Surely though, this all comes back to money. Whether it's a regulated, franchised or deregulated environment, we have got massive issues in a) being able to afford the current concessionary pass schemes, b) the ability to support non-commercial services (services where costs are in excess of revenue). So where does the money come from? Cross subsidise? Never, ever works. Seize assets without compensation - fund with the shareholder profits? Look at the sums - hardly huge.
The real key is local taxation but then again, it's a brave politician who does that. You can see the headlines in the local rag on congestion zones etc, plus the impact on local traders etc. The sad fact is that there are very few votes in transport - see
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.n...ent/c7yivx1vzx/YG Trackers - Top Issues_W.pdf However, there are votes to be lost by adversely impacting the car user! Hence we see many cities approaching clean air zones in cheerfully slapping a tax on buses and lorries (even 2015 Euro V ones) whilst allowing anyone to drive through in their 2.5 litre 2005 diesel car!!
I travel into and within Bristol and the local politicians have been pilloried for metrobus - even before the issues they encountered and despite the fact that a lot of the developments were a way of sneaking through new roads! However, there are plenty of areas where they could put additional bus lanes etc - it would improve public transport reliability and reduce pollution but they won't because of the divine right of people to park their car outside their house.
So, back on topic, it's very easy to get a headline grabbing policy. Who doesn't want something free? However, the funding of that is crucial and, TBH, if there's extra money to be spent, is a politician more likely to spend it on one of the public's greater priorities?