(24 Feb 2022, 11:13 pm)stagecoachbusdepot wrote These are the key issues. Under the current model operators are far too easily able to carve up services to cream off the profitable bits, into the pockets of shareholders and abandon both the bits that are less well used, and the people reliant on those. Local government then has to try to make a fixed pool of public money, not shored up by profits that the fat cat investors have creamed off in the PLC, spread to cover an ever expanded wasteland of abandoned routes. In turn this increases the profits for private operator, often those same operators who weren't interested in running the service without a load of public subsidy but are happy to cream off anything they can get from the public they "serve". At least under public ownership, the public purse would get the benefit of the most profitable runs, to more effectively maintain the network as a whole.Do you honestly think "shareholders" or corporate types in big PLC offices are plotting the downfall of the 32 bus route in Newcastle??
RE: Nexus Tenders | Newcastle & North Tyneside - March 2022