(27 Jun 2020, 10:53 pm)James101 wrote 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. .

1. Vast communities without bus services only don't have them because they don't use them very much (if at all). 
2. Bus services in many areas did use to be profitable - lots of local authority fleets and parts of the NBC were. But the world has changed since then - out of town business parks, low density housing, decline of industries employing thousands in the same location, Sunday trading..........
3. As one who worked for two PTE's pre deregulation, I can tell you it was all about cutting services and increasing fares to reduce the subsidy. It has, since the Transport Act 1968, been the responsibility of a local authority to subsidise services that it thinks are needed but which aren't provided. Service cuts and reductions started well before deregulation - probably about 1950. You only have to look at timetable change leaflets from the 50s, 60s, 70s and early 80s to see major cuts in services.
4. What makes anyone think the government/local authorities will do a better job than privatised bus companies? Under government/LA control buses will be wrestling with funding against things like painting the school railings - I know that the latter would keep funding and buses would be cut.
5. Public transport, buses etc. will never be able to cater for everyone. If, for example, you live in Ferryhill and work at Cobalt, the bus is never going to win against the car. Buses work best where there are high volume flows - were there aren't some alternative type of provision needs to exist (DRT, taxibus, etc.)
6. Concessionary fares aren't a subsidy to the bus operator - they are a subsidy to the passenger who uses the pass. 
7. BSOG only gives operators about 60% of the fuel duty back - remember that trains and planes don't pay any fuel duty at all! 
8. Grants for emissions upgrades etc. are no different, for example, to grants given to motorists to move to an electric car, except they give a greater benefit. 
9. Unless there is some form of significant change to planning/land use regulations, parking provision and/or price, traffic restraint then the car will still be seen by many as the "best" way to travel.