(27 Feb 2020, 8:22 pm)BusLoverMum wrote Those London fares are very heavily subsidised. Bus companies have to be profitable.
Considering large parts of our region are rural, what we have isn't at all bad compared with a lot of the provinces. Lots of small villages have a bus every hour or two or even every half hour and often a few to different places, while down in parts of East Yorkshire and some parts of the southwest, people are lucky to see a bus a day.
It's rare that a bus doesn't show up because the bus has conked out. There's usually circumstances way beyond the operator's control such as traffic delays (which affect car drivers, too) causes by roadworks, accidents, severe weather or just plain gridlock.
I understand circumstances beyond an operator's control, I've worked in the control department before, it's just when you receive little to no communication and there aren't any other buses nearby or the next bus is 30 minutes away, its annoying and its happened too many times up here for my liking. If you're a member of the Facebook community you can read into the dismay of the 47 services by passengers.
I wouldn't say London fares are heavily subsidised, Tfl is a non-profit organisation as they put it and a lot of the funds they make is recycled back into the services they steward. Not all services run at a profit by the way. Regardless of what is argued, the fares up here are astronomical and it restricts where you go if you don't have the money to travel (further reducing patronage) and there seem to be too many duplicate services because it's commercially run.
It makes sense to subsidise fares in London, because it will always make up for it, the fact that Tfl could charge what they want as there is no competition for services and they don't show the difference in attitudes up here vs down there and why the network up here is not the best. I know you can't compare London with Newcastle and its surrounding cities and towns but there is a reason why there are so many buses up here carrying fresh air.