(06 Sep 2021, 10:03 pm)Storx wrote Interesting take but not sure I agree. Personally I think there's more competition now than there ever has been now but it's not from other bus operators it's cars. The majority of households have more than one car nowadays and pretty much anyone can if they want to.In some ways competition can make things worse like in the scenarios you said, but in other ways lack of competition is not a good thing for the level of service provided.
Back in the 80's that would be unheard of for most families especially in poorer areas to have 2 cars between them like nowadays. Independents wouldn't be able to make money nowadays if they tried and that's not because of GNE etc it's just lack of demand. There's also the Metro which has had a massive impact in a lot of areas aswell for better really (unless your looking from a purely bus point of view).
Competition argubly makes things worse, you just look at North Tyneside, Hartlepool, South Shields / Sunderland and Peterlee. The 4 areas with the most competition and argubly the 4 areas with the most fractured networks aswell with Stagecoach at South Shields and Hartlepool and Peterlee (GNE) being low cost depots and there's an awful lot of subsidised buses in the areas aswell even known they're all urban / semi urban (for Peterlee) areas.
In areas where there's a lack of competition and one operator has a monopoly, they will most likely provide the bare minimum level of service that they can possibly get away with. Therefore you tend to end up with scenarios such as the frequency of a service on a corridor not being as high as it should be etc.
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