First Glasgow (T/A First Lanarkshire) Alexander Dennis Enviro 300
The year ahead.....
After the horrible year that was 2020 I thought I’d try and give my predictions for the year that is 2021 and what I think may happen over five possible topics relating to the bus industry overall. Now I would state that these are purely speculative and done with the aid of my crystal ball and nothing more. However these are based on fairly sound opinions, trends and so have a reasonable hypothesis behind them. But they’re simply speculation on my part. So here goes...
1. The rise of hydrogen and the slower than anticipated decline of diesel. The first hydrogen double-deckers sneaked into service at the end of 2020 with First Aberdeen and others were delivered to Metroline. With orders placed for more with Natex West Midlands and Translink i suspect we’ll see more orders being placed for this fuel type which offers zero emissions but has none of the drawbacks of electric vehicles. However it’ll be with the support of Government grants though until prices come down, although they will. I also feel that there will be a small rush for clean diesel vehicles as operators begin to see the impact of LEZ’s and begin to restart investment. With funds being tight, any investment will be limited so I’d suspect that diesel sales, whilst declining overall over the past few years, may see a slight upturn overall.
2. Optare and the UK. I feel that 2021 will be a tough year for Optare, which was renamed - rather oddly - to Switch Mobility towards the end of 2020. Demand for its diesel range has virtually evaporated, particularly with alternatives such as the Mercedes-Benz based Mellor Strata for its best-selling Solo available at far less cost and its only its electric double-decker seems to be selling in any real number. It has this massive factory in the outskirts of Leeds which cannot be getting fully utilised and a few high profile customers cancelled orders last year, such as Reading Buses. It also suffered from industrial action which in a pandemic is some going. You may see production moved overseas or even a sale by its parent company. I wouldn’t bet against it, put it that way.
3. First contraction. I think most would expect this in some form, as the company grapples with issues in the US and it’s rail franchises. Whilst if you were looking at a map you’d sell Aberdeen, as it’s a relatively small operation and totally out on a limb, that won’t happen as it’d be very very political for the company despite the fact that it would be an attractive purchase to some. So if I was a betting man, I’d go for the remaining Manchester operations or the operations in Berkshire or Essex. Again, it’s just my opinion. It’ll keep ahold of its large city fleets, an example of which is seen here as First Glasgow 67834 (SN13EDF), branded for its Lanarkshire operations. What I’d also expect is the sale of some -possibly all - of its US operations and the handing back of one of its rail franchises.
4. Pullback in Lothians. Preston and Monklands. With a new broom in charge at Lothian Buses one thing I’d expect is a scale back of its operations in West Lothian. Possibly it’ll be a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that’ll see it reduce services in West Lothian for Bright Bus disappearing. Another I’d expect to see is McGill’s scaling back its Monklands operations. Services there have been steadily reducing and I’d expect you may see it pull out and sell its operations to a local operator. Also, as a curve ball, I’d not be surprised if Rotala sells its Preston Bus operations to focus on Greater Manchester. Stagecoach again maybe?
5. Passenger numbers slowly recover as vaccinating takes hold. This is a bit of a given but I’d expect demand to start its slow climb back up in 2021 but whether they’ll ever recover is debatable. Business have discovered that many staff can work from home and it maybe the case that staff don’t go back to their offices for sometime or when they do, it’s possibly the odd day a week rather than the full working week. As such, I’d expect state support to continue and you may see some sort of franchise based model, as the present funding method is unsustainable long term.
So that’s my predictions. It’ll be interesting in early 2022 to look back and see how many, if any. I got right.
First Glasgow (T/A First Lanarkshire) Alexander Dennis Enviro 300
The year ahead.....
After the horrible year that was 2020 I thought I’d try and give my predictions for the year that is 2021 and what I think may happen over five possible topics relating to the bus industry overall. Now I would state that these are purely speculative and done with the aid of my crystal ball and nothing more. However these are based on fairly sound opinions, trends and so have a reasonable hypothesis behind them. But they’re simply speculation on my part. So here goes...
1. The rise of hydrogen and the slower than anticipated decline of diesel. The first hydrogen double-deckers sneaked into service at the end of 2020 with First Aberdeen and others were delivered to Metroline. With orders placed for more with Natex West Midlands and Translink i suspect we’ll see more orders being placed for this fuel type which offers zero emissions but has none of the drawbacks of electric vehicles. However it’ll be with the support of Government grants though until prices come down, although they will. I also feel that there will be a small rush for clean diesel vehicles as operators begin to see the impact of LEZ’s and begin to restart investment. With funds being tight, any investment will be limited so I’d suspect that diesel sales, whilst declining overall over the past few years, may see a slight upturn overall.
2. Optare and the UK. I feel that 2021 will be a tough year for Optare, which was renamed - rather oddly - to Switch Mobility towards the end of 2020. Demand for its diesel range has virtually evaporated, particularly with alternatives such as the Mercedes-Benz based Mellor Strata for its best-selling Solo available at far less cost and its only its electric double-decker seems to be selling in any real number. It has this massive factory in the outskirts of Leeds which cannot be getting fully utilised and a few high profile customers cancelled orders last year, such as Reading Buses. It also suffered from industrial action which in a pandemic is some going. You may see production moved overseas or even a sale by its parent company. I wouldn’t bet against it, put it that way.
3. First contraction. I think most would expect this in some form, as the company grapples with issues in the US and it’s rail franchises. Whilst if you were looking at a map you’d sell Aberdeen, as it’s a relatively small operation and totally out on a limb, that won’t happen as it’d be very very political for the company despite the fact that it would be an attractive purchase to some. So if I was a betting man, I’d go for the remaining Manchester operations or the operations in Berkshire or Essex. Again, it’s just my opinion. It’ll keep ahold of its large city fleets, an example of which is seen here as First Glasgow 67834 (SN13EDF), branded for its Lanarkshire operations. What I’d also expect is the sale of some -possibly all - of its US operations and the handing back of one of its rail franchises.
4. Pullback in Lothians. Preston and Monklands. With a new broom in charge at Lothian Buses one thing I’d expect is a scale back of its operations in West Lothian. Possibly it’ll be a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that’ll see it reduce services in West Lothian for Bright Bus disappearing. Another I’d expect to see is McGill’s scaling back its Monklands operations. Services there have been steadily reducing and I’d expect you may see it pull out and sell its operations to a local operator. Also, as a curve ball, I’d not be surprised if Rotala sells its Preston Bus operations to focus on Greater Manchester. Stagecoach again maybe?
5. Passenger numbers slowly recover as vaccinating takes hold. This is a bit of a given but I’d expect demand to start its slow climb back up in 2021 but whether they’ll ever recover is debatable. Business have discovered that many staff can work from home and it maybe the case that staff don’t go back to their offices for sometime or when they do, it’s possibly the odd day a week rather than the full working week. As such, I’d expect state support to continue and you may see some sort of franchise based model, as the present funding method is unsustainable long term.
So that’s my predictions. It’ll be interesting in early 2022 to look back and see how many, if any. I got right.