Personally, I support more private companies running buses. Council make a big enough hash of the tendered network half the time and a number of councils are stuck in the stone ages running buses because 1 man and his dog have shouted loud enough. Private operators are very good at running the routes and innovating.
The reason that we are in this difficult situation I would say is that in all sectors, companies come and go. In the bus industry though, the costs of starting up are astronomical so as companies go, no one is coming in to replace them. That has lead to the monopoly areas which in turn causes the astronomical fares.
Combine all of that with the below which are all out of bus operators hands and in the hands of the public organisations, that is why we can't get anywhere.
Councils aren't prepared to invest in the infrastructure to make buses more competitive
Car centric councils and government
Councils budgets have been cut so bus networks have been reduced (Reducing the value for money and connecting passengers)
Where councils do have the funds to subsidise buses, the money is wasted on routes which are not used simply to keep the minority happy while making the majority suffer from stupidly long journey times or confusing route variations)
Rural and out of the way housing developments (lower density means less people reached per stop so longer journeys, more buses or reduced viability).
Concessionary fare reimbursement is very low and thus routes which are pass heavy aren't viable any more.
Too many uneducated prats (AKA councillors and MPs) who have no knowledge of how the industry works or the costs involved keep trying to tell operators where buses should run and then set up huge hate campaigns to try and force them out of a town/city simply because the village of 50 people isn't served by a bus every 10 minutes.
I think think that Cumbria and Oxfordshire are good examples of where private companies thrive and people are relatively happy. No council funded buses there as they refuse to fund them and the majority of areas are served. There are some areas which need improvements but on the whole, the areas are quite well served with high spec buses and thriving competition.
An area which is less successful is Manchester where 4 items from the above list apply. You also have Stagecoach who are extremely greedy in Manchester for no reason. Routes which do make money aren't ran commercially simply because they don't make enough. Very high profit margins wanted and they don't like the commercial risk on some of the less busy (but still profitable) routes (Basically why run a route where there is a risk it might only break even in a few years if instead you can have a guaranteed funding for it all year around).
There are a lot of issues in the bus industry however the majority stem from government (national and local) and on that basis, I support private companies as if the governments are messing up the small sections which they do have a say on, imagine how much of a f up it will be if it was nationalised.
Of the current municipal bus operators:
Blackpool: Very smart fleet and very good network. Prices are fair. They do duplicate the trams with buses though which shows they have money to waste. Very weird timings as well, I can't see how bus journey times are the same at all hours of the day.
Cardiff: Decent network, fair fleet. Can't be that good as there is a lot of competition and money is being made by the other operators so passengers aren't loyal and are showing they will use alternatives where they exist. Lack of transparency
Halton: Though not a current one, it only recently went. Went because the council didn't want to keep funding the buses. Fleet was outdated and was being ran down slowly for years.
Ipswich: Exact fare system. Quite a few reports online about poor customer service
Lothian: Some areas are good, others aren't.
Newport: Exact fare system. Confusing network and very user unfriendly. Poor customer service. Only got usage because there is no alternative in most areas.
Nottingham: Exact fare system, Lots of routes lots of variations for them.
Reading: Exact fare system on most original Reading Buses routes
Warrington: You could remortgage your house and still only have enough money for a single into town. Astronomical fares, outdated fleet in general, unwilling to listen to residents.
The best Municipal operators are Blackpool and Reading. Both of these are quite close to how private companies run with their routings and their customer service. For every Blackpool and Reading though, you have a Halton and Warrington and with councils being as incompetent as they are these days, there will be more bad than good bus networks in the end.