Andreos1 really does seem to have got stuck on the same message, doesn't he?

Look at it another way: Successful companies get to be successful by doing the right things,at the right price, for the right customers. Their investors (shareholders) have loaned them their capital in the hope that they'll get it right. Success isn't guaranteed - it's a risk. Some risks work, some don't - probably why the OK1 is being withdrawn. So the profit - however modest or outrageous - comes as a result of success. Apply this to buses and it becomes obvious: if you don't run buses at times people want to travel, you won't be successful. And equally, unless there's a break-even bus load, you can't make a return and you will go out of business. And, if you try to charge customers fares that are too high, either new competitors will join your route (reckoning they can make enough to survive at lower fares), or you'll not attract enough customers (a bit like First in some areas!).

In practice, route costing systems allow bus companies to know where they can make a decent return and where they lose money, and analysis of things like season ticket use allows these to be apportioned, too. If profits from a good route are used to subsidise a poor route, neither makes a profit. And there's a limit as to how often you can do this before the entire network fails to make a return.

Quality contracts are not a guarantee of success, I'm afraid. And, as we read on this forum recently, bus patronage in Tyne and Wear went up by three million trips in the last full year without one!