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| Re: How NJ Transit ruin a little bus company: Saddle River Tours (322921) | |||
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Re: How NJ Transit ruin a little bus company: Saddle River Tours |
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Posted by kcram3500 on Sun Feb 26 17:11:59 2017, in response to How NJ Transit ruin a little bus company: Saddle River Tours, posted by gold_12th on Sun Feb 26 11:52:58 2017. I understand Murphy and Barbato feel dissed by the re-issue of the bid invitation, but there are a couple things in play historically.1 - NJT has been challenged or sued numerous times over bid impropriety, and they likely realized a lawsuit could happen again. 2 - The last time the Bergen contract went to a small company, it ended up being pulled and NJT actually had to run it themselves from Oradell for a number of months. The company was County Bus Lines, who had previously been running the B-10 Bergen Community College route (which was issued directly by Bergen County separately from the main Bergen contract by NJT). County Bus went after the big contract and got it... but the service was so bad and so many trips were missed, that Assembly and Senate members in Trenton got involved. NJT gave County just a number of months to get it together and monitored daily - County still failed, and NJT was forced to quickly take back the buses, moved them to Oradell, and ran the routes themselves for the remainder of the contract. This was in the late 80s. After County's failure, the Bergen contract has only been run by Community/Coach USA, Academy, and TCT (later Veolia, then Transdev) - all major companies with lots of experience. SRT has plenty of experience with charter and tour service, but they have never run local transit before. Not implying they couldn't succeed, but this is not like taking Rockland Coaches' GWB routes which see very little service. Heavy routes like the 756 and 780, complex routes like the 751/755... you have to get those correct out of the gate. Ironically, County Bus Lines was just the second private carrier to run the contract. The first was Bergen-Passaic Bus, an operation set up by (surprise) Community and ShortLine in their pre-Coach USA days. In the article, Barbato said "But for a small company like ours, Bergen would have meant everything. We'd be out there every day polishing those buses and making sure they delivered topnotch service." Shiny Alcoas are all well and good, but when you're the new kid on the block in the local transit picture, missing a trip or making a wrong turn gets noticed by everyone involved. Blatant error in the article: In nearly every case, these contracts are won by national firms with big local operations, such as the 2,000-bus fleet run by Coach Community in Paramus, and Hoboken-based Academy, which commands 1,200 vehicles. Midsize carriers, such as DeCamp in Montclair and Lakeland in Dover, supplement NJT’s coverage of Essex and Morris counties, for example, but typically these carriers operate under longstanding agreements with the agency. Coach USA may have 2000 buses, but they're sure as heck not all in Community's garage in Paramus. Same with Academy, who operates their 1200 units all over the east coast, not just from Hoboken. Lakeland is subsidized by NJT after the Midtown Direct lawsuit... DeCamp does not have any contracts with NJT, and while they too sued (over the Montclair Connection), their claim was denied as the judge ruled DeC then had exclusive access to the passengers previously served by the Boonton line east of Montclair. |
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