(31 Jul 2020, 7:47 am)Storx wrote 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.

I suppose you can look at it both ways.

If it's a monopoly, one company is getting all the money, so has plenty to invest in keeping the fleet up to date, plus, it's not as if there is no competition, there's always taking the car. And if you're the sole operator, your only competition is the car so you have to keep standards high. Or it can realise it can keep buses on the road well past their sell by date as passengers have no other options but to keep using them.

I think it's dangerous to look at through the lens of 'monopoly bad, competition good', you've got to look at the context of the situation.
If there aren't enough passengers to fully support two operators, then you're going to end up with two crap services.

Similarly, I think franchising can be both good and bad. Look at London for example, they have a fantastic public transport network, but it's heavily subsidised. If they were to try and actually run it for profit (or even to break even) people would be very surprised how expensive tickets would be!