(22 Dec 2016, 12:06 am)Ambassador wrote You make good points, but that's why we have NECA (which is dropping the ball) to pull all this together. It's a tangled web of regional xenophobia and red tape..

The simple answer if for GNE to act like a business that cares about customers and offer extensions/discounts which Arriva, Stagecoach and Network One are all doing. But they don't. So one can only assume they don't.

They don't have to, though, and this is historical - purely because of the bureaucratic mess this area is when it comes to unity under one authority. There are so many different authorities with different opinions that it becomes literally impossible to stop monopolisation. The counsils independantly dont care what happens so long as there are services provided to their specifications. The counsils are basically at war with each other. At the end of the day, all anybody really cares about in a business financial sector is a line on a chart.
True, passenger satisifaction draws its own line, but only in a context to earn more money. In a monopoly, this becomes less and less of an issue, as do most things because there isn't really an alternative, hence the monopoly.
The counsils work the same, they need to make money count. The counsil just pay out for contracts, they don't gain money from them.
Taking the 704 for an example. Stanley to South Stanley and back 3 times in the evening mon-sat. If Go North East dropped this contract, nobody else will pick it up. Stanley Travel's last run currently finishes around 6pm, so they aren't going to pay somebody two hours extra to go and complete the run. Arriva aren't going to send a bus up light to do a 4 minute run every two hours, in order to have to go back down to durham light. Because of the surrounding monopoly, the counsil see GNE as being the obvious, sustainable candidate to award the 704 contract. GNE have surrounding services through the night and are a reputable brand. There will be tonnes of other examples of contracts like this, where each counsil is happy to allow a huge company continue its monopoly because its practical and sustainable to do so. The counsil can't even really mess with the figures because they rely on GNE to run some of the contracts. If GNE turned around and said 'nope' because they couldn't make a profit from the contract, the route would fall through. They'd have to pay some other business a fortune to keep doors open later or get another business to send buses from the other side of the county. I'm sure other contracts vary, but the counsils are much at the mercy of GNE to be providing their service, at their discretion - so of course, GNE can charge whatever they wish - the counsils can't really object for quite a few of the contracts.

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