Dereg debate

[Dutsey]

Very interesting article on the dereg debate:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/21/why-nobody-complaining-bus-services-deregulation

[Tony]

Very interesting article on the dereg debate:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/21/why-nobody-complaining-bus-services-deregulation

Written by someone as far biased towards the left as Kelvin Mackenzie is biased towards the right.
His attitude to everything is Government knows best and Private enterprise is the worst evil in the world

I find the comments left far more reasonable than the actual article which is very unusual in a newspaper article about buses

[Bob]

Everything has its plusses and  minuses. In Cannock you had more choice of operator before deregulation!  You had Midland  red Wmpte Green Bus Blue Bus of Rugeley & Some independent that ran to Wimblebury.  Now you have Arriva in the main with a tiny NX presence and Select operating about three times a day on an obscure route, and social operating one route and a variation of it for about another six weeks.  All its led to in cannock is a virtual  private monopoly! 

[Liberator9]

The article fails to point out some of the high performing operators that have thrived over the last decade or more - Oxford Bus Company achieved 92% in 2012 for passenger satisfaction, and most of the Go Ahead companies perform very well. Stagecoach in certain areas perform highly, as do First in parts. In a way companies like Stagecoach probably benefit from the high profit margins in the city operations to help run some of the countryside, low profit yield services. Really there are many companies such as Anglian Bus and Transdev that perform admirably as well.

In local terms NX are improving now - with the fleet investment and the new flexible fares and Swift, satisfaction will hopefully continue to go up. Central and Johnsons do a good job as well, showing how smaller operators can impress as well. In the future working with the local authorities to develop bus infrastructure and new ticketing systems is the way forward - using partnerships such as the West Midlands Bus Alliance is a good example of this. Working together on a collaborative basis is probably the best way forward for now; at the end of the day passengers want the bus to run on time, be reliable and be in a reasonable state. Private companies are capable of achieving this, and I think crucially the way to ensure things continue to improve is to invest in bus priority, smart ticketing and subsidising potentially loss making services.

Also caring for and investing in the staff should be a high priority of implementing new alliances etc.; amazing what a difference positive, supportive management culture as well as decent pay can do for staff morale on the front line. So this also needs to be monitored and a system of allowing drivers to give feedback to improve services in regions more strongly promoted.

At the end of the day, some operators are better than others - it's about trying to get bus service quality to a consistent level - some private operators are excellent, others less so. The deregulation has in areas led to viable competition, e.g Derby/Nottingham, where Trent Barton are continally battling against Yourbus, keeping them on the ball, and Manchester where First and Stagecoach are up against each other.

In the West Midlands this isn't the case; the situation has just never arisen and as of yet no operator has made any intent to NX. So the system needs to be more flexible, rather than promoting competition, it needs to try and promote schemes that ensure bus quality is consistent, of a high standard, with viable and affordable ticket systems.

[Bob]

publicly owned bus operators can be very good as well, Lothian,  Nottingham City Transport etc. I remember in the 90s the then tory scum govt announced they were going to force councils to rid themselves of their bus companies.  What happened there cos it never happened?

[Other Walsall Tony]

And let's remember Arriva IS government owned.  It just happens to be the German government....

[barry619]

Written by someone as far biased towards the left as Kelvin Mackenzie is biased towards the right.

It's in The Guardian, so it goes without saying that there is guaranteed to be a political motive behind it, as there is almost every story that pathetic excuse for a newspaper publishes.

As another poster points out, there's nothing about the likes of Oxford, Brighton and Hove, Stagecoach's good work on some of its Citi networks nor the likes of Trent Barton or some of the results seen by Transdev. Instead, it's about satisfying a left-wing agenda. The author also rolls out the old chestnut of '40% of bus companies' revenues come direct from the taxpayer'. What he fails to point out is that a fair chunk of this is forced upon them by the asinine, underfunded concessionary pass scheme, something that operators have little option other than to accept.

[tc]

It's interesting looking at the bus patronage figures issued by local authority by the DfT, comparing 2009/10 figures to 2014/15 the patronage increase was greater than 5% in the following local authority areas:

West Berkshire = 44.4%
Poole = 38.6%
North Somerset = 29.9%
Thurrock = 21.9%
Milton Keynes = 20.4%
Oxfordshire = 19.1%
Bournemouth = 18.7%
Bristol = 16.2%
Reading = 16.0%
East Sussex = 15.7% 
West Sussex = 13.7%
Devon = 12.5%
South Gloucestershire = 10.5%
Slough = 9.3%
Brighton & Hove = 8.6%
Southampton = 7.8%
Bath & North East Somerset = 7.2%
Hampshire = 7.0% -
Torbay = 6.2%
London = 5.6%
Plymouth = 5.0%

There are a few interesting natural conclusions that could be drawn from this (beyond the reg/dereg debate):

Virtually all areas are in the South of England - population migration from the North of England to the South?
Booming City Centre, thriving high street and attractive place to visit?
Growth in retired population in these areas? - more free bus pass holders? - West Berkshire/Poole/North Somerset/Oxfordshire/Bournemouth/East Sussex/West Sussex/Devon/South Gloucestershire/Bath & North East Somerset/Hampshire/Torbay
London commuter belt - associated rail commuting increase necessitating bus use to/from rail stations - West Berkshire/Thurrock/Milton Keynes/Oxfordshire/Reading/East Sussex/West Sussex/Slough/Brighton & Hove/Hampshire
Growth in employment in tertiary industries (office/service based employment) - Reading/Milton Keynes/Slough/Bristol/Southampton
Constrained road network (exaggerated by presence of the coast/large river limiting the complexity of origin-destination combinations) - primarily radial network with limited city centre parking - Poole/Thurrock/Bournemouth/Bristol/Reading/Slough/Brighton & Hove/Southampton/Bath & North East Somerset/London/Plymouth

Of course this must inevitably be coupled with good quality bus services with high network density, good frequencies and good value fares.

Those areas with the greatest decline for comparison are:
Rutland = -82.4%
Redcar & Cleveland = -27.3%
Warrington = -26.6%
Stoke-on-Trent = -23.1%
Blackburn with Darwen = -21.9%
Darlington = -21.5%
Leicester = -21.2%

Food for thought....