(31 Dec 2019, 1:28 pm)JP6004 wrote Have to say I disagree. I doubt the council would invest as heavily and make such big improvements. Businesses thrive on efficiency and continual improvement. Council and government sectors do not.
Saying that stagecoach and arriva seem to of lagged behind GNE for years when I comes to NSA, wifi, on board charging, ticket offerings etc; not to mention cleanliness
Exactly, businesses want to make money so they try to be better than the competition.
If it was run by the council, they'd want to waste as much money as they can so they can get a bigger budget next year. There would be no competition, so why would they make their services better.
The operators would just lie about how they're going to make the services better when they put in for the tender, and we'd be in exactly the same situation were in with the rail network.
You can argue all day whether it would be better nationalised, but the half arsed franchise system isn't working. Either go all in and let them operate fully independently, or renationalise them
I only really have experience with Arriva Durham, but from that it looks like they have the edge on Stagecoach when it comes to the likes of NSA, WiFi and charging. At least with the MAX and Sapphire services.
I think Arriva must have one cleaner, and they've been on the sick for the past few years!
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