(01 Jul 2017, 2:06 pm)Tamesider wrote 9.2% in 7 years! Is there a superfluous decimal point in there. Bus fares for single, essential journeys under 2.5 miles in GM have gone up more than three times inflation since De-reg. From the comment above about a £1.45 going to £1.50, I assume the same doesn't apply in the North East - despite my health problems, even I wouldn't catch a bus for less than half a mile.
Just to remind people of the history of competition in GM over the last 30+ years. With very few exceptions, competition has been low quality, based on new operators simply copying the routes of GMT's successors, running a few minutes in front on paper, but no schedules adhered to in practice. Worse still GMB (and its later North & South incarnations) were dragged into chasing these Operators around. So, for instance, you might have a service where GMB were registered at '00 & '30 past the hour; the newcomer would register at '27 & '57, but in practice both would run at around '25 & '55 thus leaving unsuspecting passengers regularly waiting 25+ minutes for a service that had 4 buses an hour advertised. Fare competition has been severely limited with minor savings compared to the incumbant, usually confined to parts of the route (away from captive market low car ownership housing estates) or specific passengers (eg. OAPs before ENCTS). Many of these Operators were taken over or (eventually) shut down by TCs, with some Operators invloved in serious crimes not necessarily related to running buses (allegedly)!