How was 2013 for Southern Vectis?
It was a really good year. Journey numbers were up overall by around 5.5 percent across the board. In July we introduced our enhanced Coaster service, which covers most of the Island, with support from the Local Sustainable Transport fund. It did phenomenally well. We have growing journey numbers, up year on year since 2006 from around 5.5 million to about 7.7 million in the past 12 months. We should break the 8 million barrier in 2014. We’ve worked hard on customer and staff engagement. We’ve done a lot of customer research to understand where the business needs to go.
What did that research tell you?
It threw up some really interesting results. It showed that Southern Vectis has a strong external image but the brand is a bit of an empty shell. We need to pad it out and we’ve got lots of ideas. Our research shows people are using their cars less and buses more, as well as switching from other modes of transport. We’ve had some capacity issue with our Route 1 and instead of trying to second guess our customers we actually asked them. It’s quite novel in the bus industry! We were overwhelmed with over 500 constructive, useful, individual responses. Those results will shape our strategy going forward.
You unveiled some new buses at the end of last year…
We want to retain one of the youngest and most modern fleets in the country. The average fleet age is 8 years in the UK and a bus is designed by the manufacturers to last 15 years. Our average is below 7 years. The vast majority of our buses are less than 5 years old. We do around 100,000 miles a year so in the lifetime of the bus we can expect to do 1.5 million miles. Our strategy is to replace the frontline fleet on a regular basis.
Are customer expectations changing? With social networking and Twitter in particular people seem to want information and quick answers.
Consumers are becoming ever more demanding. Clearly people want more accurate timely information. We’ve re-launched our website as around 50% of our users are using mobile devices. We’ve been prolific users of social media and we now want to interact and make it a two-way thing. We do listen and we do care and we have to respond to what customers want. We’re working with IW Council to deliver real-time information on our buses and a lot of that will be web based. The days of having displays at every bus stop are probably gone. People shouldn’t have to walk to a bus stop to learn how their bus route is performing. We’re looking at apps and a mobile phone messaging system.
The local economy is very dependent on tourism. How important are off-Island visitors and the summer events to Southern Vectis?
It’s a really important part of the wider economy. We do employ extra staff around events. For the festival our workforce increases by between 70 and a 100 people. We do put in place summer routes and also our open tours, specifically for seasonal flows of people.
So bus numbers are up on the Island, bucking the national trend. Do you think the Island is a bit different and more inclined to support a bus network?
If you compare the Island to other largely rural economies with a significant tourism impact we’re carrying double the amount of bus journeys compared to say Cornwall. Our core network runs from early till late, 7 days a week, 365 days of the year. People are often surprised that the Island has a bus service on Christmas Day. It is one of very few places that do in the UK, even London doesn’t. We are reliable. It’s a stable network; we haven’t changed our network of routes or our fare structure for single fares in 4 years. It’s extra patronage that has paid for increased costs.
What about the competition issue – people will say “Yes – but you’re the only operator.” Do you hear that a lot?
People will levy that at us from time to time. My response is that the barriers to entering the market are quite low. Someone can become a bus operator if they have the requisite qualification. You need a transport manager and some money in the bank. You can go and rent yourself a couple of buses, recruit some bus drivers, register a service and be competing with us within 8 weeks. It’s not as if we’re excluding anyone from the market. I think people need to turn the question on its head and ask why are people choosing not to compete with us?
Strictly speaking, whilst we don’t have competition from other bus operators we do still have competition. The private car is our biggest competitor. There’s also Island Line, taxi services and personal transport like cycling or walking. There definitely is competition.
Times are quite hard at the moment and there is less money around. Are your fares value for money?
Interesting question! It’s a debate that I have regularly with all sorts of people. Our research shows a real split between residents and visitors to the Island. Visitors rate Southern Vectis exceptionally highly for value for money. Residents give us around 7 out of 10 and visitors give us 9.6. There’s a real gap there. Visitors can compare us to their own bus network at home and there aren’t many bus companies in similar environments that provide our level of service. Our price per mile comes out pretty reasonably when you compare it to similar journeys between similar size towns.
It’s all about perception and we need to be better at selling ourselves as a business. People say to me “If you halve your fares you’ll get double the passenger numbers”. Well actually that logic doesn’t always work and, believe me, I’ve done it elsewhere. It doesn’t mean people will travel twice as much.
What about things like congestion in Newport and the roads generally? How does that affect running the business?
I notice it every morning commuting in from Cowes on Route 1! Newport can be congested like any town in the UK. There are definitely pinchpoints on the network and as an example we had to retime our timetable to allow for the congestion at the St Mary’s roundabout. We don’t own the highway so we work with the IW Council and Island Roads. Frankly without spending millions on extra tarmac we’re not going to solve some of these delays.
How do you grow the business in 2014?
We’re doing a lot of work with email communication with our customers, sending out regular newsletters. Our market research showed that whilst we have a strong image, non-users often won’t even consider us when they’re making their journey options. We’ve got an awful lot of work to do to persuade non-users to just consider us. We know that a bus isn’t going to offer every single journey option. As a bus user myself and also a car driver there will be times when I use a bus and there will be times when I use a car or walk. There’s still a huge untapped market out there.
First published in the March 2014 issue of Island Business magazine.
