(12 Oct 2022, 7:21 am)Storx wrote Catch 22 is there's not enough money to go around for competition so if you had multiple companies doing one route then other marginal services will suffer which are currently propped up by them.Quite. If Tesco Extra and the big Sainsbury's had stores next to each other in Durham, neither would do quite as well as they currently do at Dragonville and Arnison, respectively. (aldi and lidl are a different matter, tit for tat opening stores next to each other!)
You just have to look at North Tyneside where there's 15 buses an hour or whatever it is now on the Coast Road. Go off the Coast Road and it's a skeleton service at best. It's the same down in Birtley aswell.
Pricing and lack of interworking tickets is the biggest issue in the North East. Eradicate that issue then who operates the buses is just irrelevant.
RE: Reversing the decline in passenger numbers