(30 Jul 2020, 11:52 pm)an James101 wrote Not to keep raising the same point but I don't think Hartlepool's Stagecoach monopoly has worked out too well for them

tbf. I wouldn't say Hartlepool is a monopoly if anything it's the ugly side of competition. You have one operator (used to be 2) which has the 3 long distance profitable bus routes to Sunderland, Peterlee, Durham etc. then a second operator left with local routes to a place no-one really wants to be at. It's no wonder Stagecoach struggles a bit. You've also got the train to fight with aswell.

Then you've got the problem you can't use a ticket on the 23 then onto the 3 to the south side of Hartlepool for example without having an Arriva and Stagecoach ticket.

(31 Jul 2020, 5:30 am)streetdeckfan wrote I personally think it has to be a mix of both, having every route have multiple operators is a terrible idea, there wouldn't be enough money to go around, similarly having one operator for an entire region wouldn't work either. They'd have no incentive to make improvements and standards would drop.

I think 'key' locations need to be served by multiple operators, to allow easy travel to different parts of the region without having to purchase mutli-operator tickets. But then multi-operator tickets should be available should you want to visit further afield.  I would define a key location as a town or city that someone from an outside area may want to travel to. These would include places like Newcastle, Durham, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Darlington, Metrocentre etc. 

Whilst I know it would never happen, in an ideal world those key services would accept any operator ticket to reduce the need for identical services running alongside each other competing for passengers.

So say you want to travel from Crook to Newcastle, you would buy an Arriva Day Ticket on the X46 to Durham, you could then use GNE's X21 to travel to Newcastle. 
Similarly, if you want to travel from Consett to Darlington, you could buy a GNE Day Ticket on the X15, then use the same ticket on the Arriva 7. 

But if you then wanted to travel around the local areas you would have to purchase a multi-operator ticket.

I definitely agree on the multi-ticket operator from experience. Living just across the border in Northumberland a explorer ticket is the cheapest ticket to travel most places and it's not cheap but it's cheaper than buying an Arriva, Metro and GNE ticket.

On the one company per area I dunno about that its what I was thinking. The areas arguably with the better networks; Blackpool, Transdev areas, Stagecoach Inverness generally are monopolies and none of them have over the top fares or ancient fleets but then areas with messy competition such as Manchester are on a freefall.

Even in our local area each of 3 big operators best areas GNE - Consett, Stagecoach - West End Newcastle, Arriva - Northumbia are all monopolies and have been forever bar the little war between Arriva and GNE 10 year ago and all have reasonably fares and the best fleets in the area. The X-Lines network is nearly every route in the Consett area for example.