Bus Deregulation - Winners & Losers

[markydh]

Apologies; but you didn't mention ''harmonising fares'' in your original post. Aside from a common single fare of £1.30, I have no idea what ''London-esque universal ticketing arrangements'' means other than a multi-use ticket valid on any bus operator. In London, once you leave a bus then your single fare is no longer of any use to you, therefore the only unique thing about the arrangement in London is that a day ticket is valid on any operator, and these tickets do exist elsewhere.
They can also set up a quality contract, allowing control over fares, competition, timetables, etc. on a certain route.

Ok, to explain more fully, if you are waiting for a bus on Oxford Street and you were only travelling from one end to the other, you could get on any bus regardless of operator and pay the same single fare that has been set by Transport for London. It means you don't have to let one bus sail by because it's slightly more expensive (or less frequent), as is the case outside of London. In Newcastle, for instance, Stagecoach has its own Day Rider that costs £3.50. I can only use that ticket on Stagecoach buses operated by the 3 Tyne & Wear Stagecoach subsidiaries, yet Throckley where I live is also served by buses run by Stagecoach Cumbria, Go North East and Arriva. If I wanted ultimate choice between all their services then I'd have to pay £6.80 for a Day Rover, more than 100% more. Choice is therefore limited which is why competition doesn't really exist, certainly not to the benefit of the customer.

NEXUS have acknowledged that there are major issues with ticketing, particularly when they tender out a service for evenings and Sundays to a different operator than runs the commercial daytime service as that operator's day ticket isn't valid on the tendered service, despite it running on exactly the same route. It means customers have to pay more if they aren't lucky enough to have a free bus pass, which is a massive disinsentive to use the buses. They are working on solutions to it and have indicated that they may go for Quality Contracts. The current tendering system just doesn't work. They are legally obliged to choose the offer that is best value to the taxpayer, regardless of what this means for the actual customers.

 

[Ze Random One]

It's even worse in non-PTE areas, where there have been no traditional multi-operator tickets. Although the Transport Act 2000 permits local authorities to make a joint ticketing scheme, it doesn't (AFAICT) make any provision to pay for the implementation and running of such a scheme, which would therefore mean diverting monies from elsewhere.
I'm also not clear how the operators are reimbursed by the scheme. I'm pretty sure that in the case of many of the existing PTE schemes, the pricing structure is determined by the member operators, and the companies that run the travelcard systems are co-owned by the bus companies and the PTE. Whether that would be allowed in other, non PTE areas, I am not sure.
What's really worth noting is that the operators can be obliged to sell joint traveltickets, but they can't be obliged to advertise them, or cease to offer their own competing tickets. The fact that people still have trouble finding and using what is arguably the best known multi-operator ticketing scheme outside of London, PlusBus, exemplifies this.

 

[Greenback]

One of the worst things about deregulation can be illustrated by this tale of woe. Where I used to live, the first bus of the day was at 0730 with the next at 0810.First Cymru pulle dout of the earlier bus, saying it could not be run commercially, so the council stepped in with subsidy, and gave the service to Veolia (who hadn't yet pulled out of the area).

Cue an innocent passenger, me, who, in blissful ignorance, boards a Veolia bus and asks for a day ticket. Only when continuing my journey to work on a First vservice do I discover that I have been sold a Veolia only ticket which First would not accept any longer. Apparently First and Veolia had previously accepted each others day tickets, but Veolia pulled out which led to First doing the same. Of course none of this had been advertised anywhere.

I was then left with a Veolia day ticket which I had no use for, unless I waited until their first evening service at 1855 But in any case I had to buy another ticket for the last leg of my journey to work and back.

I'm sure that some people have seen benefits from deregulation, but I bet that more have fallen victim tot he kind of scenario that I experienced. If catching the 0730 bus, you couldn;t even get a return if you wanted to come back before 1855 on a commercially operated First service.

 

[ChrisCooper]

Multi-operator tickets are becoming more and more common now, and are a big improvement. Then again you still get situations where certain operators will not take them, for example in Leicester there is a Flexiday multi-operator ticket which is valid on most companies, but Thurmaston Bus who are the 4th biggest operator don't accept it. This includes on one route which they run as a joint service with another operator, and also their council subsidised services. Park and Ride is also not included, despite being in many other places. You also get the annoying cases where drivers are not trained on what tickets to accept, for example twice using a Multi-operator Fusion ticket in Norwich twice drivers at the same company refused the ticket. Annoyingly it was one of the few times I did not have a printout of the validities with me the first time (I had the leftlet but he claimed it didn't mean that service), but the second time I'd gone to the information desk at the bus station and got a full list of every service it was valid on (including boundary points for services beyond the city) and having been shown that he had to accept. Then again you get others who don't know, but don't care and just let people on anyway (it's not their money at the end of the day). Ticket design (which varies from operator to operator) is another issue, as some are clearer what they are.

 

[Mojo]

I reported on a problem here a short while ago about a bus in Birmingham serving a largely student area; it was operated by National Express commercially during the day and subsidised by Centro to them in the evenings. When the contract expired, an alternative operator presumably offered a better deal than National Express.

However all the students who bought National Express bus passes suddenly found their passes useless, as they were only valid during the day. The multi-operator bus pass also doesn't have a student version so people had to either upgrade to the multimodal pass, or pay single fares despite shelling out for a bus pass.