What happens when councils take control of buses?

Comments

• GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Reading busses work really well. Not extortionate prices, fairly regular, and a bus tracking system open to the public that (mostly) works.
  It always amazes me when people are surprised that an enterprise designed to primarily provide a service to the people, rather than dividends, gives better value for money.

  The people win in every direction.
  Money goes back into better busses, OAP bus passes cost less to the taxpayer, and Reading gets snazzy busses in cool colours.

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  • Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Privatisation has been tried even more as an economic theory in America, and there it has failed even harder. We know where that path leads. Take back the buses, take back the trains, the waterways, all of it.

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  • Kushan@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’m pretty sure Warrington’s bus service is owned by the council and it’s dire. Expensive, infrequent and the buses are old.

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• HumanPenguin@feddit.uk ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  with people on lower incomes and those without a car disproportionately affected.

  Not to mention disabled. Many disabilities both physical and mental. Make driving impossible. Not just visual impairment as I have.

  But the reduction in bus services especially to smaller towns and villages. Where its often moved to 0 buses or one bus every 2 days like services.

  The reduction over the last 15 years or so has become very noticeable. Forcing a huge increase in cost. As taxis that have increased hugly in price since the pandemic. Are the only option people like me have.

  I am old enough to remember pre privatisation as a child. Where you could get Sunday level services everywhere, even on Xmas day. When there really were few places apart from very extream areas. Where commuting via public transport was not an option.

  What ever way you look at it. The tory privatisation of buses has failed miserably.

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• breadsmasher@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Private bus companies exist for profit. The only routes they’re willing to run must be profitable. Just the result of private ownership over a public service.

  A public/council owned and run bus company would serve routes people need in theory

  We have a tory government though. Im surprised they don’t make the council pay the private bus company to run routes at extortionate rates

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  • HeartyBeast@kbin.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Counterpoint- the council can mandate routes and frequency in the contract and put it out to tender. The idea is that the private sector is better an innovating to be efficient, though I’m not sure that has ever really been demonstrated

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    • breadsmasher@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      and with that you unfortunately recreate the shitshow which semi privatisation of railway

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• steeznson@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  In Edinburgh the council run the buses and it’s cheap - 1.80 flat fare everywhere - and turns a consistent profit every year. No shortage of routes or running buses.

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• maculata@aussie.zone ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Well I guess that depends on whether they know how to drive a bus.

  Also, trying to fit more than one driver in the cab is tricky, to say the least. An entire council?!?
  Wow.

  I can’t even begin to understand how that’s going to work, especially with all the typical egos involved.

  “No! I WANNA STEER!” Etc.

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• autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  This is the best summary I could come up with:

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  Outside of London, bus services have dropped by 50% since 2008, according to research by Friends of the Earth, external, with people on lower incomes and those without a car disproportionately affected.Bus use plummeted during the pandemic but even before then it was steadily declining in areas outside the capital.

  The town - 40 miles to the west of London - was hit by Covid restrictions like everywhere else but the number of journeys on local bus services had been on the rise before the pandemic too.Reading is one of only five areas in England where the local bus company is owned by the council.Robert Williams, the chief executive of Reading Buses, says it means profits can be reinvested into services.“We’re able to take a longer term view, we’re not constantly being chased to make sure our profit margin is a certain level, because our brief is just to provide the best possible service we can,” he says.“You have local people that live and breathe the area, running the services and working out what should happen.

  “Setting that up from scratch is no quick job.”In Reading, he points out, the council has owned the local bus company for more than 100 years.Labour claims its plans would require no additional central government funding.But Mr Williams is sceptical over whether councils, which are facing huge financial challenges, have the money to set up their own bus companies at the moment.To improve services, he says, also requires investment.In Reading, he says bus services get very little subsidy from the council as it benefits from its location as a busy commuter town.“If we tried to replicate this in the middle of the countryside, we clearly wouldn’t be able to sustain the same kind of network,” he adds.

  Paul Swinney, director of research and policy at the Centre for Cities think tank, says there are easier ways to achieve the benefits of greater control over bus services than full public ownership.

  If a company is publicly owned, it is the taxpayer that is taking on the risk if it goes bust, he points out.Instead, the think tank supports expanding the franchising system which is in place in London and has also been adopted in Greater Manchester.Liverpool City Region, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire are set to follow suit.Mr Swinney says under a franchise model councils and mayors still have control over bus routes and can ensure these are integrated into a cohesive network with other forms of public transport like trains.They can also keep hold of fares and choose to subsidise less profitable routes which are still vital for certain groups.Although he says this won’t necessarily make single journeys cheaper, it is easier to bring in daily caps across the whole network.The only difference to full public ownership is that it is private companies running the services.

  During the recent mayoral campaign, then-West Midlands Conservative mayor Andy Street attacked his Labour opponent’s plan to take buses back under public control, saying the party had not said where the money to do this would come from.Labour’s Richard Parker, who won the contest, has pledged to build a “London-style integrated transport network” to make buses more affordable, reliable and frequent.

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