PROFILE
Page 25
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An occasional series on faces in the news
Off the buses
JIM SKYRME, the newest honorary member of Confed and chief executive of the National Bus Company, will soon stop catching the bus everyday from London Bridge to his New Street Square office and retire after spending his whole working life in the bus industry.
He has seen more than his fair share of changes during the past 46 years, not the least of them being the almost universal recognition that bus services can now no longer be financed from payments made by passengers.
But he still foresees an expansionist role for the NBC. To find where Mr Skyrme thinks public transport — and the NBC. in particular — is going, CM's passenger transport editor has just been to interview him.
Thwarted by lack of money from his first ambition to be a dentist, Jim Skyrme decided to follow in his father's footsteps and plumped for a career in the bus industry. He decided to leave his home town of Belfast and started work as a junior engineer for the United Automobile Co at Scarborough.
Although the organisation of the bus business may have changed radically since those early days all the old company names that marked Mr Skyrme's progression through to his present post are still with us — East Midland; North-West Road Car Co; Potteries Motor Traction; Southdown.
Mr Skyrme is convinced that the strength of NBC lies in the individual freedom given to the operating companies. But where NBC itself is concerned he definitely believes that "big is beautiful."
These expansionist views extend to NBC taking over the operation of all the municipal bus undertakings. "The bigger ones can stand on their own as separate entities while the smaller ones hardly notice the take-over," he told me. If this were to come about then all would stand to benefit, according to Mr Skyrme.
The distribution of support cash could be arranged more equitably than at present when NBC companies get no rate support while their municipal neighbours do. Also the management staff in smaller undertakings would stand to benefit by being part of a national organisation where they could easily progress from post to post through the constituent companies. Mr Skyrme maintained that passengers would notice no difference through the change. "This was demonstrated in Luton and Exeter where we took over the services," he said. "People don't really have loyalty to an individual operator so long as an equally good service is operated."
Having graduated to his management role through the "engineering stream," Jim Skyrme maintains a keen interest in the technical affairs of NBC. The complexity of modern buses make life particularly difficult for the maintenance staff.
"When it gets to the point where fitters need a doctorate in electrical engineering to keep a bus on the road, it's getting ridiculous", he said. "The ease of maintenance of a vehicle is far more important than the initial investment."
When asked about the ideal bus he replied that for a single-decker this lay somewhere between the simplicity of the Bristol LH and the complexity of the Leyland National. "I would not agree that the National is unrelia ble", he told me, "It's just that when jobs have to be done they require more skill and take longer and thus cost us more money."
Turning to double-deckers the B15 has little attraction for NBC. "We might buy a few for service in metropolitan areas where we agree to run the same sort of vehicles as the PTEs", he said. "But the vast majority of our order will have to be for 13ft 8in high buses rather than the 14ft 6in B15."
Whenever anybody talks about the bus industry these days the foremost topic of conversation always seems to be finance. "Everyone must accept by now that the farebox can't provide enough revenue to run a bus service", said Mr Skyrme.
"Thrusting the financial responsibility onto the counties caused great problems in the first place but now with the third round of TSG the counties seemed to have mastered their new role," he said. "What is a problem, is that no one thought to include any sanction in the 1972 Transport Act to ensure that counties actually spent the sum allocated to them on transport."
But what is really needed according to Mr Skyrme is some mechaçiism to ensure the continuation of support year after year. it's no good being promised fin ce one year -buy new vehicles and take on new staff —only to find that the money doesn't materilise the next year. The obvious solution is to work on funding for a minimum of, say, five years to keep things running smoothly:, While some of the bus industry may be in the doldrums Mr Skyrme regards the creation of National Travel as one of the major success stories of National Bus. "At the beginning, Freddie Wood and I decided that we needed a unified image to market the express services already run by the bus operating companies", he said.
"We now have a much better service than then with routes really in tune with passengers' requirements." National Travel has not been without problems caused by its position as an agency of the bus companies, but as Mr Skyrme said, "the front remains the same."
The experimental services, like the Norfolk village bus, were greet d with a little reservation by Mr Skyrme. "It's worked out very well for the first ye ," he said. "Volunteer h usewives have maintained service through the winter but everything depends on their continued enthusiasm And support."
Relaxations in the bus licensing code were also seen as a dangerous step by Mr Skyrme, "There's only a stnall experiment planned at present, but I'm a little uneasy because it's leaning towards the jungle we had before 1930," he said.
The loyalty and capacity of the staff of the National Bus Company were a source of satisfaction for Mr Skyrme. "This was shown by the two major fires we had recently," he said. "Not only did our own staff work round the clock to keep things going but other bus operators all rallied round to help us out."
Also all the operating staff and the trade unions have rallied round to try to improve the financial position of the company. "The management and the union leaders have stood side by side to try and encourage the Government to give us more support," he said.