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C plans assive shake-up
Page 31
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A major revitalization of the services rated by the National Bus Company s announced this week by its chairman, r F. A. S. Wood. Among the more coniversial of the proposals are a merger of express service at present operated by subsidiaries, a possible diversification o car rental and the setting up of three erating regions.
Ile most immediate change will be the ady growth in the number of coaches crating express services in a new red, ite and blue livery. These vehicles — re are 4000 of them at present operating ler fleet names like Midland Red, Green ie and Ribble — will eventually run as service under one management and I be repainted under existing schedules. :y will be allocated to the new central vities group of the NBC although they continue to be owned, maintained and rated by the existing, companies. Mr od said that he had been influenced in foundation of a national express netk by the operation of the Greyhound em in America. At present express rations account for about £10m worth usiness each year for the NBC.
fr Wood said that future NBC planning two prongs: to improve stage carriage ices which accounted for 85 per cent of company's business and to develop "all legitimate areas of growth in public sport". As well as expanding the anal system of inter-city express ser ■ the diversification policy could include both travel agency work and car rental. Mr Wood revealed that a study of the US car rental market had already been made and that the NBC might become UK agent for an international car hire operator. A decision would be made by the end of the year. The network of booking offices could form the basis of a chain of travel agents and holiday tours at present operated by NBC companies would in future be a centrally controlled function and drastically developed over the next few years.
Of stage-carriage services Mr Wood said that "for the time being at least" they would continue to be operated on a company basis although — "of course" — appropriate mergers of companies would continue. Traditional names would continue for the present although all liveries would incorporate a national emblem. All possible avenues of profitable stage-carriage services must be "ceaselessly pursued". This could mean joint carriage of parcels with the Post Office and National Freight Corporation and possibly leasing buses to private operators in rural areas who could devise their own routes.
Mr Wood said that he believed that in a few years Government legislation would bring the bus into its own against the car. But the shake-up he had announced was designed to keep the NBC profitable in a period when "we may well be faced with further declines in passengers on stage carriage business however hard we try".