Office of Fair Trading to investigate local bus services

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has decided to launch a market study into the supply of local bus services. The OFT states that it is conducting this investigation because the sector has become increasingly controlled by five large public companies (Arriva, FirstGroup, Go-Ahead group, National Express and Stagecoach) – the study will consider whether this concentration has had a positive or negative impact on the prices paid by bus users and the services that passengers receive, and whether there is sufficient competition between operators for contracted services. The OFT also stated that it receive regular complaints from bus users about prices and service levels.

Swanage rail link to open in 2013?

Work to install a permanent connection, usable at all times, between the Swanage Railway and the Network Rail main line at Worget Junction, west of Wareham, is currently scheduled to be completed in spring 2013. The objective is to operate a maximum of eight return journeys per day between Swanage and Wareham using refurbished class 117 diesel multiple unit trains, acquired by Dorset County Council in 2004. It has been agreed that, during the interim period, a number of through trains will operate each year using a temporary connection between Swanage and Wareham.

Network Rail five-year plan

Network Rail will publish the company’s five-year plan for Britain’s railways on March 31, that will give details of work to be undertaken in the period to 31 March 2014 and the expected impact on the punctuality of each train operating company – Network Rail has been granted an additional twelve months by the Office of Rail Regulation to finalise details of the company’s asset management policies.

New diesel trains for First Great Western

The Department for Transport (DfT) invited four train manufacturers (Bombardier Transportation UK Limited, Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, S. A. (Spain), CSRE Limited (China) and Hyundai Rotern Company (South Korea)) last December to bid to build two hundred new diesel rail carriages at an expected cost of three hundred million pounds – the new carriages, which are expected to start entering service in 2012, are destined for the First Great Western, Northern and Trans-Pennine Express rail franchises. It has now been announced that the successful bidder will supply nineteen four-carriage trains and forty-two three-carriage trains – a total of two hundred and two carriages. It is expected that the new trains will enter service during the six months commencing December 2011. The new carriages for First Great Western will operate on services in the Greater Bristol area and in the Thames Valley. Media reports have stated that the Korean company, Hyundai Rotern Company (South Korea), has withdrawn.

St Erth park-and-ride

Local media reports state that the proposal to establish a new park-and-ride facility adjacent to St Erth railway station, with seven hundred car parking spaces, has been postponed for an unspecified period due to funding issues.

National Express results

National Express has announced that it will be making further job cuts and cost reductions, reducing investment and cutting the dividend to shareholders by forty per cent to minimise an expected fall in operating profits in 2009 and prevent the company from breaching banking covenants – these announcements following the publication of the company’s financial results for the year ended 31 December 2008, which revealed a pre-tax profit of one hundred and ninety-four million pounds on a turnover of over two billion, seven hundred million pounds. The group acknowledged that the company’s UK Rail division, which contributed a pre-tax profit of eighty-one million pounds in 2008, is expected to be badly affected by the impact of the current recession. The operating profit of the group’s UK coach business fell by nine hundred thousand pounds in 2008 to twenty-seven million pounds.

And finally,

Derek Lott, the managing director of Transdev Yellow Buses, has launched a campaign to retain all the existing public toilets and to re-open nine closed facilities in Bournemouth – Mr Lott is concerned at the impact of the loss of public toilets on all non office-based staff including postal workers, milkmen and bus drivers!