Bus planning for operators
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by Martin Watkins
How the NBC costs the maintenance of different bus components was described in a paper presented to the Leeds University symposium
MAINTENANCE COSTS have become more important to the bus operator now that extensive one-man-operation has reduced staff costs to the minimum. "Economics of vehicle ownership—maintenance and replacement costing" was the title of a paper by Mr D. V. Clarke, of the National Bus Company, given to a symposium on "Public Transport Operations Research" at Leeds this week.
Mr Clarke said that within the NBC, maintenance cost represented only 20 per cent of the group total expenditure, and any improvement in maintenance costing would have only a marginal effect on the overall cost situation.
Before Mr Clarke began his study there was also a lack of information of the difference in maintenance cost between different types of buses, and also on how long a bus should be retained before being replaced by a new vehicle. Costs between the different operating companies within NBC were found to vary by up to a factor of three. When the location with the highest maintenance cost was compared with one with the lowest the variation was by a factor of six.
Costing policy
By setting up a national maintenance costing policy the NBC was able to implement an integrated management control system. For this it was necessary to establish a maintenance cast centre for every depot or group of depots, and to make each vehicle a separate accountable entity, said Mr Clarke. By this process it could easily be seen which type of bus chassis and bus body was the most expensive to maintain. Work undertaken by the central fleet works, rather than at garages was also carefully costed.
Mr Clarke said his system would be even more useful should the DoE amend its recertification requirements. This would remove the peak costs in the 12th and 15th years.
Allocation of spares and maintenance resources was also covered in a paper by Dr L. G. Proll and Mr N. K. Paylidis of Leeds University. They drew up a simulation model which allowed the impact of different resource allocation policies on the performance of the mechanical section of the works to be measured. Variables studies were the size of the work force; the number of working areas; the number of spares of each unit held; and the stock of spare parts.
Three measures of the performance of the system were used: the average daily number of outstanding demands for major units from garages the number of in-dock inspections completed in a period of two months; and the average daily number of defective vehicles taken from garages to the central works.
Using these measures of performance two sets of experiments were conducted. In the first case the current level of stocks at the Eastern Counties Omnibus Company's Norwich hq was fed into the model, and secondly suggestions by ECOC intended to improve the service efficiency of their facilities were evaluated by the model.
The results obtained suggested that the size of the workforce had an important effect on all measures of performance while the number of spare units had a significant effect only on the performance of the unit shop. The performance of the maintenance system was not sensitive to increases in the levels of the spare parts held or of the working areas.
Radical plans
Radical plans to improve the rural transport in West Yorkshire were discussed in a paper presented by Mr D. P. Leckonby, of West Yorkshire PTE.
Five ways of improving transport were discussed : Li Alteration to existing bus services, introducing minibuses to lightly patronised routes.
D Co-ordination of bus and train services.
D Use of local authority vehicles.
El Use of post office vehicles.
Li A community car service.
Two study areas were initially selected and data were collected by an !intensive household survey. This consisted of travel diaries completed by all members of the households selected over the age of 12, and a detailed questionnaire filled in by one member of the household.
The analysis of the data defined some zones that had very good access to transport serVices whereas others had a poor level of service. Alternative transport schemes were examined and were evaluated by measuring the time benefit to existing passengers.
A model of the demand for rural transport was developed for three purposes : 1. To predict the patron' of new public transr serVices.
2. To see how much of support for new servi would be abstracted ft existing services.
3. To evaluate the ben given by new service Operational experience rived from the Milton Key. dial-a-ride system was C cribed by Mr B. Homer, traffic manager of Uni Counties.
He said two areas of groN for the serVice had not hi anticipated: 'school child: using the service extensiv for travel to and from .schK and old-age pensioners atte: ing meetings at local cc munity centres. Considera evening use of the service v also made by residents traN ling to and from pubs.
Only one variation of pt dole in operating the serv has been necessary, said Horner. Originally it v intended that passengers sho• ride either wholly within • service area or from the s vice area to an external def. nation or vice versa. Vehicl however, now ran from c external point through service area to a second of external destinations.
Because of teething troub With vehicles the (nigh intention to use them : private-hire work had not b€ implemented. It was also 11 intention to achieve better I ordination between the dial ride services and the .sta carriage services.