Saturday, 6 August 2016

FirstGroup Says Traffic Congestion and Internet Shoppers Hurting Bottom LIne



From the Evening Standard: Shoppers ordering online rather than trawling High Streets is hitting demand for buses, transport giant FirstGroup has admitted. Its bus revenues fell 1.4% in the first quarter, due to “lower high street retail footfall” plus the impact of more traffic, First said. It is closing or merging bus depots in response.

Those problems on the buses — as well as First’s US coach business Greyhound being hit by “muted” passenger demand — sent like-for-like revenues down 5%, wiping out more takings on US yellow school bus business First Student and the now small UK rail business.

From the Scotland Herald: FirstGroup’s new chairman has warned that the Brexit vote may slow growth in its bus and rail businesses, and called on the UK government to give urgent priority to tackling urban congestion to keep city bus travel viable.

Wolfhart Hauser, chairing his first annual meeting in Aberdeen and giving the floor entirely to shareholders, told them the business had to be proactive in winning new customers “especially with the situation with Brexit where we may not grow as we would have expected in the past”. He added later: “Look what the top line is doing in UK bus and UK rail, there is no guarantee that it goes up without doing anything.”

The chairman went on: “If the trend is allowed to continue, our urban buses will no longer represent a viable mode of transport for the majority of customers, for me it is strange that tackling congestion isn’t higher up the local and national agenda...given the impact of this problem on jobs, local economies, the urban environment.”

Mr Hauser said the business had to attract “the young generation which is using smartphones and Instagram – where do we have followers saying ‘travel by bus it’s the greatest thing in the world’?.....we have to be a lot more active in these areas”.

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