1. What are the results of the 2023 bus tenders?
7: Exmouth Town £ 99,950.00 Stagecoach
X30: Seaton – Exeter £118,853.00 Stagecoach
681: Farway – Honiton & 682: Marsh – Honiton £16,900.00 Redwoods
85: Barnstaple – Tavistock £311,716.00 Stagecoach
Devon County Council (DCC) can confirm that we hold information on other tenders, but they are intended for future publication on this travel Devon webpage, once the new contract starts. As the publication date is imminent we believe it is reasonable, and in the public’s interest, to exempt it from disclosure under Section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act (information held with a view to its future publication).
2. Why is taxpayers money being given to a company to run dead services when it is capable of running an in service vehicle on these routes?
We believe that you are referring to the “positioning journey” whereby a bus is driven out of service to the first stop on the timetable. DCC will not specify the positioning journey in a tendered timetable for a supported service as this could favour or prejudice a bus operator based on their existing deport locations. Another factor is that bus operators do not always allocate one bus to one service for the day. It is common that a bus will operate on a few different services throughout the day, so again it is difficult for DCC to predict which direction the bus will be coming from to start the service. A bus operator will obviously factor the cost of the positioning journey, as an overhead, into their tender bid for operating the supported service. However it is logical that the operator with the lowest overheads will be able to provide the most competitive tender bid.
Occasionally, on winning a new tender, a bus operator will choose to register the positioning journey on a commercial basis (ie without financial support from DCC) as they will know the allocated bus will always be following the service route to get into position. Again this could give them the opportunity to submit a more favourable tender bid because they have the opportunity to take fare revenue for that section of the route, which offsets against the overheads.