The awards for the final round of Manchester’s franchising transition that was originally due to be announced on 22nd March – delayed by a rumoured ‘legal challenge’ – were finally unveiled to the world on the 28th, 5 days late.
Tranche 3 covers the remaining 50% of Greater Manchester outside of Bolton, Wigan, Oldham, Bury, and Rochdale, consisting of 248 routes. The awards themselves won’t come easy for the independent operators. The last 2 remaining – Stotts and Nexus – lost out on the public service contracts. There’s some slim chances remaining for some T3 school awards (something I don’t really pay attention to) but hopes are dwindling amongst observers. One wonders what will happen to these firms if they can’t follow Vision’s footsteps into schools work.
In exchange for disgracefully losing family-owned and independent operators, and 4 of Stagecoach’s current depots, we gain a newcomer to the bus scene in Manchester in the form of ComfortDelGro’s Metroline – London’s 4th largest operator. They bagged themselves 5 depots, including Stagecoach’s HQ Hyde Rd. Curiously, Go North West bagged an SLSC (their only standalone SLSC). The unstoppable force that is Diamond continued their clean sweep of SLSC awards in all 3 tranches.
Those awards in T3, in full:
- Hyde Road large – Metroline (current: Stagecoach)
- Sharston large – Metroline (current: Stagecoach)
- Wythenshawe large – Metroline (current: Arriva)
- Stockport large – Stagecoach (retained)
- Tameside large – Metroline (current: Stagecoach)
… and the SLSCs:
- Tameside A small – Go North West
- Tameside B small – Diamond
- Trafford small – Diamond
- Stockport small – Diamond
I can’t find any information regarding the distribution of routes in these contracts, especially the SLSCs, but have asked TfGM for a full breakdown list but so far haven’t heard a peep from their media department. Rumours suggest Stott’s Tameside network is Tameside A.
The announcement also included confirmation of 120 EV’s for this tranche – expected to be the Volvo’s ordered by Stagecoach for Stockport and news of some expected changes to times:
“…later trips on the 314 and 325 for train connections at Stockport, earlier trips on the 330 and earlier and later services on the 347 to connect with Metrolink services at Ashton.”
TfGM Press Release
T3 launches 5th January 2025.
Opinion
Quite frankly, I think it’s an absolute joke that GM won’t have any independent or family-owned operators after the mobilisation of new franchised bus network completes in January. Firms like Stott’s have provided tendered routes that the large operators quite often dropped at a drop of a hat because they couldn’t make it work financially. They picked up the pieces without much fuss and cracked on. Companies House shows Stott’s Tours was formed in 1963! Absolute travesty to lose such a long-standing company – predating all operators of the large contracts!
Have they been muscled out by the large corporations that can afford an endless supply of invoices for ‘consultancy services’ from knowledgable time-served managers? Diamond and GNW will surely incur a tonne of dead mileage than a company with a depot in the area would do? I wonder what it could be that they’re being overlooked on. You can’t get more “strong social value” than a family owned company operating within the area.
