdev Blazefield about his two years in the business to date, the changes, challenges and opportunities

As we talk over a welcome strong coffee in his office which overlooks Harrogate depot, it’s clear Alex is relishing his time at Blazefield. Now in his mid 30s, he’s climbed the ranks to become CEO of one of the industry’s well-known operators. While there have been challenges along the way, his determination to bring some of the acclaimed old Blazefield spirit back, drawing on his previous experience at Travel West Midlands, Stagecoach, Go-Ahead and Trent Barton, is all-too clear.

Like most of us, Alex’s passion for the industry started at an early age: “My great uncle worked at Merseybus’ Edge Lane Works – I remember him well talking to him about buses. I didn’t go to nursery school – I was looked after by my grandparents. They were regular bus passengers. They discovered that a bus ride, timetable or model kept me quiet. I then found myself at the age of 6 and 7 drawing bus pictures and route maps, which I accept isn’t typical behaviour of a ‘normal’ youngster. It was probably clear from then on what I’d do for the rest of my days.

“Aged 15, I completed my school work experience with Merseybus at Green Lane. I was given a certificate, which I’ve kept framed and proudly display in my office to this day. Alongside it was an invoice – as I broke the laminator… [wlm_nonmember][…]

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“Whilst the buses were interesting, I realised the business was actually more about people. I asked if I could do some work at Green Lane in the school summer holiday. They paid me in kind with a staff pass – you couldn’t get away with that today. I was delighted with it – especially as they added 12 months on to it.”

Joining Transdev

What attracted you to Transdev’s Blazefield business?

After five years at Trent Barton, I felt I needed a new challenge. I was really motivated by the idea of the added responsibility of leading a business and wanted to test myself. I was approached about applying for the Transdev Blazefield MD role. I laughed it off initially, but I was encouraged to consider it more, and I guess the rest is history.

I was encouraged that Transdev recognised the business needed to evolve – that more needed to be done in terms of improving the product and going after revenue growth. It was also recognised that over the previous years, there was a lot of cost control – but now the business needed to focus on development, which was music to my ears. With this promise of freedom came the words ‘we want Blazefield to be Transdev’s laboratory for the rest of the world.’

From a family perspective, we’d just had a son at this point. My wife Rachel is from Leeds, where her family still reside. You imagine how easy it was to ask her whether she’d like to live in Harrogate.

So, it was an opportunity for promotion in a company I’d always respected. Transdev set the stall out well as to what they wanted from it; and the personal situation was the icing on the cake.

What were you first steps in your new role?

I started here in February 2015 as MD. It was helpful that Martin Gilbert, the previous CEO became Executive Chairman at the same time, so we managed a good handover. It dawned on me quickly how different being an MD was to my previous roles. I couldn’t meet all 1,050 employees on my first day, so my first act was to write to every single person at their home address. This personal letter from me said who I was, what I wanted to achieve, what we can achieve together, what my aims for the business were and how we’d all do this by working together and listening to each other – and here’s my email address to give me your thoughts. I received some quite strong views, but it was all done in a respectful way. The point was to stress there was no gatekeepers to negotiate if people wanted to speak up.

I still back that up by visiting the depots and travelling around on buses, including at weekends. It’s a very important part of how I do business. I remember early on boarding a bus in Keighley. I wanted to experience things as a passenger, incognito. Once everyone knows who you are, you don’t get that chance again.

When I introduced myself after getting off, the driver told me: ‘Oh, I thought you were one of our new young school bus drivers.’ She then told me she’d received my letter, which she appreciated, and it confirmed to me it was worthwhile.

Martin stayed for six months and then I was promoted to CEO – and he remains a Non-Executive Director. He did a lot of good things for this business and we keep in touch. We’re exceptionally different people, but I think that’s a good thing.

The rest of the exec team were very experienced in different fields. They’re not all long-term bus people, but highly skilled and know their stuff, which has been very helpful.

This business is characterised by long-serving, loyal staff, none perhaps better epitomised by our Managing Director (Operations) Russ Revill who has grown from conductor to director in over three decades. All that as a foundation to help the business move forward is so valuable.

My first impressions were that it was a well-run company – but by everyone’s admission, it probably needed a bit of the old Blazefield back. That meant more attention on being more local, from both a management and customer perspective – and being more product-orientated.

If I’d been you, my concern would be – I can see an opportunity, things that needed to be done, but I’d be asking whether they’d let me do it. Here I am working for the multi-national French company, whose whole business model is radically different – it’s franchising. Blazefield is the odd one out.

They answered those questions during my interviews, which was a very useful two-way discussion. I made it clear I didn’t want to go to a business where I’d be filling in spreadsheets and reading policy manuals all day – that would scare the life out of me.

It was made clear to me that Blazefield was a unique and flagship business in Transdev, which was nice to hear. Within the rest of the group, we continue to punch above our weight, and we have the freedom to move. We’re a £50m turnover company in a £4.5bn turnover business. We have 1,050 staff – but Transdev employs 83,000. We’re small in the scheme of things. Nowhere else in the Group operates in the deregulated bus sector. Transdev does have B to C business, in Sweden and Montreal, but the rest is franchised or contracted in some way. That makes us special and the Group values our unique position and the innovative things we do, and we often share our experiences with colleagues across the globe.

Transdev relationship
What’s the relationship with France? Do they leave you to it?

Yes– we have a lot of autonomy. They are however, very supportive. They are obviously keen to understand our performance as any shareholder would be and they are very trustworthy. When things go our way, great – but when things don’t go our way, they’ll listen as to why and won’t rush to their own conclusions. Clearly, some of things are very local issues and they are accepting and understanding of our situation. Lots of best practice is shared across the Group, and we learn from each others’ experiences, even when operating different modes in different markets; that’s what happens when you change the mindset of being in a mobility business, and the objective is about moving people.

Are there prescriptive rules about the use of the Transdev name, for example?

Not really, and many group subsidiaries don’t bear the Transdev name at all. We believe the Transdev name adds value locally and we bear the logo on our vehicles and publicity. We need a name to unite our various local identities and brands, in a similar way to Nestle or Unilever. It reminds people that we’re part of a family when they cross from brand to brand. It’s not the dominant part of the user experience from a brand perspective, and it’s not even the secondary part. But it’s part of who we are – and we are proud of that.

Do you have much contact with Nottingham City Transport – bearing in mind Transdev owns an 18% stake in that business?

Personally, I have no responsibility for the shareholding as such, but we are keen to make the most of our positions. Martin, my predecessor, sits on our board as a non-executive director at Blazefield and he also sits on the NCT board as the Transdev representative. There was very little contact but we are trying to do more with each other to exchange ideas and share experiences. That 18% is a fairly important shareholding, but the attitude proves Transdev’s approach. Our Group wants us to succeed but does not strongly enforce their views on us, and even less so on NCT. The local views are highly respected.

NCT has made a commitment not to buy another diesel bus and instead, to focus on gas buses. Is gas something you’d consider looking at?

We have a preference for electric. The pioneering work that the team did here on the world’s inaugural electric double-decker on our York City Sightseeing operation was underway shortly before I arrived. Then we acquired two 100% electric Solos which are being used in Harrogate.

We believe – although we’re not saying we’re right and those that prefer gas are wrong – that the future is electric. That led us to put in what was our successful bid for DfT funding to convert our local network in Harrogate to zero-emission. Full credit to Gordon Irvine, our Engineering Director for all the great work we did on that. The one thing we were quite proud of with that was that we were the only one to bid alone as a company. Don’t get me wrong, our local authorities were highly supportive, but the bid was our bid – compiled with great assistance from our friends at Volvo with whom we enjoy an enduring relationship.

We aren’t ignoring gas and we watch all developments with interest. I’d like to think there’s a range of solutions, which we’ll all learn from.

Blazefield structure
Is Blazefield a profitable business?

Yes, and we have depots which make better margins than others, which impact on the overall profitability.
Blazefield is such a diverse business and performance varies between its numerous elements. You can’t get two more different places than Burnley and Harrogate – yet the revenue and ridership is strong for a variety of reasons. We run local buses round some hard estates in Blackburn where are experiencing growth, and then have an equally growing open-top sightseeing operation round York – they’re polar opposites but form important parts of our business portfolio for completely different reasons. And in between these two extremes are town networks and local household brands like Coastliner, the 36, and Cityzap, among others.

Since I’ve been here, we’ve changed the focus on route costing, viewing everything as a product – rather than as depots or networks. This is something that our new Finance Director, Nadean McNaught, is approaching with great vigour given her experience in retail. We lay out the products – as in routes – in order, meaning we have a ‘super 10.’ We then manage them and nurture them carefully, which means something must happen each year on those key products, whether it’s new buses, refurbishment or high level marketing. We don’t ignore the others of course, but something must happen on the 10 to continue stimulating them, because the investment always pays back.

Blazefield has a tradition of being rich in strong, good brands. Why did you feel it was necessary to create new bus company identities?

The problem was when I came in and I talked to our people and our customers about brands, there were too many of them trying to explain the same thing – and some that were used were even no longer in use. You look in Harrogate alone – we were often referred to as Transdev or Harrogate & District depending on who you asked – but buses didn’t carry either of those brands in any great size. The local services were branded Harrogate Connect, but I’d never heard anyone, even in the business, use that name.

Yes, we had brilliant brands like the 36 – which is definitely a brand rather than a route number; indeed in Harrogate, it’s a byword for an exceptionally posh bus that the town is very proud of – and it remains highly visible and well-known in Ripon and Leeds, obviously too.

We decided to review what we were at each level, alongside our staff, our customers and Ray Stenning and his team at Best Impressions, who continue to produce fantastic work for us – they are more our partners rather than suppliers. Whilst some of the brands had local connections, they weren’t sufficiently local. For example, in Keighley we traded as Transdev in Keighley – that brand was about Transdev rather than Keighley. Then, we had a great brand in Lancashire United, but actually, it’s a Blackburn brand now. It’s evolved from a position of when it was first termed to a company with depots in Clitheroe and Bolton.

In many of the towns we run in, we’re the main bus operator. I want us to be the most exciting things in our towns – we couldn’t do that with the brands we had. We had to make a powerful statement. The Keighley Bus Company, Blackburn Bus Company and Harrogate Bus Company brands are identities people can relate to, and they are seen as a key element to life in those towns. From a business perspective, they are our foundation brands.

Then, we have our ‘super 10’ which are all good enough to stand alone, with their own visual and brand identities but part of a family – including the 36, Witchway and so on.

I maintain we’re as much about our locality as any of our competitors, if not more so – it just so happens we’re owned by shareholders based in France, who devolve the bulk of the decision making to us.

What’s the structure of this business in terms of its management?

We’ve made some changes to reduce the chain of command and place more decision making locally. We removed a layer, which had two business directors – for Yorkshire and Lancashire. Now we have a team of four on the exec, including me – it was five before we removed the role of development director. Most of the commercial department’s functions can be divided between finance and operations, and they sit between Nadean and Russ. Part of it is planning, which is operations – and the other half is commercial analysis, which is finance. Then we have Ben Mansfield, who’s a real action man with his busy and committed marketing team, which work to a Development and Innovation Plan each year. They are great at being both reactive and proactive, and something is always happening to invigorate our products.

The reporting chain from driver to me is driver, duty manager, General Manager (GM), MD (operations) and me. I don’t think I can get it much shorter than that in an organisation of our size and geography, and nobody should be afraid to talk to one another – we are all on the same team, after all.

Our managers are tasked with travelling on buses and talking to those around them. We’ve created an app for them to produce reports – we make it as easy as possible. Everyone must complete a minimum of two journeys a month on their own buses, ideally more. If every manager’s doing it, it generates a lot of intelligence on what’s being delivered. Clearly, we don’t want to suffocate ourselves in reports but spend time in the passengers’ shoes.

Our GMs are based in the bus stations, rather than depots – another element of ensuring they have their fingers on the pulse. We have one GM at each depot, except Malton and York, which share one as they’re small and work closely together.

Blazefield now hosts the shared service centre for Transdev in the UK. That includes finance functions, payroll and insurance. Other elements of the UK business include London taxi firm Green Tomato Cars, Heathrow crew shuttle operator CCH and Birkenhead-based taxi brokers Cabfind. Leaders of those businesses meet each month.

Back in Blazefield, we have monthly business reviews hosted at the different locations, so importantly, everyone gets out to the depots. As a wider team, 30 of us – representing every discipline around the company – come together for what we call ‘G17’ every six weeks to manage progress during the year. This is more of a summit and discussion forum, rather than a meeting. I explain the challenges and the teams suggest ideas and we have guest speakers too. It’s about taking people away from their desks and to stimulate their thinking. Once a year, we reach a further layer in the organisation, when 60 of us get together for an informal conference. We’re trying to do more to impart an idea of ownership in the business and complete understanding of our story and method, whilst ensuring everyone has the opportunity to contribute.

Do you own your depots?

We own Burnley outright. Blackburn is the former municipal Blackburn Transport depot, which is leased from Blackburn with Darwen Council. Keighley, Malton and Harrogate are on long-term leases. We also own several buildings across the operating area, such as Cavendish House in the centre of Keighley, where we host the Shared Service Centre, and offering the drivers a base next to the bus station.

Do you have any ambitions for new premises?

It’s not a huge priority to seek out any new sites, as our depots are in ideal locations to run the business effectively. I accept that there is a good argument that some are too big for us as the whole company has evolved. There are no ticking timebombs, and we continue to maintain them well and, of course, we plan to improve the staff environments further – but we are quite comfortable where we are.

Staff engagement

Historically, the western part of this business didn’t have particularly good industrial relations. It’s a rare example of an operation Stagecoach sold as it was too much trouble.

Blazefield, under Giles Fearnley and Stuart Hyde’s management, turned that around. Staff engagement is something you feel passionately about. You can paint the buses in smart liveries, have nice publicity but the key person, who sells the service, is the individual who greets the passenger as they board the bus. Not all operators appear to embrace that.

I agree. We are doing a lot to talk and listen more, and our approach is reflected by our local brands which are teams are proud of. When people understand the business, and believe in it, they work better. We have unleashed our vision of being an amazing company in all we do – and we’ve shared a roadmap that clearly sets out our strategy. This is fed by an annual ‘People Plan’ which sets out a range of initiatives and programmes to develop staff and communicate better.

At a basic communication level, my inaugural introductory letter led to the publication of a staff newsletter called ‘Red & White Express,’ which has now expanded into our Transdev Talk monthly glossy magazine. We’ve also introduced a staff app following research with our teams – an easy way to engage with management and be updated, especially for those out on the road. We also hold open staff forums twice a year at each depot, which myself and fellow directors attend. It includes a brief presentation on where the particular depot is up to. We are very open with our performance and our future plans.

We also ensure we reward our teams when they perform well. Our first Amazing Awards was held last year, when we gathered together our most exceptional people at The National Media Museum for a night of merriment – and, most importantly, recognition. Phoenix Nights star Dave Spikey was our compere and we invited staff along with their partners, as well as stakeholders too. We rewarded staff in eight categories. It really brought the team together and showed what our business was about. The night continues to be spoken about as something many hadn’t experienced anywhere before, so we know it’s something that’s brought a lot of value and goodwill.

We’ve also started the process of placing our drivers into teams on branded routes, which hadn’t been done previously. All of our routes in our ‘super 10’ now have dedicated drivers. We have fairly active trade unions, so it wasn’t something implemented in an instant but through careful negotiation.

The thing I’ve learnt quickly is that ‘positive change’ still has the word ‘change’ in it. People can often approach change in fear rather than hope, and you have to be careful how you manage that. We approached the process by posting a staff communication inviting drivers to join a dedicated rota. Our first one was the Shuttle; the Keighley – Bradford route. We explained why we wanted to do this and the business reasons; we had received funding to fit Eminox SCRT exhaust equipment and to complement that, we had decided to refurbish the buses, to raise the standard. However, we emphasised that the most important part of the package was the drivers. The union expressed concern that there was a danger the dedicated drivers may perceive themselves as being superior. We had to explain it’s ‘a team’ rather than the ‘A Team.’ After people understood and accepted the idea, we were oversubscribed and we haven’t had any issues as we’ve continued the roll-out.

As well as selecting the drivers, we wanted to fully brief them. We didn’t want to call it ‘training’ as it wasn’t about us lecturing – so we called it ‘team talk,’ like a football team would. That meant exchanging information and ideas about the way forward. It was all held off-site. It wasn’t just about the drivers – we invited the fitters, cleaners, office staff, directors and so on, to share these sessions together.

A team gives drivers ownership of their route. We soon found it paid dividends – accident levels and attendance improved, along with a host of knock-on effects, including as we expected, great customer reaction.

One of the photos I’m most proud of was taken at the launch of the 36 – everyone was dressed as a 36 driver, alongside the 36 driver team. There was no hierarchy. If someone asked me to show what our people approach is all about, it’s that image. One of the more surreal experiences of that evening was our engineers – who aren’t often keen at being customer-facing – but were the first to volunteer to serve drinks and canapés, and engaged superbly with all who attended the launch. They were brilliant and still talk about that night. You can’t write down the value of such engagement in a spreadsheet, but it’s very powerful to help the business progress.

Far into the future, when driverless buses may be commonplace, I can’t ever see us going ‘people-less.’ We will always need people to help us solve problems and to look after our passengers.

School transport

You still have a substantial school bus operation across your business. Why? It’s well-known to be a difficult, highly competitive market.

It’s shrunk as a percentage of our operation. However, the Keighley Mybus unit works well as there is the critical mass to support it. That’s where we’re most successful. We’re not so interested in dribs and drabs where competition drives down prices to unsustainable levels.

Where we’ve also had success in recent years is working directly with local colleges, particularly in Blackburn and Burnley. Either they arrange a deal for students to pay onto the network and or we have offered tailored services, which are paid via pass subscription, rather than local authority funding.

In Harrogate we were introduced to crowdfunding, which would ultimately lead us into developing our VAMOOZ crowdfunded bus app concept. We knew there was a band of schoolchildren in Ripon travelling to schools off-centre in Harrogate. A few were using the 36 and walking, others a coach operator, and the rest getting a lift in the car – so we did some research and tested the water of a tailored bus each day. We asked if they’d be willing to pay £220 a term and we announced we were going to run a bus on a first come, first served basis – it’s now full with a waiting list. There must be other examples where that process can work but using app technology.

Are the drivers dedicated school bus drivers?

Yes they usually are. In Keighley we have our biggest, dedicated schools unit which is almost a depot in itself. We lease a section of land from Timothy Taylor’s brewery, which is located alongside the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway. The local service fleet runs out of Surenes Road depot, a mile or so away.

Recruitment
When you’re recruiting, whats your preference – existing licence holders or those without a PCV?

I don’t go either way – we just want good people. I don’t subscribe to the view that if you work for another bus company, even one that we may judge to be below our standards, that doesn’t necessarily mean you might be below those standards as a person. If you fell into that job, and it happened to be your local bus depot and you wanted to be a bus driver, why should we hold that against you if you want to develop your career?

Yes, we understand the advantage of recruiting people with retail experience. We employ some excellent drivers, some of whom have come from our competitors, who I know give better customer service than they did at their previous operator. We want to believe in individuals. We also ensure we create the right environment to deliver great experiences. We don’t have security screens, which we believe is a critical element in helping us to deliver the best possible customer service.

Many other operators complain they can’t find part-time drivers. How do you manage to sustain a dedicated schools rota, using part-timers?

We find it fairly easy to recruit in Blackburn, Burnley, Malton and Keighley – and a bit more challenging in Harrogate and York. In Harrogate, there’s a thriving hospitality sector, and lots of workers commute here. I feel our wage rates are generous. We negotiate separately with each depot. We offer well over £12 per hour in certain locations – bus driving isn’t a lowly or poorly paid vocation here in the north.

However, we do have a number of low-cost rates available, which was a good business decision made before my time, and one I support, as does the trade union. It was agreed that if we wanted to win tenders, we needed to compete better and reduce our cost base. Those rates are strictly for new recruits on new tendered services or developing routes. We’d never force a driver to take a pay cut, but a driver could voluntarily move to that unit if s/he wanted to do that particular work.

The recent round of tendered services we won in Keighley – the Wharfedale Links network – was done using that principle. We recruited 15 drivers without any problems – and we’ve got a waiting list. Half of those drivers came from other operators, which were paying higher rates. That told us something.

Commercial vs. tendered
What percentage of your network is tendered? Have local authority austerity measures impacted on the business?

Less than 10% of our network is now tendered. The big headwind we endured last year was Lancashire County Council’s (LCC) slashing of the supported bus services budget. Well over £1m worth of revenue was affected. It was short notice too.

We had a lot of drivers that we had no work for. Clearly, we didn’t want to let them go. We read in CBW that Brighton & Hove (B&H) had a driver shortage. We had the opposite problem. I spoke to Nick Hill, B&H’s Head of Commercial and Business Development Manager. Within a week, we had 18 drivers at B&H – it was ideal. We managed that whole process without any redundancies. We’re within a handful now of being the right number – adjusting resources takes a long time.

LCC’s move meant that the business had to change from revenue development mode to cost control mode quickly, but I don’t give up that easily. We ensured there was a way of doing both. Everybody did an excellent job of looking where we could be more lean and efficient. These LCC cuts hit the western side of the business hard, and flooding severely impacted on the eastern side – it cut off half of Tadcaster and knocked the stuffing out of York’s leisure market in the early part of the year. They were big external challenges, but I felt it would be a shame not to continue to momentum. We were still seeing growth on products we had invested in. We still had capital expenditure plans and a marketing budget – and new buses were coming.

We believe our average fleet age is still higher than what we’d like – and we still need to deal with that. Where we’ve had budget, we’ve spent it well – we’ve used capex efficiently to refurbish too. We aren’t seeing the massive growth you’d get if this was 2005, but we’ve got enough to prove our improvements have been worthwhile.

Are the numbers on the up then?

Yes, in parts. Revenue growth on the 36 is up 8% since we introduced the new buses. That investment will be paid off after two years.

Cityzap was a well-managed risk as we redistributed resources between that and Coastliner. It was an investment in both a new brand and in the buses that went on there, which are still depreciating. Our aim was that it would be profitable within 12 months in its own right. We passed that in November, i.e. in month eight. It continues to grow as we approach year 2. I’m so proud of the team who have delivered this. Research on Coastliner and Cityzap found only 40% of users transferred from Coastliner – so 60% had come from elsewhere, be it car or rail.

We’re seeing really good growth in Blackburn too – a town that’s experiencing something of a resurrection. Our staff there have done so well in weathering the storm of recent years in an area which has been very difficult to operate. We’re now seeing 6% growth on routes 6 and 7, since the introduction of the new Optare Versas in August and the introduction of improved partnerships, bus priorities and new infrastructure.

Hotline is our new name for the 152 route which links Preston, Blackburn and Burnley. We applied a strong purple-based livery and created a team for it – we’re seeing 6% patronage growth on it. I have to admit I came up with the suggestion of Hotline as a brand which we were initially uncomfortable with. I knew, however, we’d make it look great. Now, not many call it 152, even after decades of being known as the 152 – they refer to the route as Hotline. That was enough to convince me that the brand stuck and we have something that works.

We’re trying to lower the profile of the route numbers. As I learnt at Trent Barton, people prefer brands to numbers. As bus people, we think people get route numbers, but they are codes really. You wouldn’t see a chocolate bar as ‘29A’ or ‘79E’ – you’d see brands and people can build up a relationship with them. However, I accept there will always be a place for route numbers in certain circumstances owing to the networks we run.

Fleet

What’s average fleet age? Your fleet contains a lot of Volvo B10BLEs, which although excellent buses, are old. A time bomb is ticking away.

It will now be 9.5 years – which is too high but it will reduce as we complete the introduction of a further 38 new buses in 2017. We withdrew over 30 B10BLEs in 2016. Many that remain are in great condition. From a passenger perspective, I feel the B10BLE’s internal layout is infinitely superior to many other buses that are on offer. The low floor goes back a long way, then one step up and that’s it. Nobody sits in amongst the ceiling – everyone’s got good forward and side vision. They aren’t noisy and they are incredibly reliable and durable for their age. New buses complement this approach. We will have introduced 90 new buses – representing nearly a quarter of the total fleet – in two years by the time we complete this years’ orders.

Is it correct you lease new buses?

It’s been policy since Transdev purchased this business. Anything pre-2006 is owned.

It makes sense what we’re doing now, particularly with our lightweight single-decks from Optare – in that we get new buses in the fleet, then after seven years, which is our standard leasing cycle. We either withdraw them or buy them as part of our capex plan.

It fits in with our product lifecycle strategy.

We have many ‘owned’ vehicles still in the fleet, the majority of which have been refurbished. Our current Cityzaps – 2003 Volvo B7TL/Wrightbus Gemini-bodied and the Volvo B7RLE Eclipse single-decks can tick all the boxes. Yes, the age isn’t ideal, but from a passenger point-of-view, they’re great buses – and a good proportion include exhaust after-treatment offering Euro 6 levels of NOx emmissions. Steve Tonkinson and his Engineering Support Unit team at Blackburn do a fantastic job making older buses feel brand new.

You’ve shown a preference towards Optare in your recent intake. What is it about the Optare product that keeps you loyal?

I’ve always liked Optare in terms of the passenger environment – for single-deckers it’s the best in the market. Again, like the B10BLE, a Versa has a flat floor for a long distance and the people at the back enjoy good forward vision. Despite the design being over 10 years old, the Versa remains one of the most stylish buses around.
We’ve found that the build quality is good and our engineers have had good experiences with them. We’ve had very few issues with the 23 new Versas we acquired last year, and Optare’s aftersales support has improved.

That’s why we’ve had the confidence to put new Optare Versas on Mainline in Burnley, one of our most important routes – and we’re expecting them to enter service in early summer. We’ve persuaded Optare that given the size of the order – 30 new buses – we can afford to make some changes to a current Versa – some radical, others minor. They include styling, lighting and technology – not just USB power, but wireless charging too. Optare’s reaction has been brilliant – one of the best I’ve experienced in terms of coming along with us.

It was important to involve passengers in the specification. We carried out a big research project we called ‘Make my Mainline.’ We deliberately included some crazy suggestions – like coffee machines and water coolers on board. It was really interesting that the results showed users weren’t interested in the crazy things – they wanted basic requirements like legroom and bigger bins. In addition to WiFi, they also wanted wireless charging as much as they want USB – they don’t want to bring their cable with them. These additions, and more, will feature in the new buses.

Your vehicles no longer appear to carry external adverting. What’s the story?

Soon after I arrived, we cancelled third-party on-bus advertising. If that space is valuable to a high street brand, it’s valuable to us. I’m sure there are operators who can prove the commercial value, who may operate in a busy, urban area – but for us, it was a decimal point of our revenue. If we can’t grow our revenue by that, we may as well go home.

Bus Services Bill
What are your thoughts on the Bus Services Bill (BSB)?

We’re currently a small operator in the UK. We like to think we work well in the commercial, deregulated environment.

It is obviously questionable as to whether some areas could afford franchising or advanced partnerships proposed under the BSB. We believe certain areas should be careful about throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but if that’s the way things choose to go, Transdev would seek to work in that environment.

There has been some really progressive work in West Yorkshire, thanks to good work from the operators and the authority as we seek ‘quick wins’ for passengers that we can implement now. We expect the appetite for franchising may be less in those areas. We’d be exceptionally disappointed if the regime changed in areas in which we run high quality products.

However, I feel the biggest threat to the industry isn’t the BSB, but changing attitudes in terms of how we work, shop and be at leisure. For example, how we approach retail is changing hugely, and that may undermine whether people travel and where they choose to go.

Future
Do you have ambitions to grow this business in terms of geography?

In the short-term, we want to develop organically. It wouldn’t be right just yet to expand in terms of geographical footprint, but I’d like to see us grow in terms of profitability, ridership and revenue. If opportunities come our way and if some operators wish to change ownership, or if the operating environment changes, of course we’d explore them. Because we’re a 400-bus, 1,000 plus people business, we have got a decent overhead to support us that could afford to carry more.

Where do you think this industry’s going? What are the key things you feel need to be done in an ideal world to get more people to travel on buses?

The fundamental thing – and I don’t think we’re often exceptional at it as an industry – is to go out there and ask what your passengers want, and then develop those views, thoughts and feelings with a healthy dose of creativity and be willing to take risks. Consider the iPad. No consumer came up with that as a result of a research question. Apple developed it and suddenly everyone wanted one. I wasn’t convinced I needed one, but I now own one. In words said to be spoken by Henry Ford, if we only ever used research and consumer views, we’d only have just produced faster horses rather than the motor car.

The days of expecting our passengers to leave their home and stand at the roadside for their bus to come is an almost ignorant position for us to have. In an age of widespread smartphone use, people can summon a vehicle on their handset to pick them up within minutes, with a decent fare, which they don’t notice they’re paying as it’s deducted from their bank account without them having to do very much indeed. Therefore, we’ve got to do something in response to that high level of convenience. Let’s not view that as a threat or fear but as motivation to improve.

If we were all using an electric, driverless Uber, it might be wonderful for emission levels but there would be gridlock. So that can’t be the answer. Mass transit is a highly effective way of moving lots of people all going to the same place – that’s what we do. We must be part of the future, particularly as congestion gets worse. There’s clearly not one magic solution to everything – I believe it’s a combination of things.

I think we as operators need to be smarter about how we harness the power of mobile technology – it’s got to be more than an m-ticket or telling you when the bus is due. What can we use the mobile to tell us the demand is there or about the movement of people?

For example, our new Vamooz app will be about getting the customer to tell us where demand exists, and enables us to bring the product to them – rather than us registering a route, waiting 56 days and seeing whether people will use it. We will use a mobile app to then crowdfund it.

It’s a crying shame that the Bus Services Bill is set to legislate to force us as an industry to share our data with app developers. Of course we should be innovating.

The travel environment is important too. We are keen to push the envelope here. If we can create buses people love using, we may be able to still persuade people to walk to the end of their road and wait for a bus, just as so many do on the 36, Witchway and our high-end, yet not so frequent, services.

As a business and as an industry, I think we do marketing quite well, but do we do sales in the way other industry do? How aggressive are we in the art of sales and customer acquisition? We know of research that states that 58% of those who currently drive would not use the bus, but there’s still 42% who would. That’s where relationships come into it – making friends with employers and larger organisations of people.

This year we’re investing in an advanced CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system, which will enable us to understand what our passengers are doing, what non- customers are doing and targeting our communications via email or app accordingly.

We find that the easiest way of growing revenue is to get existing users to travel more often. If someone uses the bus for work in the week, we could offer them a free ticket to travel with their partner or friend on a weekend or evening. It’s about looking at what people are doing and then trying to sell them something they’re not doing as the barriers are down because they’re already on a bus. Our new CRM system will enable this.

The opportunities are there for us. As expectations rise, the key for me is having the ambition to create buses that people are proud to be seen on. And thankfully, here at Blazefield we have many amazing people around us to support and deliver that ambition.[/wlm_ismember]