Talk:First Student UK

Proposed merge
This article is one of three aticles about the operations of First Student, a subsidiary of First Group in one of three geographies. Each article lacks context and should be merged into a single article with three sections.


 * First Student UK
 * First Student (United States)
 * First Student Canada

|► ϋrбan яeneωaℓ  •  TALK  ◄| 04:28, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Notability
The articles recently added to this article do little to substantiate the notability of "First Student UK". In most articles, there is no mention of any First entity at all. Those that do mention First, often talk about "First Group" or "First". What establishes the notability and distinctiveness of "First Student UK". I see that branding nowhere in any reference. This article seems mostly focused on why yellow school buses are not widespread in Britain. What makes this small part of First Group notable on its own and not really part of another article? |► ϋrбan яeneωaℓ  •  TALK  ◄| 05:57, 11 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Taking 8,000 students to and from school in the UK, every day, across England, Scotland and Wales. A former home secretary being involved. All things that I'd say make it notable. I accept that the "First Student UK" branding isn't often seen, but in each individual operating area "UK" isn't applicable, and the media interest is in yellow school buses, not what the brand name is. Arriva436talk/contribs 21:32, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Keep-ish: the article is a good read... but is it really about First Student UK? A concern is that the innovation (in the UK) of dedicated school-only bus transport might derive from the funding authorities rather than the First company. The article dwells mainly on the quality issues surrounding the previous bus services and the improvements sought with a dedicated fleet. A similar story as that of HCT Group Mybus services in West Yorkshire; once again, although that bus company would, I am sure, love to take the credit, the initiative really arose from the education sector, or at least would not have occurred without the sector's support.

All of the above concerns would be solved by: Move the article to Dedicated school buses in the United Kingdom. As Arriva436 said above, ...and the media interest is in yellow school buses, not what the brand name is. Nankai (talk) 21:54, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree at least in part with the move proposed above. The best sourced section of this article is the bit that has no connection to First at all, so it's fairly clear that an article of that type is needed. However, that would require a major rewrite that may well remove a lot of useful content. So I'm tempted to say that we should try the following:


 * Move the 'Background' section to a new article Dedicated school buses in the United Kingdom and expand it with any relevant content (there should be plenty to go round).
 * Merge the other two sections, First Student Canada and First Student (United States) into an expanded First Student article and remove some of the inevitable duplication.

What do others think? Alzarian16 (talk) 08:17, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I just discovered the discussion at Talk:First Student, and clearly a full merge could never get consensus (and for pretty good reasons). I still believe my first point was a good one, but here's a better suggestion for the remainder:


 * Expand the article to include Ride Pegasus!, the First school bus operation in Berkshire, which has plenty of media coverage and isn't covered in any detail at all on Wikipedia.

I think this could be a very good way to improve the situation, but I'd like to see what other users think before I try it. Alzarian16 (talk) 20:48, 17 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Good idea. The reason that the First Student UK article has a lot of background info is because someone came along and said it wasn't notable, so I made it notable with the references. There is definitely enough stuff to have a First Student UK article, it just a case of finding more info. I think including Ride Pegasus is a good idea, especially with the details of them running part of the Guildford park and ride and the assessbus services, which can be tied in to the issue of dedicated school buses doing nothing between the peaks. I've got plenty of photos too...


 * There's loads of media coverage about the withdrawal of RP. See the Surrey CC notice . The cabinet report about its withdrawal will be on the site somewhere, if you're brave enough to use the search function! Then there's all the Surrey Advertiser articles... . So plenty of stuff to have a combined article. Arriva436talk/contribs 21:01, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, done the Pegasus bit. Now we just need someone to create the new page. Alzarian16 (talk) 13:38, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

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Defunct
I've changed the tense of the article from "is" to "was" - The official site no longer exists and looking on Flickr a few vehicles have been used as staff shuttles or have been sold entirely. There's nothing on the First website and results thus far have been the US division. Thanks, – Davey 2010 Talk 18:15, 27 July 2021 (UTC)