How old is an old vehicle?
Page 89
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Some practical thoughts on bus replacement
TRANSPORT managers in recent years have been subjected to a plethora of advice from interested parties on the vital matter of vehicle replacement.
The manufacturers of commercial vehicles need to liaise closely with users in designing specifications; vehicle life must be considered from the outset. Users may be influenced by whims of fashion as much as by commercial considerations, though they have an overriding need to operate vehicles which will prove commercially viable.
Yet another factor—perhaps the most important of all—is the reaction of employees; if buses or lorries are unpleasant to drive, or to maintain, then drivers and mechanics may "vote with their feet."
The many considerations affecting the issue were discussed at a recent conference of the Institute of Practitioners in Work Study Organisation and Methods. Afterwards some observers could be excused for deciding that vehicle replacement was more a question of "hunch" than of science.
The higher managements of large companies expect their senior transport executives to determine fleet renewal strategies in a professional manner. While the services of 'financial accounting, even statistical, experts may be on tap to the transport manager, if the decision in the final analysis rests with him he must qualify the expert advice on offer with his own common sense.
Posh courses
Two speakers at the Conference spoke with the experience of large companies in mind. Mr. G. D. Neely, director of finance, National Bus Company, began •by reminding the work study men that vehicle
• replacement was a subject beloved of business schools and posh management cours es 'because, with carefully considered data, some interesting and often unusual arithmetical problems can be set which at least establish whether the participants can handle compound interest.
Many readers will have set or worked out these problems, most probably ignoring the effect of tax and inflation. In particular companies the effect of revenue and cost flows given different replacement dates must be reconciled—if that is not too vague a word for an exercise involving much guessing.
In view of its record in operating buses which some people would argue should have been scrapped at least 12 years ago, the NBC's Mr Neely is well-placed to pronounce on the Victorian virtues of thrift. He confessed that NBC started with the premise that it is cheaper to keep an asset unless and until you can prove that the cost of keeping it is rising and outweighs the cost of replacement.
Mr Neely went so far as to contrast "the orgy of planned obsolescence' in the consumer society with the Victorian concept of leasehold housing, founded on the assumption that a house wore out after 99 years and it was thereafter sensible to lease land for 99 years and build and own a house for that period.
The shell of a house, well looked after, can last indefinitely. Is Mr Neely coming close to arguing that buses could be operated for a century?
"Fortunately," said the NBC finance director, "the bus business is not yet a victim to the heresy of planned obsolescence. It is considered by most that if you buy a double-decker sometimes for as much as £30,000 which has no second-hand market, it is idiotic to keep it for less than 10 years as a minimum. A certain distortion is caused by current Certificate of Fitness rules, but basically there is little move in the UK industry to retire heavyweight singleand double-deck buses under 12 years old. The grand debate starts as to how much more than 12 it is sensible to keep them. Here the fun begins."
Right-wingers
Mr Neely spoke of "the Right-wing" who would operate buses "until the structure falls apart." He knew of a bus almost 30 years old—but virtually only the number plates were of that age. Right-wingers in the bus industry knew of little positive evidence that the cost of repairing a 20-year-old bus—after allowing for the ministry rules' distortion—was much greater than the cost of repairing a fouror eight-yearold bus. The steady rise in repair costs necessary to promote earlier replacement did not seem to have materialised.
Mark Twain spoke of "lies, damned lies and statistics." Here, as Mr Neely stressed, it is seldom possible to compare like with like. Repair work done to doors in the younger vehicle will not .be precisely reflected in the elder. The sophisticated electrics and accessories on young buses have no counterpart on the well-tried veterans.
But age is not the only criterion. The four year old's annual mileage may be three times that of the 20-year-old, and in more punishing conditions. In its youth, the old bus —in the palmy 50s—incurred less operating punishment. You can't assume that the repair cost of the existing fouryear-old will be the same as that of the present 20-year-old buses.
The spare parts issue must also be brought into the equation. Mr Neely said, the bus industry hoarded spare parts after the war, It then trimmed stocks under the influence of accountants to such an extent t ha t manufacturers assumed demand had ceased to exist.
Today, operators demanded spare parts for obsolescent vehicles in quantities quite uneconomic to produce. NBC once asked for 50 of a particular part and were told that the — economic or d e r quantity—was not 50, not 500, but 5,000. When that nasty penny fell to the ground the NBC advocates of old buses were distinctly chastened.
Another argument against a 20-year-old bus life concerns the technology of an industry which must—at least in export markets— keep up with the Jones's. Would it 'be sensible to delay moves towards electric buses, greater safety, fire prevention, improved fuel consumption until 1995?
Mr Neely introduced the marketing aspect. If the business of a bus was to get people quickly and reliably from A to B—and all surveys confirmed that reliability was held in greater public esteem than cheapness, comfort or all modcons—did this not boost the ego of the 20-year-old bus advocates?
Box on wheels
He quoted a recent instance when he had given a lift to a young, very junior, hospital worker whose bus had not turned up. This particular bus customer was responsible for opening up all the operating theatres in a hospital, starting the day for a myriad of other workers. "Given this sort of customer what one basically wants is a box on four wheels that goes. One does not want untried new vehicles and new technology but the trusted servants of yesterday."
The inter-relationship between the vehicle-using 'industries, particularly buses, and the manufacturing industry, is also crucial to the prosperity of both. A stable re-ordering pattern helps the manufacturing cycle; a changeable and a variable life for vehicles helps no one. Of 28,000 doubledeckers (a further 20;000 are single-deckers) some 1,800 are two years old, but only 1,100. are seven years old. 2,500 are 12 years old, only 1,300 are eight years old.
The reasons for this are fairly well known; the trend towards one-man operation significantly affected matters. Mr. Neely conceded that much of the trouble of bus replacement was not the fault of the manufacturers: it was due to "the in and out running of the operator's orders."
With an airline operating as few as 200 aircraft in a single national company it can pay off to undertake a mass of refined mathematical analysis to determine replacement strategy. Mr.