Lothian Country Buses

[TB141]

So, over the weekend Lothian Buses vastly increased it’s existing ‘country’ operations, introducing services to the towns of Bathgate and Livingston in West Lothian, in direct competition with the current dominant operator, First Scotland East.

They are using ex-London WVLs, which look very smart in the cream and green version of Lothian’s corporate livery. Hopefully this new venture will be a great success, but I do hope it doesn’t come at a cost to the company’s existing ‘central’ services.

I wonder if West Lothian Council (who already have a stake in Lothian Buses) is providing any funding for the new services?

[snoggle]

Aug 21, 2018 8:32:36 GMT TB141 said:

So, over the weekend Lothian Buses vastly increased it’s existing ‘country’ operations, introducing services to the towns of Bathgate and Livingston in West Lothian, in direct competition with the current dominant operator, First Scotland East.

They are using ex-London WVLs, which look very smart in the cream and green version of Lothian’s corporate livery. Hopefully this new venture will be a great success, but I do hope it doesn’t come at a cost to the company’s existing ‘central’ services.

I wonder if West Lothian Council (who already have a stake in Lothian Buses) is providing any funding for the new services?

While Lothian Buses are a very good operator I do have a small lingering doubt about some of their recent expansion. They've gone back into coaching and expanded Lothian Country buses. The latter operation has progressively expanded but I've yet to see a photo of a well loaded bus. Clearly no one sits and snaps every bus in operation but it's not rare to see snaps of well loaded buses in Edinburgh. Like you I just hope they haven't taken on more than they can cope with although I do believe the company structures are such that Lothian Country is financial separate from the main city operations. First Scotland East have run so much of their operation into the ground that there's little of it left plus their long battle to try to compete with Lothian Buses which failed. They must have wasted so much money over the years rather than trying to build a good niche market in their traditional area. I hope Lothian Country does OK but I fear the years of attrition by First Bus may have so damaged confidence in bus services that many former passengers won't return even to a Lothian run operation.

[TB141]

Yes you make some very good points. A quick look at social media shows there is an appetite for a better quality of service than what is currently on offer, but obviously this isn’t necessarily a reliable indicator of whether it will be a success or not. Lothian seem to be doing reasonably well in the former First operating territory in East Lothian, as are West Coast Motors with their Borders Buses company, so hopefully this can be replicated with Lothian Country. I have personal experience working for First Scotland East and it always had the feel of a small operator tying to do things on the cheap than a large multi national corporation.

[Deleted]

Lothian have a lot of duplicated corridors too.