Have Bus Services Improved Since 1984?

[Stuharris 6360]

Was trying to find an old timetable the other day to help Nitromatt with his enquiries about the 247/8 when i came across a WMPTE timetable book dated August 1984 with a picture of Fleetline 6372 on the front.

I eagerly opened it to see how much timetables had improved since then, however i was surprised to find that in some cases they haven't.

eg: service 9 Stourbridge - Birmingham was then every 7/8 minutes during the day, every 20 minutes at night Monday to Saturday and every 20 minutes day & Night on Sunday. Routes 74 Birmingham - Dudley & 79 Birmingham - Wolverhampton operated every 6 minutes peak hours Monday to Friday & all day Saturday and who can remember route 990, Stourbridge to The Hawthorns (or Villa Park) for football matches.

Its amazing the amount of Football/school/works services that were operated at that time.

Did bus deregulation improve things, i say no.

[PM]

Was trying to find an old timetable the other day to help Nitromatt with his enquiries about the 247/8 when i came across a WMPTE timetable book dated August 1984 with a picture of Fleetline 6372 on the front.

I eagerly opened it to see how much timetables had improved since then, however i was surprised to find that in some cases they haven't.

eg: service 9 Stourbridge - Birmingham was then every 7/8 minutes during the day, every 20 minutes at night Monday to Saturday and every 20 minutes day & Night on Sunday. Routes 74 Birmingham - Dudley & 79 Birmingham - Wolverhampton operated every 6 minutes peak hours Monday to Friday & all day Saturday and who can remember route 990, Stourbridge to The Hawthorns (or Villa Park) for football matches.

Its amazing the amount of Football/school/works services that were operated at that time.

Did bus deregulation improve things, i say no.

Not surprisingly to anyone who knows me, I would say yes. Bus services run in the regulated environment were run by politicians with routes not matching demand. Im sorry to have to say even as a fan of public transport, we should not be wasting public money on services no one uses. How many strikes have there been recently by the way? Thats another thing to consider. I would say that WMPTE ,admittedly the most efficient PTE, was an operation run when managers had their hands tied behind their backs. Maybe people in the west midlands didnt see like in other PTE areas the vast amounts of money wasted for lack lustre operations that were losing passengers by the bucketload. People say ridership decreased due to deregulation-it has been falling since the 50s and PTEs/NBC didnt do anything to stop the decline. Roll on 1986, minibuses with branding and a focus on buses being like a retail environment when decisions could be made by local managers as opposed to politicians. Deregulation brought efficiency, focus on routes with greatest growth potential. Im moving to the north east on sunday and go north east seems a far better run operation than you see pictures of buses in the yellow livery of the pte there.  Deregulation has brought ridership increases in some notable areas and innovation and new ideas. Competition has brought choice and variety and ensured customer focus. It has also brought flexibility and whilst some of the idea of an integrated network has been lost-an argument I accept-thats not an argument against deregulation, its simply an argument that we need to work on integration in the environment we're in. Integration/deregulation are possible together-see Oxford. Quite honestly, when I see politicians in PTE areas squabbling over running bus services, upping fares for the majority it makes me extremely cross. Let's listen to bus users UK who would argue that SQBP's are the way forward. I agree