(05 Nov 2020, 5:06 pm)streetdeckfan wrote But Lothian still has competition, it may be owned by the LA, but they still have to compete with other operators as if they were running like any other commercial operator. The closest we really have to a government ran public transport network is TFL, they're just choosing to contract out the operations rather than run them in house.
To me, it's not about the owner, but about the system behind it.
Like I said, having all the buses ran by the government just moves the monopoly from a company owned by shareholders to a company owned by the government. At least with privatisation, there's an opportunity for competition, even if it's not well executed.
One thing I think we can all agree on, is that if NEXUS managed to get their hands on the buses, it'd be a much bigger shitshow than it is now!
There's very little competition in Edinburgh especially in the East side of the city, Nottingham and Blackpool are both the same aswell. I know your bringing up the competition up here competition doesn't really bring better buses for the majority of users.
The things you described above such as the mod cons don't exist where there's competition and the 3 operators I've listed above overall provide a much better service across the board compared to the big 3 up here.
Competition isn't a good thing, there's 4 big areas with massive competition around here. Hartlepool, North Tyneside, South Shields and Sunderland. South Shields is by far Stagecoach's weakest area with Hartlepool a very close second. North Tyneside is by far GNE's worst area (everything is subsidised one way or another) with Sunderland not far behind with them pretty much abandoning South Shields (depot closed years ago) and North Tyneside is also arguably Arriva's weakest area aswell.
On the other hand the best 3 areas in terms of service though are for Arriva is SE Northumberland, GNE is Derwentside and Stagecoach is Newcastle's West End. There's one thing in common between all 3, they're all monopolies.
Bus companies are unique in the sense they will always have competition, the difference is there competition is different types of transport rather than other bus companies. If they don't provide a good enough service then the majority of customers will eventually just move to driving. The difference between having a public company running the service is the £500k profit lets say they make (made up) at Percy Main and Jesmond wouldn't be going to some shareholders they'd be invested in running the 19, 41, 42, W1, W2, W3, 319, 335, 359 and so on under the same standards all day and evenings rather than the mess we have now with GCT running them to the ground and that's the biggest problem. Not to mention the fact that the tax payer is paying directly for some shareholders bonuses.