(21 Nov 2019, 8:39 pm)Andreos1 wrote We've had the current system since 1986. It's private and is flawed in so many ways. I'd argue they are far from efficient.
We've seen companies go to the wall, we've seen buyouts and mergers and we've seen dodgy deals where operating areas are carved up to suit.
Im not sure about the relevance or accuracy of the first paragraph you make.
How is this the case? What methods and data have you used to back up the claims?
As for the competing services. Pity the poor folks who don't have competing services eh? Or have seen bus wars, cuts in service or reductions in the level of service, as theres not enough profit.
Did you ever ride the Express services pre-86? Lovely, comfy rides, with coach seating across a range of vehicles. Uprated engines that improved overall performance appeared too.
All with the aim of enticing punters. Attractive fares too. I think we discussed the variences in inflation and the price equivalent fares would be now, taking in to account inflation. Then compared them to the actual fares we see today.
If the aim is to entice punters on to vehicles and the WiFi, apps and gimmicks actually do help in achieving this, then why would a change to the current system, see the removal of those gimmicks?
And do you really think it would be any better having them nationalised instead? There's only one thing that does dodgy deals more than private companies, and that's the government!
There's no point in looking back at what nationalised services were pre-86 and thinking it'll be like the 'glory days'. That's not how the real world works! Plus, you have to consider back then it wasn't just the bus companies that were nationalised, it was a lot of the automotive manufacturers as well, which meant that a lot of vehicles were being sold at BOM price, or even at a loss.
And the reason those fares were attractive was because they were subsidised. If you remember back to a quick bit of maths I did...
(01 Sep 2019, 4:02 pm)streetdeckfan wrote I've just done a bit of quick maths in Excel, taking into account the cost of purchasing the bus and spread it out over 15 years, the cost of the driver at £10 per hour, and the cost of fuel at £1.25 per litre. I 'calculated' the X21, 21 and X66 just to give a rough idea of both long and short routes
Obviously the numbers are VERY rough (and I'm making a lot of assumptions), and they don't include the cost of running depots, maintenance, customer service etc, but it's still quite interesting
For the X21, I came up with cost per passenger of around 95p if we assume that there's an average of 50 passengers per journey
For the 21, I got around 50p if we again assume an average of 50 passengers per journey
For the X66, I got around 10p if we assume an average of 35 passengers per journey
That was me being very conservative with the costs, and not including a lot of the costs that I couldn't find the figures for so I'd imagine the actual costs would be a lot higher. Now, if a lot of passengers are suddenly getting travel for free, that means the cost per paying passenger go up. If they don't want to do that, the money has to come from somewhere, and that will be higher taxes.
After looking at GNE's finances, it looks like they're operating on a ~5% profit margin, so giving free transport to all under 25s would result in them making quite a hefty loss!
Like I said, I don't want to get too political, but if we assume that Labour have actually costed everything out properly (with people who actually know what numbers are), and can do it with little impact on the 'average' person, then great! But I highly doubt they have.