(14 Apr 2020, 10:15 pm)Storx wrote To be fair though and I'm one who hates giving money away for free it's just a rebate for the fuel duty more so than a free grant with a fancy name. They're still paying roughly 20% of the fuel duty that's due and with the governments efforts to move people away from cars to buses and reducing emissions it's not exactly the worst thing, at the end of the day it's a bit unfair to charge them the same rate as a car especially when other industries such as airlines don't pay any fuel duty at all and trains use red diesel which is a lower rate. It'll be the same reason why it hasn't increased since Fuel Duty hasn't neither.

To the QE stuff I can't imagine that's the reason - it's probably a legacy thing in place to try and spread loads out more to let people get on who are going further afield. You have to remember until not too long a go the X1 and 56 were both ran by singles which were often packed at peaks. The last thing you want to do is have a bus full of people going to the QE and leaving people going to Concord or wherever behind when those people could use a different bus with plenty seats or it's just a pricing error.

There's a couple of bits in here I wanted to respond to, so hopefully it comes across OK. 

You mention the X1 and 56 and single decker ops. Both were double deckers for a significant period prior. The X5 operated as a double decker for years prior to the 2006 changes, although on a less frequent basis.
Ditto the 56 when it terminated at Spring Well Est, before it merged with the dd operated 187 and 188.

Although I didn't want to get in to the rights and wrongs of whether or not operators should be getting freebies, I think you make an interesting point regarding the rebates. However, they're getting the fuel at rock bottom prices already. The bulk buying in advance sees to that. Add on the fuel element of the BSOG and they're paying a lot less p/l than everyone else does at Morrisons.
The bit that annoys me the most (and I've pointed out elsewhere), is that these operators don't want to be regulated again. They don't want local or national interference, but are more than happy receiving financial support as and when it suits.
I appreciate they're merely making use of the money available under its current guise, but there is no end of hypocrisy in doing so. 

They get the financial help with the fuel costs and they get financial help with AVL and smartcard technology.
They then get additional financial help and a 10% uplift on the existing financial help, as a result of utilising the financial help already received.
But don't want regulating.