I was walking through Sheffield City Centre
with a good friend of mine, when her very streetwise five year old
granddaughter Ruby stopped us in our tracks.
“Oh my god, did you see what that woman was wearing?” she announced, her
face a mixture of disgust and astonishment, “red and purple just do not go
together!”
I hope that’s not true, because my job is
to make them go together! As if running one bus company wasn't enough, I now have two!
My latest
adventure started about two months ago, when I was appointed by Wellglade (best
known as the parent company of trentbarton) to run their TM Travel subsidiary.
This is a part-time mission occupying about
half my week, the other half continues to be devoted to Velvet.
So what possessed me to take a second job
two hundred miles away from home?
I’d been looking for a fresh challenge for
a while. I love Velvet with all my
heart, I bleed purple, and have no plans for the business to do anything other
than grow and prosper.
But I have a fabulous management team who
take care of the day-to-day service delivery, and they need space to do their
jobs and develop themselves, both individually and as a team without me
micro-managing every detail.
For my own part, I love change and hate
routine, and my brain needs fresh stimulus all the time. With Velvet approaching six years old (the
company that wouldn’t last six months, I remember being told repeatedly at the
time), it has already more than doubled the longest period I had spent in any
one job previously.
I had therefore been on the lookout for
some consultancy work on the side, or something similar. The opportunity - when it came - was rather
grander than I was expecting! Two
meetings a year apart and a couple of phone calls led me to a discussion with
the Wellglade board at their Heanor offices, at which I was presented with the chance
to be General Manager at TM Travel.
I must admit I jumped at it. The downside with consultancy is that you can
suggest and advise, but ultimately you can’t make anything happen, you’re
relying on others to share your vision.
I crave responsibility, so the opportunity to run something of my own was
too good to pass up.
And it is difficult to imagine a better
opportunity anywhere in the UK bus industry.
As a parent company, Wellglade’s credentials are beyond question – an
unrivalled track record of innovation and sound management. As a board of directors, it is hard to think
of three greater guides and mentors than Brian King, Ian Morgan and Graham
Sutton.
Meanwhile TM Travel is a compact business that
has been through a tough time since coming into Wellglade’s ownership. Small enough to be manageable alongside my
existing commitments, but big enough to be a meaningful player in South
Yorkshire and the East Midlands, and with the board keen to see it play to its
full potential, I couldn’t ask for a better opening.
In my first two months there, the scale of
the opportunity has become clear. For a
start, the company is in better shape than many people acknowledge.
In the eyes of many industry commentators
and enthusiasts, the company is seen as a complete basket case.
While these opinions clearly have some
basis in the reality of the turmoil the company has experienced in recent
years, such perceptions are rapidly becoming outdated and the truth is that the
standard of service delivery is up there with the rest.
Not just our own monitoring, but also
figures supplied by South Yorkshire PTE, show that our punctuality and
reliability is generally in line with the big operators in the area, and with
industry norms. While the fleet age may
be higher than we’d like, the standard of maintenance belies this, with a run
of clear VOSA encounters leading to a green OCRS score and a MOT pass rate
approaching 100 per cent.
Also in our favour is an incredibly
positive and committed workforce.
Outside of Velvet, by far the best I’ve encountered. Virtually everyone I’ve met wants the company
to succeed and is brimming with ideas and suggestions on how to get there. Yes there is work to be done to get the best
out of the people and structure, but even in my short time there I’ve seen a
real sense of people wanting to work together to move the company forward.
I’m under no illusions, there is a lot to
do. There are far too many rough edges
operationally. The financial performance
is not where it should be, with too many marginal routes, and this has
undermined any business case for fleet investment with the result that the
fleet presentation is not great, with too many different liveries and
hand-me-down vehicles that haven’t been properly integrated into the fleet.
Until we sort those issues out, and prove
to the board that we have a company worthy of sustained investment, we will
continue to hand ammunition to those who would talk us down. But that is the challenge I’ve been put there
to address, and it is exciting beyond measure.
Of course, commuting between Southampton
and Sheffield is not for the faint hearted, and I simply wouldn’t do it if I
thought it would damage Velvet.
But the team here know what they’re doing,
and we’ve strengthened the management structure to make sure we’ve got all the
bases covered.
After eighteen months in which we’ve
struggled a bit following swingeing cuts in public sector funding in November
2011 and the associated loss of the C, we’ve suddenly hit a new groove and are
powering forward with a vengeance.
The extension of Velvet A into Southampton
last December has been steadily building in popularity and has firmly
established itself at the core of our commercial offer. The morning peak service into Southampton
will be strengthened next month – filling the only real gap in service
provision – and the new wave of college students and the highly popular
extension of our young person fares to 5-19 year olds has opened up another new
market.
To capitalise on the growth, we’ve bought
five Volvo B10BLEs from Ensign, ex-Stagecoach North East, which are being
refurbished as we speak. Apart from one
line which has to remain double deck due to lunchtime capacity constraints,
these will sweep away the motley collection of Darts, DAFs and Solos that make
our current offer on the A look rather disjointed.
More importantly, the B10BLE has a
reputation for reliability and robust mechanical performance, as well as being
smooth and comfortable for drivers and passengers.
Our aim is obviously to be able to afford
much newer kit for the A in time, and if we can get three or four years of
solid reliable performance from these buses while the patronage continues to
grow, we will be well placed to make the business case in due course.
We have won the contract to take over the
S1 route from First in Southampton in October, so we have extended our shopping
spree to include two further Solos.
Having established a very good reputation with the customers in the area
since taking over the S2 in 2010, this new contract is a great opportunity for
us to extend our presence, while leaving our bigger cousins free to concentrate
on their core commercial networks.
Completing our summer shopping has been a
fifth low-floor DAF double decker from Dawson Rentals – Spectra T124 AUA -
complementing our existing batch and allowing the withdrawal of our infamous
orange Olympian – a bargain priced purchase that has served us very well but
whose condition towards the end was directly at odds with the image we wished
to present.
Indeed, we now only have three step
entrance double deckers remaining, and realistically these will probably be
fine for the college routes they serve until rather nearer the DDA deadline.
The other notable service expansion this
summer has been our re-entry to the Ringwood – Southampton market that we tried
briefly in 2008. The issues that caused
us to withdraw from the route at the time were more to do with the constraints
on the timetable imposed by the associated contract for route 35, and we have
been looking for a way back into the market ever since.
The opportunity has arisen with the
acquisition of a school contract in the area that gives us a solid revenue
base, and early signs are that the new improved 300 will quickly establish
itself as a solid performer.
As if all that weren’t enough, the 67 has
also had its share of the excitement with an improved Saturday service, and
with the route showing growth we’re hopeful of more improvements to come. And last but not least our Marwell route has
really found its feet this summer, with regular driver Jeff getting into the
spirit with his game hunter’s costume and toy animals strewn throughout the
bus.
To say there is a lot going on would be an
understatement, but it’s all positive and that’s exactly how I like it. I work much better under pressure, and after
a year and a half in which there are times when life in Eastleigh has seemed a
bit mundane, the challenge of leading all these exciting new developments while
shuttling 200 miles each way between two offices has me once again fired up
with enthusiasm.
And that’s without even mentioning a
certain modest interest in a local night club that has arrived completely out
of the blue and means that my weekend nights are as action packed as the days
in between.
It’s a good job I don’t really do sleep!
