West Midlands Mayor to run bus services

[Isle of Stroma]

Absolutely ridiculous... Time and time again, it's been proven that the most cost effective and passenger friendly way to provide transport is in a deregulated environment.

Hang on a minute, I need to climb back on my chair.

[MickeyCool36]

I'm not in favour of a Mayor running it however I cannot agree deregulation ends up with more efficient or more effective services, if many companies are all running routes as I see by me, and no one authority is providing guidance on it, it ends up with many services going to the same destination along the same road which is pointless, why would anyone get on a service that is less frequent and less direct when they have a more frequent and direct service on the same road? poor coordination between services of various companies and between Metro, bus and train, as all companies run on profit (and to be honest I see loads of services across the board low on passenger numbers going nowhere), they will not gain profit anyway. You have to run services for the benefit of users which will gain more profit in the long run. Clearly congestion is an issue as more drive cars and routes are taking longer, not necessarily the drivers fault or a company's fault, even the small bus routes every hour has hardly any passengers on but some of the routes are highly questionable and aren't maximising passengers numbers anyway. Any transport system for the public needs coordination else its a mess. I don't think a Mayor has the know how however to run an entire bus operation and I am sceptical of the Greater Birmingham Idea. But what companies do is compete rather than work together to cover areas effectively. Also the poorest people end up taking taxis due to poor bus services so profits will be down anyway, yet if companies looked at economics and target better services in poorer areas they will financially benefit, where currently the taxi firms are, but not adequately listening to passengers will be any bus operator's downfall.

[Bryan]

In all honesty, I can't see a mayor making much of a difference unless he/she has radical ideas.

Centro, despite their faults, are doing quite a good job of ensuring a decent provision of public transport in the area, which is by discussion and negotiation with operators and working in partnership.

Can you imagine the uproar from the public if the mayor came along and changed numerous services. Not a recipe for their re-election in the future together with the big salary!!!

[JoNi]

Apparently it's an alliance not a partnership nowadays!

[JoNi]

http://www.route-one.net/articles/Queen_s_Speech_gives_clues_on_transport_changes
This link covers not only buses but modern transport bill as well -
Spaceships, drones, driverless cars no mention of Sprint...

[Bryan]

Apparently it's an alliance not a partnership nowadays!

Thanks JoNi, I can't keep up with all the changes of terminology these days. :)  Not long ago a partnership and today an alliance. I'm looking forward to the next term for the same thing!

[barry619]

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/queens-speech-mayor-run-greater-11350245

"Greater Birmingham's new regional mayor will take over bus services when they are elected in 2017.

New laws giving the mayor the power to run buses were announced in the Queen's Speech, as the Government set out its plans for the year ahead.

Voters in Birmingham, Coventry, Sandwell, Walsall, Dudley, Solihull and Wolverhampton will elect a West Midlands Mayor in May 2017. The new mayor will lead a regional combined authority.

A mayor will decide how often buses should run, how much tickets should cost and even what the bus service should be called.

Private operators will then be invited to bid to run particular routes. While a number of different businesses may be involved, the mayor will be able to specify that the service operates as a single regional bus service, with a common brand name and colour scheme on every bus."

Will be interesting to see how this works out! In particular the burden to the tax-payer! Anyone who imagines that the first thing a new mayor will do is sit down and plan an entire new bus network from scratch will be clearly mis-guided!

This is a terribly-written article and the work of someone who either has not paid enough attention to what was said, or simply does not understand it.

The suggestion that the elected Mayor will by default control bus services in the West Midlands is wrong. It is absolutely and utterly wrong. The powers to do so are indeed there for elected Mayors to use should they choose, but there is no suggestion that it will happen in the West Midlands. The reporter would have discovered this had he bothered to ask Centro's media people. There are two reasons for this: Partnership is working reasonably well and has delivered some significant benefits on some routes already, and moreover, the question of where the money would come from to 'franchise' services has no answer because there is no money to pay for it.

The writer of the Mail article has not a clue what he is talking about. He has put two and two together and got about 10 as a result, and the piece should be disregarded.

[Stu]

This is a terribly-written article and the work of someone who either has not paid enough attention to what was said, or simply does not understand it.

The suggestion that the elected Mayor will by default control bus services in the West Midlands is wrong. It is absolutely and utterly wrong. The powers to do so are indeed there for elected Mayors to use should they choose, but there is no suggestion that it will happen in the West Midlands. The reporter would have discovered this had he bothered to ask Centro's media people. There are two reasons for this: Partnership is working reasonably well and has delivered some significant benefits on some routes already, and moreover, the question of where the money would come from to 'franchise' services has no answer because there is no money to pay for it.

The writer of the Mail article has not a clue what he is talking about. He has put two and two together and got about 10 as a result, and the piece should be disregarded.

I absolutely agree with you. Unfortunately you only have to look at the comments on Birmingham Mail's Facebook page to understand the mentality of the people they are trying to appeal to with their badly worded and factually inaccurate articles, especially those concerning buses and public transport!  :(

[Adam 404]

http://www.bettertransport.org.uk/blog/better-transport/queens-speech-dont-be-distracted-driverless-cars

The Campaign for better transport's take on it all.

[barry619]

I absolutely agree with you. Unfortunately you only have to look at the comments on Birmingham Mail's Facebook page to understand the mentality of the people they are trying to appeal to with their badly worded and factually inaccurate articles, especially those concerning buses and public transport!  :(

Absolutely. Given that the average poster on most local rags' websites/Facebook pages seems to think that a vote to leave the EU will see every non-British citizen in the UK summarily deported the day after the referendum, I doubt that many/any of them have any concept of how buses work anyway. In fact, I wonder how many of them are actually able to dress themselves in a morning.

Nevertheless, that the Birmingham Mail could publish such ill-informed, inaccurate claptrap is still rather worrying.

[JoNi]

https://www.flickr.com/gp/92409298@N06/712327
Within the last couple of days I've seen EU referendum adverts beginning to appear on station electronic information signs! Seen here tonight at Rugby!