Manchester bus franchising

[Mayneway]

RE: Manchester bus franchising

(20/01/2023 23:47)Manc93 Wrote:  Regarding the 163 and it being run by Diamond in Bolton, what probably makes it unprofitable or just making money is the fact it must have a lot of dead mileage, either doing driver changeovers in Bury or running empty buses back to the Bolton base.
At a guess i would say Bury back to Bolton running out of service must be 25/30 minutes so thats an hour a day pretty much for each driver on the 163 for dead running.

Also with traffic issues around the city, im sure its a common occurance where drivers are running extremely late for breaks etc, and this will have a knock on effect to other services whichever the driver may next be on.

IMO it looks to me like Diamond are
a) focusing on running the most profitable routes for the remaining of time they run Bolton depot
b) trying to run the most reliable service they can with driver shortages. How many drivers are maybe looking for other work instead of being TUPED over to GNW.... less services means less drivers needed.

I work with a couple of ex Diamond Bolton managers who both reckon the 163 is one of Boltons most profitable routes so regardless of traffic and dead mileage it’s still strange why they are pulling it.