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London Country gives itself a birthday treat
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After 10 years, one of NBC's sick children is on the road to recovery, and is making the most of its resources. Alan Millar finds out what's been happening. Pictures by Dick Ross
HREE AND A HALF years o, London Country was in a -pressing mess. The National , us subsidiary created out of , • ndon Transport's Country . us and Coach Department
1.corded a £5.2m deficiency on s 1975 management accounts. :s traffic was declining, morale as low, and all the signs poin1.c1 towards a gloomier future. Now, as it approaches its 0th birthday, London Country ooks like breaking even at the nd of the year, thanks to -venue support and a rigorous ction programme which has -een spearheaded by managFng 'irector Derek Fytche. Rather han cut back, he has identified reas for investment, and has ncouraged a commercial policy which aims to bring in the highest return.
The company had a bad start 'n life. It was formed in 1970 With £2 share capital and £2500 'n petty cash, it inherited a London Transport trading loss which stood at nearly £2m for 1968 and 1969, and there was 3n annual deficiency of 2750,000 to cover welfare and Densions. On top of this, much if the fleet and many of the depots were out of date, there was no head office or central repair works, and many services had to be bought in from LT.
Gradually, the company divorced itself from LT, starting with the creation of headquarters at Reigate in Surrey. A central overhaul works was established at Crawley, Susse in 1974/75, and several hundre new vehicles were bought. Bi inflation and heavy borrowin commitments took their toll finances and led to the cris which awaited Derek Fytche arrival in 1976.
He also inherited LC's uner viable operating territory. TF 4000 sq mile "mint with a hole which surrounds LT's own arE presents communicatio problems, with services stre ching from Letchworth in Her forshire to Horsham in Susse and from High Wycombe Buckinghamshire to Graveser in Essex. Until the M25 is buil many hours will be lost I management simply travellir from one depot to another.
Since October this year, nany management respon;ibilities have been delegated to he company's four operating ireas, each of which has its )wn area, traffic, and ngineering managers. While lead office continues to lead vith corporate planning and iroad strategies, the areas have leen encouraged to take day0-day decisions and to liase vith local councils and cornriunity groups. We have had D change people's philosophy, Tadually," says Mr Fytche.
Green Line coaches alone ■ rere losing El .6m in 1976. Most ervices suffered sorely from :entral London traffic ongestion, and many were perated with a sub-standard iixture of Leyland National serice buses and 25-year old AEC egals. Derek Fytche says it rould have been easy to have ut out 20 per cent of LC's perations simply by closing own Green Line.
Instead, he looked upon it as ne of the company's resources nd one which could be laximised. Hard sell marketing as been adopted, with the netrork being carved up radically ) meet the needs of today. The -oss-London routes have been iminated, and successful )uth London oribital routes we been joined recently by a )rthern route-734-linking Adeston with Hertford.
Heathrow Airport, Windsor, id Brent Cross shopping cena have all been identified as nential growth areas, either r tourists or London residents, id additional business through ese points has helped reduce e Green Line deficit to 1978's 6,000. It should break even is year. The company scored one of its biggest marketing successes when it launched its Jetlink 747 express between Heathrow and Gatwick airports. Productivity is high, thanks to a £2.50 single fare and a 70 minute journey time. Some of the green, white, and yellow coaches do run empty, but the service is returning respectable profits.
According to commercial manager Bernard Davies, there is still business to be gained by operating into Central London. Green Line providesthrough journeys, especially to the West End, which do not exist by rail. Reliability has been improved by cutting out the cross-London routes, and extra layover time has been introduced to make it easier for coaches to leave London on time. "Two and a half hour delays no longer happen," adds Derek Fytche.
The service's image also has benefited from investment in new coaches. Thirty Plaxton
and Duple-bodied 49seaters—AEC Reliance 760s at present—have been obtained each year, and the aim is to replace them after five years. All are painted in a distinctive livery which has been extended to the company's small, but growing private hire coach fleet, and this has been carried on to publicity material which is distributed locally and internationally.
AECs were chosen because they fitted into the company's engineering requirements, and because their power and braking were suited to the stopstart rigours of Green Line. With coaches running up to 350 miles per day in urban traffic, it is not the fastest, but the toughest vehicle which is needed. The last AECs are being delivered in time for Green Line's golden jubilee in 1980, and Derek Fytche says the company is still looking to see what to buy next. A decision will be announced fairly soon, but, sadly, the British manufacturing industry does not build a chassis which compares with the erstwhile AEC's performance.
Not only was Green Line rolling stock an embarrassment in 1976, but so was the rest of the 1100 vehicle fleet. Rushed replacement programmes and a make-do-and-mend policy in other areas had led to 29 different types, some of them 30 years old, being operated. Many had been bought in great waves, with inevitable bottlenecks when they needed to be overhauled, and shortcomings in the stores supply system made it more difficult to keep services running.
Standardisation had to come, with no more than five types of bus. Despite some fairly serious teething problems with early models. LC has become satisfied with the Leyland National, especially in its simplified B-Series form. Over 500—the world's largest fleet—are operated, and they will have replaced an unreliable fleet of ex-LT AEC Swifts and Merlins by the spring of next year. Newer Swifts will be kept for a few more months.
Leyland Atlantean AN68 double-deckers have been introduced steadily, latterly as replacements for crew-operated Routemasters, the last of which will be returned to LT early next year. Over the last 10 years, LC has increased one-man operation from 33 to 98 per cent, and the last conductors will go with the Routemasters.
If present conditions continue, Mr Fytche sees the next few years programmes concentrating on new doubledeckers. Traffic in such areas as Crawley new town is outstripping the single-deckers' capacity, and growth can best be met by using larger vehicles.
Close contact with the 10 county and 35 districts councils in the area has led to a gradual revision of the stage bus network. In Buckinghamshire, Windsor, Slough, and West Surrey, where exercises are being carried out in conjunction with Alder Valley, NBC's market analysis project is being used to help identify the bases of new service patterns.
Similar techniques are being used in conjunction with Hertfordshire County Council, which has a computer program developed for bus service development. It helped create the Watford Wide local service pattern which has begun to reverse years of decline in the area. That scheme has been aided / a major investment in new uses at Watford, and by a iammoth effort to cure perstent staff shortages. An ad3rtising campaign—typical of a olicy which costs LC £1000 per ?cruit —highlighted the ad3ntages of working at Watford epot, and used local ianagement and union figures posters. Staff morale has een lifted by the improved serices, and the company is condent that one area of turnover as been eliminated.
Windsor remains a thorn in C's side. Further growth of ireen Line traffic on routes perated out of that depot is indered by shortages of drivers nd maintenance staff. High /age jobs at Heathrow and on 'ading estates in Slough have roved too c:reat a temptation 3 r potential staff.
On top of that, most of its ervice buses run in Slough, nd traffic congestion prevents reakdown crews from aaching disabled buses quickly nough to avoid serious inerruptions to services.
On paper, the depot should le closed, and a new one built Slough. But it is in a residenial area, and LC doubts vhether it could sell it for iusiness use or even let it out. Auch management effort is leing devoted towards finding a olution, and the company conoles itself by remembering that vorse troubles have been cured :Isewhere.
Experience in Watford, :rawley, and Stevenage has :onvinced the company that ocal names do work where a jroup of services is reasonably self-contained, and other such schemes will follow. There is also scope for tidying up the ragged edges of the company's territory, notably in Guildford where LC, Alder Valley, and independent operators are mixed up, and there may have to be some give and take between companies.
No such changes—Derek Fytche refers aptly to the company's metamorphosis—could have been achieved without the fullest co-operation of the trade unions. Open management, with staff participation, has been a major factor in the smooth passage of the schemes which have seen the slimming down of the labour force and the closure of two depots.
Perhaps LC is luckier than its sister NBC companies as it negotiates directly on wages and conditions which remain separate from those in other parts of the country. This may help it solve some of its outstanding staffing difficulties.
Service efficiency of over 98 per cent is the goal now. Already, it has been raised from 80 to 96 per cent, but traffic congestion, staff shortages, vandalism, breakdowns, and an increasing accident rate (a symptom of increased traffic) mean that 100 per cent can never be achieved.
Could not two-way radios be used to keep track of Green Line coaches? Apparently nc It has been considered, but would take over 30 radio tra smitters just to maintain co tact, and even then there woi be many blindspots. The woi of the delays will have to be e dured.
Despite such • obstacles perfect efficiency, Derek Fytc is cautiously optimistic abc the future. "If we continue the same plain as at present see the company expanding. 1983, we could outstrip our oN. resources."
The corporate plan is gear to the present mixture of mE power, fuel, vehicIE passenger demand, and su external factors as the polic of local and national gove nnent. If any one of thE changes, then the rules of t game will change too, a alterations will have to be ma to the corporate plan.
Some areas of doubt ahead of London Country, they do ahead of all ma operators. Nobody knows wl effect the plans for deregulat coach operation will have, a the abolition of new bus grant 1984 could affect finances. also has grounds to regret 1 Government's rejection of • Select Committee Nationalised Industries' rep which included the reco mendation that the compan accrued deficits of £12m sho be written off.
Whatever the proble which lie ahead, there is healthy survival instinct at Li don Country which will fortif for the next decade. Not even fiercest critics deny that.