(04 Nov 2020, 10:09 pm)Adrian wrote The majority of the region has no choice to what operator they use, because there is very little in the way of competition outside of City Centres and key corridors. Derwentside for example, you have no choice but to use Go North East, so they can charge whatever they want. Where I live in Durham has the same problem - we have a GNE bus a couple of times on a Sunday, but its a 100% Arriva monopoly outside of that - and they do charge what they want, for a pretty appalling service.
When buses were deregulated by Maggie Thatcher, the idea was that competition will lead to the best results. The reality is that we've seen very little in the way of competition - just one huge turf war. Buses are ran for profit, not for those using them.
The issue is it's basically impossible to have 'full competition'. If every operator operated in every area, there wouldn't be enough passengers to go around.
I also think having buses being nationalised is a horrific idea. All it does is give the monopoly to the government rather than a private company. Then it'll go from it being all about profit, to it costing as little as possible to run. At least when you're doing it for profit, there's an incentive to improve the service. When you're running something as a 'public service', it just has to fulfil the bare minimum of being able to move people around, anything beyond that is a waste.
Just look how much nicer the buses are up here compared to likes of London!
I live in Bishop, so it's mainly Arriva with GNE just running the X21, and I honestly don't have an issue with that. My main issue with the public transport here is the lack of multi-operator tickets, compared to T&W (which could be argued is down to the lack of competition), but there's also the fact that there is such a hard border between the 'territories'.
For example If I want to travel from Bear Park to Langley Park, a distance of about 3 miles, I'd have to buy both an Arriva and GNE ticket, or a Network One Explorer at £10.90 for the day, but have to go via Durham so the journey would take an hour instead of the 7 minutes in the car
But in Tyne and Wear, you can travel from Seaton Burn to Easington Lane, a distance of around 24 miles, using both GNE and Arriva for only £7.80 using a Network One Day Rover ticket.
If I could get a reasonably priced ticket to use on both GNE and Arriva down here, I'd be all over it. It'd mean I wouldn't have to plan things to make sure that when I get an Arriva ticket, I'm visiting all the places that are Arriva only in that one day.