(06 Sep 2021, 9:23 pm)Washingtonian wrote Agree with a lot of what you say. I've been thinking lately that one of the biggest problems in the bus industry these days is there is a lack of competition! When I was a lad in the eighties/nineties there were a heck of a lot more independent operators. Where I live in Washington there was the likes of Calvary Coaches, and St George Travel also serving the town. Then in Sunderland you had likes of Redby, Jolly, Micheal Franks etc and then further a field you had good size operators such as OK Travel and Classic and I could name a lot more too.
Back then if one of these operators launched a service GNE would quickly launch one in return. More often than not this would result in the smaller operator retreating as they could not compete with the big operator. Those that did manage to hold their own and put up a real fight would be bought out in the end. I'm sure this was the case with the likes of St George Travel as they were expanding their network at the time and I'm sure GNE bought them out by making them an offer they couldn't refuse.
Today there are significantly less independent operators around and the big companies dominate and say they have to cut this and cut that and become more and more streamlined. It does beg the question though if there were still as many independent operators around now would there be as many service cuts? I doubt it and I bet they could find buses and drivers at the drop of a hat to create new services to take on the independents!
Interesting take but not sure I agree. Personally I think there's more competition now than there ever has been now but it's not from other bus operators it's cars. The majority of households have more than one car nowadays and pretty much anyone can if they want to.
Back in the 80's that would be unheard of for most families especially in poorer areas to have 2 cars between them like nowadays. Independents wouldn't be able to make money nowadays if they tried and that's not because of GNE etc it's just lack of demand. There's also the Metro which has had a massive impact in a lot of areas aswell for better really (unless your looking from a purely bus point of view).
Competition argubly makes things worse, you just look at North Tyneside, Hartlepool, South Shields / Sunderland and Peterlee. The 4 areas with the most competition and argubly the 4 areas with the most fractured networks aswell with Stagecoach at South Shields and Hartlepool and Peterlee (GNE) being low cost depots and there's an awful lot of subsidised buses in the areas aswell even known they're all urban / semi urban (for Peterlee) areas.