(21 Nov 2019, 5:49 pm)Venturego wrote " 'taking public ownership of bus networks' is full nationalisation!"
Post above suggests more like a return to PTEs replacing Stagecoach mainly in our area. (posting may have crossed with other posts hence you may not have read fully)
However!:
Arriva is owned by Deutche Bahn, which in turn is owned 100% by Federal Republic of Germany, the irony being UK bus and train passengers of Arriva are contributing the profits to the government of Germany! - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Bahn
€570m income from a €5.35Billion revenue to Germany's Federal Government (2017) : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arriva
I did read it fully, the way I read it is that the bus companies would be nationalised, with them being run by the likes of Nexus. Now granted it looks like it would be at the discretion of the local authority, but which LA isn't going to take up offer of buckets of money to do it?
That's one of the main reasons I hate having to travel Arriva! That and the fact that the passenger experience is awful (drivers that barely speak English and can barely drive, the maintainance of the buses)
If Arriva is what nationalised bus services are like, I'd happily pay my £95 a month to Go North East (which is probably less than the tax increase to fund the nationalisation would be!)
Would I like free travel? Of course! But like I said, nothing is free.
Plus, when you actually do the maths,
For the Under 25s which Labour seem to be targeting, a monthly pass for GNE is £68. While from the outside £68 a month to use the bus seems steep, that works out as about £2.70 a day, or just over £3 a day if you only count weekdays. Now assuming someone travels to work and back, that's £1.50 each way, if they take 2 buses, that's 75p per 'ticket'. If they use the bus on the weekend, or take other trips, it's even cheaper!
I don't know about you, but that seems fairly affordable to me!
Would I want a Labour government to save that much money? Hell no!
Like I said, on the surface Labour's plans seem great, but are they really?
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