(14 May 2014, 5:56 am)Andreos Constantopolous wrote Whether it is over the top or not, I go back to the original point - the terms were in black and white and the operators have read and agreed to those terms.

If the operators felt the terms were over the top, not necessary or whatever else, then they are in the position to voice their concerns and bring Nexus back to reality or not bother signing the agreement in the first place.

There must be some money in it for the operators, despite the hefty fines - if there wasn't, then Nexus would have a load of contracts that wouldn't be touched with a barge pole and left sitting un-signed.

I'll go back to some of the points I raised in my post in an edit before you saw it...

Nexus creates a contract with requirements that one could argue are completely unnecessary, and an operator agrees to those terms for the simple fact that they probably need the work. For smaller operators such as Compass Community Transport (did we discuss that CCT is a charity or have I just made that up?), this is likely to be quite a big chunk of work but they still want to make a bit of profit as any business would, so they go for it.

The contract they've won for a service has timings which are difficult to stick to - this leads to delays almost every day - but this smaller operator realises that, if they incur lost mileage to make up time, they will receive a penalty. As such, their hands are tied, and customers are inconvenienced by the delay which grows increasingly throughout the day.

The operator realises one morning that the vehicle that they usually allocate is unable to go out on the road that day, and their backup vehicle is also VOR. The operator is forced to either send out a vehicle which does not comply with the contractual agreement which they signed OR they can loan a vehicle from another operator (Kinglsey's did this with an E200 of A-Line's just a few days ago for service 33). Either way, they're out of pocket. Less profit is made.

Less profit is made - this happens regularly and amounts to over £1000 each month. This smaller operator sees a new contract coming up and it's a good opportunity for their company to grow and expand, as well as the company seeing opportunities for increased profit levels. However, because they've incurred £1000 penalties each month, they can't afford a new bus for the contract.

They can't afford a new bus for the contract, and the bigger operator gets the contract. It's a dog eat dog world...