There's this weird fixation from people in & around the industry that buses exist to make money. They don't. Buses never have and never will be profitable in their own right. Vast amounts of subsidy keeps the industry afloat; take away concessionary fares, BSOG, green bus fund, engine emission upgrades, infrastructure provision & improvements and direct service subsidy and the industry collapses. For all that public money we're left with a disjointed network, little to no integrated ticketing and no actual say in when & where bus companies have to operate. 

What I really don't understand is how we all seem to accept that railways require heavy subsidy and regulation yet buses don't? Manchester's franchising proposal was criticised as manage decline, yet isn't managed decline what the privatised bus industry is already providing? Private operators continue to piss about, making a song and dance about making largely insignificant tweaks to a stagnant, declining network, while vast communities have little or no useful services, with serious consequences on social mobility in rural and deprived communities. Why not do away with the raft of schemes operates feed from and have a central authority regulating routes, using nationally mandated criteria such as population density and access to key community services (healthcare, employment hubs etc.)?

Buses don't need to make money to exist. They need to be useful to exist. .