More Lemons
Dec. 7th, 2007 02:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
suzyscottdotcomFollowing the short-notice cessation of The Big Lemon Service 42 in Brighton (see here), VOSA today published the cancellation of the service, the date being accepted as 29th January 2008, after the statutory 70 days notice. However, as mentioned before, the service ceased last week. The founder yesterday made this statement... and as you may tell, he's not (yet) admitting defeat.
"As many will have heard, unfortunately we had to stop running our Service 42 on Friday 30th November. We had a review of the service that week and concluded that we had to slim down and concentrate on the busy times, as we were losing too much money on those times of day that were too quiet. We had planned to run till Christmas Eve, and then start a leaner service using fewer drivers, fewer buses and fewer costs, in January. Unfortunately this meant making most of our drivers redundant, and when the difficult financial situation and future redunancies became apparent to all involved, we started losing members of our team until we did not have enough people to run our service at all. I had actually considered this as a possibility, and even been advised against telling the staff the situation until the last day of the service; however, I don’t consider that to be fair treatment and so decided to take a risk and share the situation with the team at the earliest opportunity. I also obviously wanted to share our plans with the passengers, and I couldn’t tell anyone what was going on without first telling the staff. Unfortunately the worst-case scenario rapidly unfolded, and as soon as I started implementing Plan B, the circumstances had changed again, and Plan C was needed. We also had 400 litres of fuel stolen and someone tried to run the batteries flat in all of our buses, and it soon became clear that we were not going to be able to run a reliable service, so I decided it was in the interests of the passengers to have no service rather than a patchy one, as at least they’d know not to wait for us.
We have had a number of meetings this week to find the best way forward, and the plan now is to apply to run the leaner service we had planned next year, whilst working on developing Passenger Clubs for different areas in the longer term. These would involve inviting people who wanted a local service in their area to submit their interest by starting or joining a Club in their area. Club members would be asked to pledge a membership fee, but they would only pay it when the membership reached a certain number, and the service could be started. Then membership fees would be collected to pay for the service implementation, and members would get a discounted (possibly half price) fare. The general public would be able to use the bus too but they would pay full fare unless they decided to join the club. Members of the club would be able to have a say in how the service operated, and the more members there were, the more comprehensive the service could be. Members would also benefit financially if the service was profitable, and could get incentives from introducing other members, much like a bank might give £25 or a bottle of wine to you for introducing a friend to the bank.
As a way of saying ‘Thank You’ to our customers and spreading a little Christmas Cheer, we are going to run a free service tomorrow during the periods 8-11am and 3-6pm, along our route 42 according to our normal timetable. We will then spend the interim part of the day at the Universities and Falmer Station talking to passengers, and getting feedback. There is a rumour that Father Christmas might join us – indeed I did hear that he has a bus-driving licence…
All the best
Tom Druitt
Managing Director"
"As many will have heard, unfortunately we had to stop running our Service 42 on Friday 30th November. We had a review of the service that week and concluded that we had to slim down and concentrate on the busy times, as we were losing too much money on those times of day that were too quiet. We had planned to run till Christmas Eve, and then start a leaner service using fewer drivers, fewer buses and fewer costs, in January. Unfortunately this meant making most of our drivers redundant, and when the difficult financial situation and future redunancies became apparent to all involved, we started losing members of our team until we did not have enough people to run our service at all. I had actually considered this as a possibility, and even been advised against telling the staff the situation until the last day of the service; however, I don’t consider that to be fair treatment and so decided to take a risk and share the situation with the team at the earliest opportunity. I also obviously wanted to share our plans with the passengers, and I couldn’t tell anyone what was going on without first telling the staff. Unfortunately the worst-case scenario rapidly unfolded, and as soon as I started implementing Plan B, the circumstances had changed again, and Plan C was needed. We also had 400 litres of fuel stolen and someone tried to run the batteries flat in all of our buses, and it soon became clear that we were not going to be able to run a reliable service, so I decided it was in the interests of the passengers to have no service rather than a patchy one, as at least they’d know not to wait for us.
We have had a number of meetings this week to find the best way forward, and the plan now is to apply to run the leaner service we had planned next year, whilst working on developing Passenger Clubs for different areas in the longer term. These would involve inviting people who wanted a local service in their area to submit their interest by starting or joining a Club in their area. Club members would be asked to pledge a membership fee, but they would only pay it when the membership reached a certain number, and the service could be started. Then membership fees would be collected to pay for the service implementation, and members would get a discounted (possibly half price) fare. The general public would be able to use the bus too but they would pay full fare unless they decided to join the club. Members of the club would be able to have a say in how the service operated, and the more members there were, the more comprehensive the service could be. Members would also benefit financially if the service was profitable, and could get incentives from introducing other members, much like a bank might give £25 or a bottle of wine to you for introducing a friend to the bank.
As a way of saying ‘Thank You’ to our customers and spreading a little Christmas Cheer, we are going to run a free service tomorrow during the periods 8-11am and 3-6pm, along our route 42 according to our normal timetable. We will then spend the interim part of the day at the Universities and Falmer Station talking to passengers, and getting feedback. There is a rumour that Father Christmas might join us – indeed I did hear that he has a bus-driving licence…
All the best
Tom Druitt
Managing Director"
