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Post by mark on Aug 10, 2024 7:30:56 GMT
Everything goes by what is the contract - something none of us see. Reading between the lines the contract price does increase over the life of the contract, on what basis I am unsure and certainly from what has been seen in recent times it hasn't matched the increase in costs Operators have faced. I think there's a one year inflation lag in the price raises which obviously doesn't favour operators when inflation is rising at the rate it has been over last few years. …on the flip side it benefits them when inflation falls. It’s also worth noting that TfL’s contractors were coining it in through QIC payments during Covid when a near normal level of service ran but traffic was next to non existent. I don’t recall any of them complaining about this.
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Post by elcesteem16 on Aug 10, 2024 13:03:58 GMT
I think we would all "stand up" for the small person if they were providing a good level of service that meets the expectations of the client (TfL) and the passenger. In the case of Sullivans, they have failed to meet the expectations of both. But instead of offering advice and working with Sullivans on improvement plans there response is to actively discourage them from bidding? Does that not seem odd to anyone? Why should TFL have to babysit Sullivans? It’s old enough as a company to know how to analyse its wrong doings and performance issues. I would understand if they had just entered into the game so just need a few pointers so they’re stabled like the first stages of riding a bike, but in reality they’re not. End of the day they are a buisness, no matter how big or small they are, TFL shouldn’t have to invest in something that isn’t returning any reliable service levels.
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Post by southlondon413 on Aug 10, 2024 13:16:24 GMT
But instead of offering advice and working with Sullivans on improvement plans there response is to actively discourage them from bidding? Does that not seem odd to anyone? Why should TFL have to babysit Sullivans? It’s old enough as a company to know how to analyse its wrong doings and performance issues. I would understand if they had just entered into the game so just need a few pointers so they’re stabled like the first stages of riding a bike, but in reality they’re not. End of the day they are a buisness, no matter how big or small they are, TFL shouldn’t have to invest in something that isn’t returning any reliable service levels. It’s not about babysitting, it about offering constructive and neutral feedback to a customer something which Sullivan’s have been fairly vocal about requesting. I have depots that work under me in my job and I am always on call to provide feedback, ensure they are working correctly and ultimately serving my customers adequately within my companies guidelines. Never would I turn around and abandon them without exhausting all other possible options. Not to say that TfL haven’t done that but again Dean Sullivan himself has been very vocal about the lack of communication and feedback on offer from TfL. If he is to be believed, and there is no reason not to, then it is a poor model from TfL. I can’t help but feel that TfL a decade ago wouldn’t have done this but times have changed and budgets are to the bone.
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Post by elcesteem16 on Aug 10, 2024 13:49:02 GMT
Why should TFL have to babysit Sullivans? It’s old enough as a company to know how to analyse its wrong doings and performance issues. I would understand if they had just entered into the game so just need a few pointers so they’re stabled like the first stages of riding a bike, but in reality they’re not. End of the day they are a buisness, no matter how big or small they are, TFL shouldn’t have to invest in something that isn’t returning any reliable service levels. It’s not about babysitting, it about offering constructive and neutral feedback to a customer something which Sullivan’s have been fairly vocal about requesting. I have depots that work under me in my job and I am always on call to provide feedback, ensure they are working correctly and ultimately serving my customers adequately within my companies guidelines. Never would I turn around and abandon them without exhausting all other possible options. Not to say that TfL haven’t done that but again Dean Sullivan himself has been very vocal about the lack of communication and feedback on offer from TfL. If he is to be believed, and there is no reason not to, then it is a poor model from TfL. I can’t help but feel that TfL a decade ago wouldn’t have done this but times have changed and budgets are to the bone. But in this case TFL are the customer / client. It was said by Dean that they gave feedback, but not as much as *he* wanted (not exaxtly to qoute, but you’ll see the line). So it’s not that TFL hasn’t given them feedback. I would hazard a guess that they had some basic points, that being what they were slacking on and the common sense would be for Sullivans to take that to their performance team to analyse and make adjustments. Either way Dean should really be greatful he got spoon fed anything points to start with.
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Post by busoccultation on Aug 10, 2024 21:50:59 GMT
E78 has moved to the commercial fleet with new ticket machine fitted and was used on the 306 today. E48 is another which it used on the 398 the other day, though not tracking as it hasn't been fitted with new ticket machine.
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Post by capitalomnibus on Aug 10, 2024 23:38:36 GMT
It is a downward death spiral. You tell them to improve, but then withhold the very money they need to improve, so can't improve. You then without a greater amount of their money, there is no money to maintain current standards let alone improve. The way TfL engages with SMEs needs a radical review ... You can't treat them in the same way as you do large multinationals. You starve an SME of funds, you get what happens with Sullivan's .... you get stuck in a hole you can't get out of ... This issue is of TfLs own making ... their blinkered one size fits all solution just creates a doom to failure. I thought public bodies were supposed to be supporting SMEs Difference is TfL don't specifically ask SMEs to enter the market. They effectively lay out their terms and if a SME wants to enter on those terms then they can, but nobody is asking them to and if they get into trouble then they shouldn't expect different treatment as nobody told them to enter it in the first place. But they DID encourage them to enter the market. This was over 20 years ago. Sullivans was one of a few that has. You seem to forget that they entered in the early 2000's
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Post by capitalomnibus on Aug 10, 2024 23:40:38 GMT
I think there's a one year inflation lag in the price raises which obviously doesn't favour operators when inflation is rising at the rate it has been over last few years. …on the flip side it benefits them when inflation falls. It’s also worth noting that TfL’s contractors were coining it in through QIC payments during Covid when a near normal level of service ran but traffic was next to non existent. I don’t recall any of them complaining about this. That is not true. The operators were NOT coining it. TfL would have went bankrupt if they did through bonus payments then. TfL gave operators the option of the performance figures from the year before covid.
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Post by capitalomnibus on Aug 10, 2024 23:46:02 GMT
So far I have no said much on this one, but here are some overall thoughts. In business the higher the risk, the greater are the expected rewards. Running bus services for TfL is considered low risk with a commensurately low reward. Operators do not even have to worry how many passengers use their services, the passenger number risk is held by TfL, all Operators have to do is put out a set number of buses each day and run them to the agreed performance levels. Contracts are for a reasonably long time giving Operators certainty. For a long time everyone was pretty happy until the apple cart has been upset in recent years. Cost pressures from TfL have made TfL look for cheaper tenders, and then there is the cost of living crisis which has resulted in large cost increases for all Operators. Everything goes by what is the contract - something none of us see. Reading between the lines the contract price does increase over the life of the contract, on what basis I am unsure and certainly from what has been seen in recent times it hasn't matched the increase in costs Operators have faced. That is why several Operators have taken advantage of break clauses to get out of what have become loss making contracts. Operators can make extra money or be penalised according to performance. Clearly the contracts were never written for a world with recent inflation and cost increases. Bringing this to Sullivan the cost increases seem to be unsustainable for them. A larger business can choose to subsidise services for a period with expectation that things will improve in future. Smaller business are less able to do this and it all comes back to where I started with risk and reward. If you are going to have the possibility of sustaining losses for a long period then you'll mitigate it in the price of the contract and look for a larger reward. I don't think any Operator has done this as no one could foresee the cost increases that were coming. Sullivan did try and cut costs and that may, we don't know, have impacted route performance. Post Covid traffic levels are up and that has made it tougher to meet the performance objectives for sure. What we don't know is to what extent post Covid traffic is the determining factor in the route performance reduction. Was TfL / Sullivans willing to put in a revised timetable, who was to pay for any extra resources, TfL, Sullivans? If Sullivans were making an unsustainable loss they may not have the funds to provide extra resources to bring performance back up. We simply don't know all the details. What was clear was that the routes did not meet the agreed performance levels and TfL seemed to be imposing penalties as per the contract. Penalties though are never going to work in a case like this as it seems Sullivans simply didn't have the resources to bring performance back, or if they did were not prepared to do so as their losses would be too huge. In terms of money owed by TfL to Sullivans, the contract should specify when TfL pay Sullivans. Did the contract say payments would be at once, or spread out? Again we don't know. Clearly the route performance was unacceptable to TfL (and no doubt the passengers) and previous meetings between TfL and Sullivans got nowhere. I suspect Sullivans wanted more money and TfL did not offer that. What is not clear is whether TfL chose not to offer any help, or could not not offer any help as it would be outside the contract and have implications on other bus services. They may not have been able to offer to help to just one Operator. TfL seemed to want Sullivans to terminate their TfL operations if they were not going to improve performance, but from Sullivans perspective they were getting insufficient funding to do so given their increased costs. I have no idea what the contract says about this situation. It seems the discussion on 2 August was, shall we say lively, resulting in an immediate pull out and termination by Sullivans, I would argue a disorderly termination as no service was in place for the next day. It was a great shame TfL and Sullivans could not have agreed a termination date in say two weeks or a month away for the sake of passengers and staff. I have a lot of time for both TfL and Sullivans and can see their respective points of view. There is a lot we don't know. The current model doesn't deal with these unexpected cost increases for all Operators, especially small ones. TfL should look at this so they can welcome smaller Operators and not have a situation arise like this again while being fair to all the Operators. Learning for the future all round. Very interesting to read your analysis of events. I will counter this though, HCT had a very similar issue where they were heading very fast towards loss making and the point of no return. However instead of letting routes start losing mileage and buses not turning up they very quickly sourced a buyer to take over their TfL routes to ensure that there would be a continuity of service, this was done quickly but also enough notice given to ensure a seamless transition of ownership. Sullivan did neither of these things when it was clear that they were heading south. They let services suffer as a result despite they very clearly were past the point of no return and multiple people had their daily lives disrupted by what effectively became a form of managed decline instead of suitable action being taken in a timely manner. The arguments will probably rage on about who was more at fault here, but for me it's quite cut and dry if TfL set out the terms and Sullivan knew what they would and wouldn't get paid for. A company with the legal team of TfL who probably have a team in court probably everyday somewhere would not do anything that would set them up for a lawsuit and I'm sure should any payments be withheld that the legal teams would have scrutinised the contracts accordingly before holding them back. However HCT was a different situation caused by a certain individual playing a massive part of their downfall. Their routes were losing mileage and not performing well either. Sullivans downfall to route performance is that a lot of key backroom staff that were over-worked left the industry or went back to neighbouring bus companies. They relied far too much on agency drivers of which a large percentage of the ones they used who other mainstream operators would not touch, helped to ruin their routes. Some of the things I have heard been done by credible sources would see instant dismissal with the other big companies. Some of you on here love to kick a dog when it is down, but what you fail to mention that Sullivans were at a time the best performing company in London. It is a shame TfL were not willing to see what they could have done to get back to that sort of performance.
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Post by mark on Aug 11, 2024 7:09:35 GMT
…on the flip side it benefits them when inflation falls. It’s also worth noting that TfL’s contractors were coining it in through QIC payments during Covid when a near normal level of service ran but traffic was next to non existent. I don’t recall any of them complaining about this. That is not true. The operators were NOT coining it. TfL would have went bankrupt if they did through bonus payments then. TfL gave operators the option of the performance figures from the year before covid. The evidence is here www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-does/questions-mayor/find-an-answer/bus-contracts-3-0
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Post by Eastlondoner62 on Aug 11, 2024 13:31:41 GMT
Very interesting to read your analysis of events. I will counter this though, HCT had a very similar issue where they were heading very fast towards loss making and the point of no return. However instead of letting routes start losing mileage and buses not turning up they very quickly sourced a buyer to take over their TfL routes to ensure that there would be a continuity of service, this was done quickly but also enough notice given to ensure a seamless transition of ownership. Sullivan did neither of these things when it was clear that they were heading south. They let services suffer as a result despite they very clearly were past the point of no return and multiple people had their daily lives disrupted by what effectively became a form of managed decline instead of suitable action being taken in a timely manner. The arguments will probably rage on about who was more at fault here, but for me it's quite cut and dry if TfL set out the terms and Sullivan knew what they would and wouldn't get paid for. A company with the legal team of TfL who probably have a team in court probably everyday somewhere would not do anything that would set them up for a lawsuit and I'm sure should any payments be withheld that the legal teams would have scrutinised the contracts accordingly before holding them back. However HCT was a different situation caused by a certain individual playing a massive part of their downfall. Their routes were losing mileage and not performing well either. Sullivans downfall to route performance is that a lot of key backroom staff that were over-worked left the industry or went back to neighbouring bus companies. They relied far too much on agency drivers of which a large percentage of the ones they used who other mainstream operators would not touch, helped to ruin their routes. Some of the things I have heard been done by credible sources would see instant dismissal with the other big companies. Some of you on here love to kick a dog when it is down, but what you fail to mention that Sullivans were at a time the best performing company in London. It is a shame TfL were not willing to see what they could have done to get back to that sort of performance. However just because a company has a past history of good doesn't make it acceptable for it to then fall apart a few years later and then expect no backlash because they were once good upon a time. Unfortunately when it comes to business, services and when money is involved a dog that is down deserves kicking. Companies need to know what they are doing unfortunately if their job is to provide a service that people have paid for. In deregulated markets something like this would have instantly got attention, if a bus service falls apart people aren't going to keep waiting forever because the company was once good, they need the service now and that service isn't good. You're probably right when it comes down to good staff being overworked and inadequate staff being taken on through agencies, but that is all within the company's control. Go Ahead, Stagecoach, Arriva, Metroline etc all have some form of advertising showing how their internal staff are who move up through the company. Go Ahead don't make a secret of their driver academy where they use ingrown talent to move up into management positions within the company. While nowhere near the scale, Sullivan should have focussed on driver retention. As you say once they were very well performing and I'm sure had no mileage lost at all during one period so when staff were leaving en masse there should have been investigations into why staff are leaving and how retention could be improved.
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Post by SILENCED on Aug 13, 2024 12:04:52 GMT
MMC E78 is now operating provincial routes.
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Post by lj61nwc on Aug 13, 2024 12:50:27 GMT
MMC E78 is now operating provincial routes. E70 as well
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Post by joefrombow on Aug 13, 2024 15:24:47 GMT
MMC E78 is now operating provincial routes. E70 as well How long will they last realistically ? bar the school routes and shopping hour specials they only have two "main" routes (84 & 306) , no good paying income anymore from Tfl for Rail Replacement work , I can't see them lasting long unfortunately , definitely don't need all those buses would be a handy good little take over for a Vectare type company , but even then isit sustainable ?
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Post by WH241 on Aug 13, 2024 15:35:53 GMT
How long will they last realistically ? bar the school routes and shopping hour specials they only have two "main" routes (84 & 306) , no good paying income anymore from Tfl for Rail Replacement work , I can't see them lasting long unfortunately , definitely don't need all those buses would be a handy good little take over for a Vectare type company , but even then isit sustainable ? I said similar recently and give them maybe 6 months before they end up closing / selling up. Does anyone know why all Sullivan routes are not part of the £2 bus fare scheme?
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Post by ADH45258 on Aug 13, 2024 15:37:49 GMT
How long will they last realistically ? bar the school routes and shopping hour specials they only have two "main" routes (84 & 306) , no good paying income anymore from Tfl for Rail Replacement work , I can't see them lasting long unfortunately , definitely don't need all those buses would be a handy good little take over for a Vectare type company , but even then isit sustainable ? If Sullivan ever did choose to close their non-TFL operations too - who might be able to take over those routes? Arriva and Metroline themselves chose to stop operating them before Sullivan took over (though the 306 having a different number at Arriva). Maybe Uno? Not sure how busy the 84 gets, but the 306 doesn't seem to need DDs, so does perhaps seem a waste of those ex-217 MMCs.
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