Dean Sullivan believes his difficult decision to drop TfL work may be a sign of things to come if franchising prevails, he told Bus and Coach Buyer.

Sullivan Buses decided to withdraw from its TfL contracts to run 12 routes last week. The operator was the only remaining SME to run bus contracts for the capital’s transport authority. At the same time as announcing the move, it revealed it was owed £130,000 from TfL earlier this year. Regarding this figure owed, the operator said: “This is a considerable sum of money for a small business and the lack of these funds have undoubtedly impacted upon our ability to deliver the contracted services. Although the matter was resolved shortly afterwards, but not before TfL asked if it could ‘repay in instalments’.”

Sullivan Buses estimates the shortfall in income from TfL contracts exceeds £200,000 per month. The remuneration for providing the TfL services ‘has not kept pace with the increasing costs of service delivery’, Dean said in a statement announcing his decision.

Sullivan Buses had 230 staff either directly or indirectly employed on TfL work, which ran out of its South Mimms depot. The pulling out of London routes sees this site close, a sad development for Dean: “We started with two buses based there. Gradually the fleet grew and we had room for 140 buses. But as contracts started to not be renewed, the amount of space we took up shrivelled.”

Unsuitable landscape

Naturally, this has left him feeling disappointed: “Before I started running buses, I worked for London Underground. I have therefore worked either directly or indirectly for TfL for 40 years. My ethos has always been: do we enjoy what we do and does it cover the costs? Initially I would say we both enjoyed working for TfL and the costs of operation were covered. I applauded TfL’s handling of the capital’s public transport system during Covid. It was a very trying time for everyone involved. During that time TfL engaged with a wide range of people, organisations and Unions and it was outstanding in that respect.”

In particular, he praised Claire Mann, who was the Director of Bus Operations at TfL at the time: “She was fantastic. She would always ask what my views were. When she left, it went very cold.”

Dean traces Claire’s departure as the start of the decline of relations with TfL. He said: “A number of key staff have moved on within the organisation and the current TfL landscape is clearly not suitable for my business or any other small business for that matter. With franchising on the agenda and TfL being held as the model for others to aspire to, I think this is a warning sign for any small business.”

He laments the fact there have been no more SME operators take a share of TfL contracts: “The last one to go was Uno and I don’t think anyone else has joined since. As operators drop out, the choice and the competitiveness reduces. What I think TfL needs to do is look at small businesses and figure out how they can promote them into London.”

The operator says that increased rates on new services that would help negate any losses experienced on expiring contracts has not been possible. “TfL has also failed to provide us with any meaningful feedback on tenders submitted,” Dean said in the announcement of the cessation of its contracts.

He has tried to get some explanation on why his operation was not winning the tenders: “At a meeting with TfL’s Tom Cunnington on 5 June, we pointed out our lack of success in tendering. He stated that our small business model gave rise to concerns at TfL as they felt that small managerial teams (we have three people who dealt with TfL) were insufficient to meet TfL’s needs. He pointed out smaller teams resulted in delays in responses.

“Since Covid, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of meetings (for various purposes) organised by TfL. Whereas I accept the value of these meetings, you could in theory make a career out of attending meetings, getting involved in projects and so on. This is OK for the bigger groups who could allocate a number of different staff members to attend these events and thus spread the load. But I feel that TfL assume that if you can’t attend, that indicates that you’re not interested in the subject in hand. As a small player we had fairly little influence at these meetings, so we were selective in those meetings we attended.

“Notwithstanding Mr Cunnington’s comments, I do feel that the TfL environment is heavily focused towards the larger players.”

Optimism ahead

Despite this sad moment for Sullivan’s Buses, Dean commented on how he feels about his plans for the operation moving ahead: “Very optimistic – assuming we don’t get franchised,” he said with a smile. “We will now concentrate on building our commercial services. We have been heavily focused on TfL over the last two decades, but during that time we have missed a number of commercial opportunities. I plan to address this.

“Hertfordshire County Council were the first people we contacted. I find Hertfordshire council more engaging than TfL. We will let the dust settle and then start expanding.”