(05 Jun 2023, 6:11 pm)RobinHood wrote Yeah, bus will rarely compete with the private car. Doesn't matter how good the offer is, the convenience of the car will always win.

Would take many years/generational shift to change that perception (or political mindset to prevent cars from getting close to these key areas, which in itself would be political suicide).

Sure, with millions to throw at huge frequency increases and new services to try and change that perception, success may be found eventually, but I don't think any commercial public transport operator has that kind of warchest to revert to in the hope it may be successful eventually.

The whole preventing cars thing can't and won't work imo. 
Apart from it being political suicide, there's no guarantee that people will make the modal switch. 
Even if a proportion do, there's probably not enough of them to make it viable. 

As for the third point you make, operators have had more than enough time to adapt their model and encourage people to make the switch. 
They've not done much else, other than a token gesture and in the case of Skelton, given up the ghost of that hourly service, having made it less attractive than it was - by making journeys longer, slower and inevitably delayed due to the interworking patterns introduced.
They've done all of those just as the place is getting bigger and more popular. Just as more houses are thrown up at various points on its route.
Long-term commercial naievety? Ignorance? Not sure what label I would attach to it to be honest, but it's clearly not working for passengers or the operators.

Skelton just being one example of many. 

We keep hearing stories of covid getting the blame or ENCTS reductions having an impact. 
I've yet to see any operator demonstrate effective ownership or implementation of any policy that has grown numbers or revenue.
I have seen strategies that make travelling less attractive, revenue streams being cut, routes and fleet sizes being reduced though.