Re monopoly: The industry had a huge investigation into this, and, generally, the Competition Commission had very few recommendations to make. Pure competition in the industry would require each bus depot to have an equal sized competitors’ depot alongside it, and that’s simply not how the bus industry works. There’s no evidence that operators exploit their geographical positions; if anything, we end up with a ‘Mexican stand-off’, where operators make reasonable returns doing what they do, but don’t feel tempted to risk trying competing services; this isn’t ideal, but it doesn’t make a state-controlled monopoly ideal, either.

Re manipulation of survey results: that was your word, not mine. Are you now calling into question the sampling techniques used by Passenger Focus? You seem to me to be hell bent on discrediting their work.

Re dividends: without reasonable dividends, the shareholders wouldn’t be prepared to lend the bus companies their money. Without dividends, there would be no money to invest in transport. In a state-run system, local or national government would have to raise the money instead; and instead of paying dividends, they’d pay interest and have debt on their books. And the UK can’t afford more public debt. Under a quality contract, the winning bidders would still have to make enough of a return to justify any investment required; so I can’t see it driving costs down to any great extent.

Re “a transport organisation owned by a local authority”: I’m sorry, that’s not what I was looking for; I am sure there are many of those. I should have made the question clearer. I was looking for examples of local authority control that don’t require public money to prop up the system. The three you gave – Nottingham, Lothian and Blackpool – are poor examples, I’m afraid. Nottingham’s and Blackpool’s trams need public subsidy; and as for Edinburgh, well....!!!

I’m pleased that you admit that Amsterdam’s public transport system needs public investment, because that proves my point. here in the north east, Nexus is pursuing a quality contract not in order to put more money into the system, but to take money out.

Re Fencehouses: well, you’ve got me there. I’m afraid I don’t know the local circumstances (it’s a foreign land to me). If there’s a real demand for through services to Newcastle, have you thought of suggesting this to GNE? If the demand’s there, I’d hope they’d consider it. I’d be surprised if they had done this sort of thing to “force” people to change just to keep the patronage figures up, though. I’ve always thought that people don’t like changing buses, and this would drive people away, thus reducing patronage rather than inflating the numbers.