B is for Blackpool Transport

Saturday 28th January 2023

Blackpool Transport’s history can be traced back 138 years to the Town Council’s introduction of trams in September 1885. However, my 2023 fortnightly A-to-Z wander through selected bus and train operators is meant to be a contemporary commentary rather than a history lesson, so let’s fast forward and see what the (one of only eight) municipally owned bus companies is like today.

Blackpool Transport was crowned Bus Operator of the Year in last November’s UK Bus Awards so with much anticipation I paid a visit to the town a couple of weeks ago to seek out what the magic ingredient was that led to this much sought after accolade.

It turned out to be one of those very wet and dismal January days therefore both the town and its buses and trams weren’t seen in the best of light, literally, but I very much enjoyed my visit and could easily imagine how much better it all looks on a warm sunny day.

The fleet’s grey livery didn’t help brighten the day either, as it doesn’t come across as very inspiring although I know these things are very much a matter of personal taste and for some, a nice smart grey coloured bus with a pale yellow swirl is just what’s needed for an attractive appearance.

First impressions were very encouraging as I stepped off the train at Blackpool North station. Behold a display of bus timetable leaflets.

What an excellent start and quite amazing in these “it’s all online so we’re not bothering to print anything any more” times. So well done Blackpool Transport. Sadly it wasn’t a full set with some routes missing, but that’s just a small niggle.

Another encouraging sight was tram tracks now in place ready for the extension from the seafront to the station, because of course, Blackpool Transport also operates trams as well as buses. This spur link to the station has been a long time in the making, and it’s good to see at long last it looks ready for opening by the summer.

I’m sure this will be hugely welcomed by the thousands of visitors who arrive in the resort by train and want to reach hotels on the seafront or the myriad of amusements, souvenir shops, fish and chip outlets and the Pleasure Beach.

It can be a bit confusing working out which bus and from where to catch it to take to reach various destinations. The tram will make it much easier.

I wandered into the town’s retail centre and spotted a directional finger post pointing towards “Bus and Tram Info” which seemed a good place to start my visit …

…. and after a false lead to Blackpool Council offices dealing with tenants and other enquiries I found Blackpool Transport’s ‘Customer Centre’ in nearby Market Street.

Except this now looks very much closed to customers with a door on the left leading to facilities for drivers. As you can see there is a screen in the window with information about where to catch a bus in the town centre – which is definitely helpful as bus stops are spread over a few streets – and a display showing upcoming departures to a mix of both real time, and what seemed to be scheduled time.

There was also a scrolling message along the bottom which wasn’t particularly encouraging, but a sign of current times. Although I was a bit surprised to see this as looking a the Company’s social media posts the days of cancelled journeys due to driver shortages seemed to be over, and all the journeys I took ran as scheduled.

Blackpool’s bus fleet is very much an Alexander Dennis stronghold. This follows a deal between the companies made in 2016 for a ‘fleet renewal partnership’ aiming for an average age of less than three years by 2020. You certainly do notice the standardisation this has brought with almost all buses now being either double deck Enviro400s or single deck Enviro200s.

There are still 10 Mercedes Citaros dating from 2015 which won’t be helping that average age target …

… and, unless I missed them, I didn’t spot any buses newer than 2020 on the road, so I wonder if the ‘partnership’ is still a thing for further fleet renewal or whether the tough financial times now characterising the industry has meant a rethink has been necessary. Certainly the influx of vehicles in the four years between 2017 and 2020 have a lot of life left in them yet. I read that the entire fleet is to Euro VI standard too, which is impressive.

Blackpool Council has been successful in its application for £9.6 million grant funding from the DfT’s Zero Emission Bus Regional Awards Scheme which will see electric buses join the fleet as well as the redevelopment of the Rigby Road depot to accommodate them.

As well as the livery, bus interiors are also grey and look smart with comfortable seats and the yellow stanchions and poles all seems to fit in with the corporate colours as do the messages on the cove panels although I found them to be a bit on the ‘shouty’ side of communication…

…and sadly vandals seem to have been at work on the seat back mobile phone holders for contactless charging with the prongs to hold them in place snapped off on some buses.

This is a shame, and I recall when usb sockets were introduced on the first Enviro400 buses a few years ago, they were also vandalised leading the Company to announce it was ceasing to install this facility at that time.

Blackpool’s network of routes covers an area from Fleetwood in the north to Lytham in the south as well as Poulton-le-Fylde to the east. Routes 74/75 operate from Fleetwood as far as Preston and curiously in the ‘Route Guide’ (shown above) are listed as running “up to every 7 mins” but it looks to me as though each of the two routes runs hourly.

The most frequent town route is the 14 which links Fleetwood with Blackpool via Thornton and Layton every 12 minutes (according to the Route Guide) but aside from an extra departures at 06:49 the timetable is a 15 minute frequency. Other routes are mainly every 20 or 30 minutes with a few at hourly.

My travels took me to the rather traditional and old fashioned looking bus station at Cleveleys on the coast road to Fleetwood, which sees a variety of bus routes as well as the tram linking it to Blackpool, with routes 3, 4 and 7 crossing the town with the former two continuing to the shopping area (and a large Tesco) at Mereside and the latter to St Annes,

I found some of the journeys in the late morning and early afternoon fairly lightly loaded, which given the weather wasn’t surprising, but closer to school finishing time I was impressed with the numbers travelling including on a journey on route 6 from Mereside to Grange Park being used by parents collecting young children from a primary school which was encouraging to see.

I was told that normally the bus we were all on is a double deck but had a single deck that day.

Other routes were also getting noticeably busier as the afternoon continued.

Obviously you can’t visit Blackpool without a trip on the tram which runs along the seafront from Starr Gate to Fleetwood every 15 minutes (the Route Guide states ‘up to every 7 mins’).

A cold, wet winter’s day in January isn’t the best weather for a tram ride and unsurprisingly there weren’t many other passenger, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

I noticed the parallel route 1 which runs hourly wasn’t much busier either.

Heritage trams are also important and are brought out for special occasions as well as the hugely popular annual Autumn light display along the seafront.

Blackpool Transport’s website is easy to navigate and has the network map shown earlier and easy click links to timetables for each route including a map showing the location of each bus on that route in real time.

Municipal owned companies are renowned for their love of tradition and so it’s fitting to see the website still includes a fax number as an option to make contact.

There’s a page giving details of ticket prices (although the current £2 capped fare doesn’t get a mention) as well as details of Tap & Go, capping and contactless which the Company introduced last September.

The 1 hour ticket is an interesting option to buy either on bus or through an app or online which acts as a hopper fare, alebit more expensive than a one journey fare.

The £2 fare does get a mention on the monitors inside buses which scroll through various promotional messages as well as indicating how long the bus will be waiting at the stop to keep to the schedule. Indeed I found some of the running times quite generous, but that probably reflects the lack of traffic congestion and delays on a winter’s day.

Promotion of the £2 fare can also be found on the company’s social media channels with it taking pride of place as the header on Twitter.

It’s also good to see Twitter being used by staff based in the town (not all bus companies follow such a policy) with regular messages advising of any operational issues. These last few days has also seen messages promoting the company’s Recruitment Day held yesterday and today. And you get free travel to and from the event – worth turning up just for that!

Blackpool Transport’s finances have obviously been stretched during the last couple of pandemic dominated years and the dependency on Government funding. The accounts for the pre-Covid year ended March 2020 show a profit before tax of £471,630 on a turnover of £23,812,671 giving a rather concerning and unimpressive profit margin as low as 1.75%. The loss before tax in the following years ended March 2021 was £713,847 and ended March 2022 was £357,121.

I’m sure the current year (ended March 2023) will show some improvement on those losses as the recovery from the Covid hiatus continues. But it’s not going to be easy. The electric buses may help, but Blackpool Transport epitimises the challenges facing the bus industry at this time which even impact Bus Operators of the Year.

Finally, I’m still puzzled about the Palladium branding. What does it mean? Maybe that’s the magic ingredient.

Roger French

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