Deregulation and the passenger experience

[py_megapixel]

This thread is to discuss how the deregulation of the bus network in most of the country is to the benefit or (in my opinion) the disbenefit of bus passengers.

I thought it best to reply in a new thread, rather than clutter up the "Stagecoach disowning the past" thread.

I was thinking more about initiatives such as Stagecoach Gold and First West of England's fare reforms which saw passenger growth. Buses outside London starting getting higher quality interiors long before TfL decided to trial them.

I'm not anti-franchising, I just feel that the pro-franchising lobby likes to paint Stagecoach et al as nothing more than profiteering bus barrons, ignoring the decades of innovation and expertise that they represent.

I find the suggestion that private bus companies represent "decades of innovation and expertise" a little disingenuous. Ordering buses that have a pleasant environment on board with comfortable seats is not innovation and you don't need an expert to say it's a good idea. You point out that buses outside London started getting high-quality interiors quite a while ago - this may be true, but I'd wager the huge majority of them still have similar interior specifications to London. In fact a lot of them are cascaded from London!

Things like real-time tracking and automated announcements - often extolled by bus companies as brilliant new features - are not new ideas at all, and it is frankly an embarrassment that they are not completely standard by this point.

I love privatisation but that is because I'm a capitalist. Can privatisation be better? Yes, if "open access" was an option for the proposed MetroMayor franchised bus operations then I may be swayed but as it stands I heavily despise the MetroMayor franchised bus operations as it'll only serve the Labour mayors and not the people.

With a new CEO at the helm, Stagecoach should look at expanding into areas where they currently don't serve which will increase competition all the more.

Perhaps the one area in which private bus companies truly did innovate was in strategies for fighting between themselves. Stagecoach in particular is known for its aggressive tactics which have won it a monopoly (or close to it) in many locations. But this has almost never been to the benefit of the people - by which you presumably mean the people who to use the service.

The purpose of the transport network is to serve these peoples' journeys. What it seems to be do instead, in its privatised form, is act as a playground for bus companies to play their silly games on at the expense of everyone else. Those in areas where on-road competition is ongoing get such nonsense as buses from competing operators immediately following each other leaving huge gaps in the timetable; having to consult multiple sources of information to get a full picture of when buses run; operator-specific tickets competing with integrated ones (where the integrated ones even exist in the first place) and so on. Those in monopoly areas get a level of service that ranges from mediocre to unusable because there is no proper way of holding the operator to account and no incentive for it to improve.

I'll use Sheffield as an example as I've used the buses there a fair amount and it currently has a metro mayor pushing for bus franchising. Ask passengers who are dissatisfied with the service (a very large group) how they would like to see it improved, and I honestly can't imagine anyone saying they want a new operator coming in to "increase competition all the more". They want the existing operators to have some sense knocked into them; to be held to some decent standard of service; to realise that they are supposed to be running a transport network and not a situation comedy production . This is something that the current framework doesn't allow local government to do, and this is why bus franchising is now seen as desirable in many major cities outside London.

 

[Dai Corner]

I'm sure we've had this discussion before, but the amount of funding the politicians are prepared to provide is much more important than the ownership or governance. Sheffield isn't going to get London-style bus services without London-sized subsidies.

 

[markymark2000]

but I'd wager the huge majority of them still have similar interior specifications to London.

Based on the Annual Bus Statistics, table BUS06d (link to the dataset: https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...ehicles-operated-by-local-bus-operators-BUS06), inside London only 6.9% of vehicles have charging points onboard. Outside of London, that figure rises to 22.5% of buses in Wales, 27.8% of buses in England outside of Wales, and 46.4% of buses in Scotland have charging points. While perhaps only one example, it is an example of where private companies have gone above and beyond London.

Things like real-time tracking and automated announcements - often extolled by bus companies as brilliant new features - are not new ideas at all, and it is frankly an embarrassment that they are not completely standard by this point.

See, you say this but then bus tracking in England is far better than London. I can't speak forever but most of the time, London 'tracking' is just the countdown timers which have huge flaws in them. I remember it being said on this forum that the if a bus loses signal, the countdown timer keeps counting down and there can be a lot of ghost buses. Proper real time tracking is having the bus showing up on a map and being able to see where it is. This is now pretty standard in England and Wales thanks to their respective open data services. Scotland has some way to go but a number of companies, such as McGills, have invested in real time tracking maps and some independents track via their websites or via platforms such as MyTrip.

Automated Announcements have their benefits but there are also huge downfalls for some other passengers. It's a huge cost for companies and over the years, it was deemed to be not worth the investment. This is becoming standard in the next few years though as it was announced by the DFT.

Ask passengers who are dissatisfied with the service (a very large group) how they would like to see it improved, and I honestly can't imagine anyone saying they want a new operator coming in to "increase competition all the more". They want the existing operators to have some sense knocked into them; to be held to some decent standard of service; to realise that they are supposed to be running a transport network and not a situation comedy production . This is something that the current framework doesn't allow local government to do, and this is why bus franchising is now seen as desirable in many major cities outside London.

TFL has so many faults, far too many to list here and to explain them all this message would be 14 pages long. In short, if you think London has any kind of accountability, you are very much mistaken and the 'comedy production' is very much in London, not the rest of the UK. Perhaps if politicians and councillors started acting in the best interests of buses and their passengers rather than constantly pushing a pro car or pro cyclist agenda, buses wouldn't be in a half as bad situation.

The only reason that people think London has an amazing bus service is generally because it looks all full of buses when you watch it on TV. If you actually attempt to use the service though, you'll find it very different. Complaints to TFL go straight into the shredder as well; they don't care and if you are lucky enough to get a reply, it's them fobbing you off. Top to bottom in TFL it's a 'we know best, you know nothing, you're just a peasant' attitude. A lot of outdated ways of working with an unwillingness to change or adapt. You also seem to forget that at least outside of London, if things hit enough backlash, councils can step in and then fund the bus. In London, even where the public is overwhelmingly against changes to the buses, it is pushed through by one or two dictators. Londons transport is not accountable and nor does it often provide a 'decent standard of service'. Despite my many gripes of public transport around the UK, I am far, far happier with things as they are versus moving to a London model. As Dai Corner says as well, you need a LOT of money to pay for 'london style buses' and even with that extra money, it doesn't mean you will get a better service.

 

[TUC]

Deregulation resulted in much better value bus services for the public purse. For example, Cleveland Country Council spent £5.2m per year subsidising bus services pre-deregulation, compared to £1.8m afterward, for a similarly sized network.

Reductions in service frequencies in recent years have related to with local authorities reducing their subsidy budgets, plus the big groups becoming complacent. Deterioration in quality has been down to a lack of competition in recent years, not because of it.

 

[yorksrob]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

In London, regulated bus services have largely remained popular.

Outside of London, usage of bus services has declined ever since de-regulation.

 

[TUC]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

In London, regulated bus services have largely remained popular.

Outside of London, usage of bus services has declined ever since de-regulation.

Sorry, but that is far too simplistic an analysis. The decline in bus service usage predated deregulation. The greater uptake in London is related to congestio, a stronger culture of using public transport, plus other factors.

 

[yorksrob]

Sorry, but that is far too simplistic an analysis. The decline in bus service usage predated deregulation. The greater uptake in London is related to congestio, a stronger culture of using public transport, plus other factors.

Declining bus services have contributed to a weaker culture of bus usage outside of London.

 

[90sWereBetter]

I'm a very simple person. Regulation = good, deregulation = bad. It's why I'm fully behind the Manchester and Liverpool plans.

Helps that I am a Londoner of course

 

[A0]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

In London, regulated bus services have largely remained popular.

Outside of London, usage of bus services has declined ever since de-regulation.

Bus services had been in decline since the 1950s up to deregulation, so you're misrepresenting things. Deregulation didn't see an acceleration in that decline, so the difference between London and rest of the country is due to something else - most likely a mix of population density, traffic congestion and the fact you've had rabidly anti-car mayors for the past 20 years.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Declining bus services have contributed to a weaker culture of bus usage outside of London.

Sorry but that's just not true and/or incredibly simplistic,

The fact is that before deregulation, bus service patronage had been falling across the UK. Passenger figures were collapsing.

Now it's fair to say that dereg brought a massive shake up and that adversely impacted passenger figures esp in 1986-1996 but after that, the rate of decline levelled out as the industry had a new found maturity. In fact, things were actually getting better before the Tories came in in 2010 with their austerity approach.

London did benefit from stability in that 1986-1996 period but that's not the only reason. First of all, London became larger and wealthier. The 1980s/1990s deindustrialisation didn't happen to the South. Liverpool city region still has a lower population than it did in 1986 (and much less than in say 1970). Manchester has fared better but then again, it has an extensive tram system that skews bus passenger figures. London also had a colossal amount of funding aimed towards it, from central govt funding through to congestion charge proceeds. Money is a massive factor, as are demographics and the simple cost/space equation of land use vs car use.

I'm sure we've had this discussion before, but the amount of funding the politicians are prepared to provide is much more important than the ownership or governance. Sheffield isn't going to get London-style bus services without London-sized subsidies.

Never a truer word spoken

 

[TUC]

I'm a very simple person. Regulation = good, deregulation = bad. It's why I'm fully behind the Manchester and Liverpool plans.

Helps that I am a Londoner of course

Whereas good policy making is based upon evidence of what works, not opinion

 

[Bedford OB]

Based on the Annual Bus Statistics, table BUS06d (link to the dataset: https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...ehicles-operated-by-local-bus-operators-BUS06), inside London only 6.9% of vehicles have charging points onboard. Outside of London, that figure rises to 22.5% of buses in Wales, 27.8% of buses in England outside of Wales, and 46.4% of buses in Scotland have charging points. While perhaps only one example, it is an example of where private companies have gone above and beyond London.


See, you say this but then bus tracking in England is far better than London. I can't speak forever but most of the time, London 'tracking' is just the countdown timers which have huge flaws in them. I remember it being said on this forum that the if a bus loses signal, the countdown timer keeps counting down and there can be a lot of ghost buses. Proper real time tracking is having the bus showing up on a map and being able to see where it is. This is now pretty standard in England and Wales thanks to their respective open data services. Scotland has some way to go but a number of companies, such as McGills, have invested in real time tracking maps and some independents track via their websites or via platforms such as MyTrip.

Automated Announcements have their benefits but there are also huge downfalls for some other passengers. It's a huge cost for companies and over the years, it was deemed to be not worth the investment. This is becoming standard in the next few years though as it was announced by the DFT.


TFL has so many faults, far too many to list here and to explain them all this message would be 14 pages long. In short, if you think London has any kind of accountability, you are very much mistaken and the 'comedy production' is very much in London, not the rest of the UK. Perhaps if politicians and councillors started acting in the best interests of buses and their passengers rather than constantly pushing a pro car or pro cyclist agenda, buses wouldn't be in a half as bad situation.

The only reason that people think London has an amazing bus service is generally because it looks all full of buses when you watch it on TV. If you actually attempt to use the service though, you'll find it very different. Complaints to TFL go straight into the shredder as well; they don't care and if you are lucky enough to get a reply, it's them fobbing you off. Top to bottom in TFL it's a 'we know best, you know nothing, you're just a peasant' attitude. A lot of outdated ways of working with an unwillingness to change or adapt. You also seem to forget that at least outside of London, if things hit enough backlash, councils can step in and then fund the bus. In London, even where the public is overwhelmingly against changes to the buses, it is pushed through by one or two dictators. Londons transport is not accountable and nor does it often provide a 'decent standard of service'. Despite my many gripes of public transport around the UK, I am far, far happier with things as they are versus moving to a London model. As Dai Corner says as well, you need a LOT of money to pay for 'london style buses' and even with that extra money, it doesn't mean you will get a better service.

As a resident of London and a heavy user of the service since the 1960s, I have to agree with a lot of your comments. I suspect some of those who think London is so wonderful do not live here, or at least do not use the services (or pay for them) as often as some of us. Yes, there is volume of service and some corridors are well served, but one has to ask oneself if their activities represent responsible use of public funds when observing how so much volume is misplaced, areas have blatant inadequacies, and money is squandered.

If the privatised network is the plaything of the operators, then London is most certainly the plaything of politicians with their own agendas who generally treat the users, and their own electorate, with contempt, and have had the budget to be able to do it. The much vaunted systems are frequently hopelessly inaccurate, TfL's atitude to its customers is dreadful, and the quality provisions in the contracts might look fine, but are no use at all when they are not enforced.

I have, and continue to, use public transport extensively outside London and seen the good (and, yes, the bad and the very bad) of deregulation, but I have also been professionally involved in the oversight of a lot of public authorities, and if folks think they are capable and competent (or motivated) to set up and run franchised networks which will bring the imagined nirvana of lots of provincial Londons while meeting basic affordability criteria I am afraid they are going to be extremely disappointed. Unfortunately I fear that operations in this country will just be a continuing victim of the same polarisation in politics that one sees in the polarisaton of views reflected in many of the comments on here.

 

[johncrossley]

Sheffield isn't going to get London-style bus services without London-sized subsidies.

London subsidies were very low 1985-2000, when the biggest falls in patronage in the other big cities happened. Even before the Livingstone boom, London buses had improved quite a bit since privatisation, despite the removal of most of the subsidy. Obviously in 2000 we didn't know how good things would get in the next few years, but even then people in the other big cities were jealous of what we had.

 

[philg999]

When evening and Sunday services were decimated outside London after 1986 and the weekly shopping and evening entertainment increasingly became an out-of-town experience in the 1990s, people could no longer rely on public transport to meet their daily needs, so they bought cars. Once you have a car you don’t take the bus. This has continued in a spiral ever since. To reverse the trend you would need meaningful all-day, all-week high frequency public transport to the places people need to go to, attractive fares and connectivity options… plus a raft of anti-car and anti-out-of-town-retail policies (which will not win many votes given how addicted the country is to cars now). Deregulation has benefitted only those people who live on core flows inside the populated towns and cities, as the private operators throw everything at them to maximise their profits, at the expense of all the others.

 

[JonathanH]

You point out that buses outside London started getting high-quality interiors quite a while ago - this may be true, but I'd wager the huge majority of them still have similar interior specifications to London. In fact a lot of them are cascaded from London!

What buses are getting 'high-quality' interiors now? The move back to something akin to the plastic seats of the mid 1970s is a travesty, even more so with the likelihood that London is going to go that way now the barriers to using e-leather have been dropped, now that Stagecoach have opened the floodgates.

There are still some attractive interiors, but many bus companies do not do enough to make their vehicles attractive to passengers.

 

[DunsBus]

There was a degree of wastefulness prior to deregulation, though.

South Yorkshire ratepayers paying through the nose to subsidise cheap (in fact, ultra-cheap) bus fares; GMT smashing up its buses on withdrawal so that they were fit only for scrap; Tyne & Wear selling off hordes of Atlanteans at a young age once the Metro opened; Sunderland ratepayers subsidising the Tyne & Wear Metro and seeing no benefit from it.

Tyne & Wear also pruned most services running from within the county into Newcastle to the nearest Metro station - so you had to change modes of transport in order to complete your journey - and even tried, unsuccessfully, to torpedo the application by Low Fell Coaches to start a cross-Tyne bus service.

This was all wastage which definitely needed fixing.

 

[Bedford OB]

What buses are getting 'high-quality' interiors now? The move back to something akin to the plastic seats of the mid 1970s is a travesty, even more so with the likelihood that London is going to go that way now the barriers to using e-leather have been dropped, now that Stagecoach have opened the floodgates.

There are still some attractive interiors, but many bus companies do not do enough to make their vehicles attractive to passengers.

It depends what you think is attractive to what passengers, if you are a purist, and begs the question about what day to day passengers think. I read an earlier thread on this with interest - I use the Stagecoach W19 in London several times a week, some buses on which have the much derided grey seats. I have overheard a number of ordinary fellow passengers, particuarly older folk, while travelling, say how comfortable they find these seats. I have back trouble and I find them quite supportive and perfectly acceptable.

 

[Tetchytyke]

You point out that buses outside London started getting high-quality interiors quite a while ago - this may be true, but I'd wager the huge majority of them still have similar interior specifications to London.

The specification thing really is swings and roundabouts. Next stop announcements were in London many years before they appeared elsewhere in the country. Same with things like the forced air cooling system- yes, it’s not air con, but it’s better than anything you’ll see in the deregulated sector.

I’m also not so sure about the “quality interior”. There are isolated examples of top-spec buses- the Transdev 36s are the obvious example- but in general there’s very little difference. The “premium” bus seat, even on the 36 downstairs, is an Esteban Civic. The standard TfL bus seat is also an Esteban Civic. The only difference is the small headrest.

The demographics of London certainly help with bus provision. But with the way traffic is these days, the same very much applies to all big cities. Yet the deregulated provision in places like Leeds is, quite frankly, terrible.

 

[johncrossley]

Tyne & Wear also pruned most services running from within the county into Newcastle to the nearest Metro station - so you had to change modes of transport in order to complete your journey

How is that wastage? It means fewer buses required than previously. Yes, you can argue that having a direct bus is better, but what is called "forced interchange" in the UK (especially on this forum) but is called "integration" in the rest of the world is the opposite of wastefulness.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Tyne & Wear also pruned most services running from within the county into Newcastle to the nearest Metro station - so you had to change modes of transport in order to complete your journey

That wasn’t wasteful though, given you could buy an integrated Transfare ticket right through to your final destination.

It also prevented what we see now- a constant procession of half-empty buses sitting in the Tyne Bridge traffic jam, because there’s such a huge fare penalty for changing modes at Gateshead.

Of course the hugely useful Transfare ticket was basically torpedoed by Go in the late 90s/early 2000s.

 

[A0]

When evening and Sunday services were decimated outside London after 1986 and the weekly shopping and evening entertainment increasingly became an out-of-town experience in the 1990s, people could no longer rely on public transport to meet their daily needs, so they bought cars. Once you have a car you don’t take the bus. This has continued in a spiral ever since. To reverse the trend you would need meaningful all-day, all-week high frequency public transport to the places people need to go to, attractive fares and connectivity options… plus a raft of anti-car and anti-out-of-town-retail policies (which will not win many votes given how addicted the country is to cars now). Deregulation has benefitted only those people who live on core flows inside the populated towns and cities, as the private operators throw everything at them to maximise their profits, at the expense of all the others.

Sorry - but you're ignoring the fact that bus usage had been in decline since the 1950s - it wasn't accelerated by deregulation.

And on evening / Sunday services there was a post about these by @greenline712 who actually drove such services - basically the point was they were always very quiet with little use.

 

[johncrossley]

Obviously there was a decrease in bus usage in the whole developed world as car ownership became increasingly commonplace.

Bus deregulation in Great Britain - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

shows that the decline in London and the English Metropolitan Counties had stopped by the early 80s. But the decline in the English Metropolitan Counties immediately resumed after deregulation whereas there were modest increases in London up to 2000 before the Livingstone boom.

 

[nw1]

Now it's fair to say that dereg brought a massive shake up and that adversely impacted passenger figures esp in 1986-1996 but after that, the rate of decline levelled out as the industry had a new found maturity. In fact, things were actually getting better before the Tories came in in 2010 with their austerity approach.

Indeed, I would put around 2010 as the point at which rural, or lighter-used city, bus services really started to decline - though that said, in my area (Alder Valley) there were indeed a number of cuts at deregulation.

But having said that, looking at an old 1969 timetable on Timetable World for Aldershot and District, and reading about what services existed in around 1978, it appears that there had also been signfiicant cuts by the time I first started noticing bus networks in 1984, with some services of the late 60s and 70s completely gone by then.

The problem these days seems to be that no-one wants to fund expensive but socially-necessary services, whereas even in the early 00s they did. It does appear that the long decline since the 60s did level off in the late 90s/early 00s which was a period of relatively few cuts to less popular services, but improvements on busier services. And there were even some genuine improvements on quieter routes around the millennium: I recall Cadnam had a half-hourly service into Southampton around the early 00s, better than both 10 years earlier and nowadays.

(That said, to end on a positive note I will say that Bluestar have made some genuine improvements in my local network since they took over the city buses earlier this year. Of note is that they are not averse to adding additional vehicles on some routes to maintain off-peak frequency during the peak).

 

[DunsBus]

That wasn’t wasteful though, given you could buy an integrated Transfare ticket right through to your final destination.

It also prevented what we see now- a constant procession of half-empty buses sitting in the Tyne Bridge traffic jam, because there’s such a huge fare penalty for changing modes at Gateshead.

Of course the hugely useful Transfare ticket was basically torpedoed by Go in the late 90s/early 2000s.

I'm happy to concede on that point.

Transfare was decimated at deregulation IIRC, as its availability was scaled back. Go killed what was left of it.

 

[slowroad]

Obviously there was a decrease in bus usage in the whole developed world as car ownership became increasingly commonplace.

Bus deregulation in Great Britain - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

View attachment 149143



shows that the decline in London and the English Metropolitan Counties had stopped by the early 80s. But the decline in the English Metropolitan Counties immediately resumed after deregulation whereas there were modest increases in London up to 2000 before the Livingstone boom.

The downward trend in English metropolitan counties looks pretty stable to me - with a blip prior to deregulation. I think subs

Obviously there was a decrease in bus usage in the whole developed world as car ownership became increasingly commonplace.

Bus deregulation in Great Britain - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

View attachment 149143



shows that the decline in London and the English Metropolitan Counties had stopped by the early 80s. But the decline in the English Metropolitan Counties immediately resumed after deregulation whereas there were modest increases in London up to 2000 before the Livingstone boom.

The metropolitan county trend looks pretty similar before and after deregulation. The blip might have been caused by recovery from the early 1980s recession. More generally, it would be interesting to compare trends in Northern Ireland, which never deregulated, but I can’t find the data. However I don’t think current levels of bus use in NI differ greatly from England excl London.

 

[Megafuss]

I'm happy to concede on that point.

Transfare was decimated at deregulation IIRC, as its availability was scaled back. Go killed what was left of it.

I've just looked a 1986 piece of publicity by Tyne and Wear PTE and the same Transfer tickets then can be bought now. Just the zones are different.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I've just looked a 1986 piece of publicity by Tyne and Wear PTE and the same Transfer tickets then can be bought now. Just the zones are different

They still exist, but the availability and validity have been massively scaled back over the years. The price has massively ramped up too- a 3-zone Transfare is now a scandalous £5.60 (a Tyne and Wear Day Rover is only £6).

Other changes include that you can’t buy a bus to bus Transfare anymore.

 

[johncrossley]

The metropolitan county trend looks pretty similar before and after deregulation. The blip might have been caused by recovery from the early 1980s recession.

The "blip" looked like it lasted a few years and was consistent with the end of the decline in London, plus there is a particularly big slump immediately after 1986. There were innovations in the PTE areas in the early 80s, such as better integration, low fare policies and improved off bus ticketing.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

London subsidies were very low 1985-2000,

Not when you look at how it equates today. The revenue gap was over £200m in 1986 and 1987 - that's over £700m in today's money. It was only via the policy of competitive tendering and privatisation that brought subsidy down, and you don't have to look hard to see the opposition that those moves had at the time. Nor the impact on driver terms and conditions in places like Harrow, Bexleyheath and the London Forest dispute; it wasn't without pain.

The metropolitan county trend looks pretty similar before and after deregulation. The blip might have been caused by recovery from the early 1980s recession. More generally, it would be interesting to compare trends in Northern Ireland, which never deregulated, but I can’t find the data. However I don’t think current levels of bus use in NI differ greatly from England excl London.

There are stats available https://webarchive.nationalarchives...gov.uk/ni_transport_statistics_1999-2000_.pdf or https://www.infrastructure-ni.gov.uk/articles/northern-ireland-transport-statistics

However, to grab a few examples...

So Ulsterbus is still in the decline pattern that provincial UK experienced through the 1970s. Meanwhile, Belfast is experiencing growth... Investment in Bus Rapid Transit and other priority measures?

	1999/2000	2003/4	2008/9	2013/4	2018/9
Ulsterbus	48.2	46	44	40.5	38.7
Citybus (Metro)	21.3	19.5	26.5	26.4	26.2 (plus 3.7m Glider)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Dec 2023 ==

The "blip" looked like it lasted a few years and was consistent with the end of the decline in London, plus there is a particularly big slump immediately after 1986. There were innovations in the PTE areas in the early 80s, such as better integration, low fare policies and improved off bus ticketing.

Low fare policies that required a lot of revenue support, such as the People's Republic of South Yorkshire.

 

[slowroad]

Not when you look at how it equates today. The revenue gap was over £200m in 1986 and 1987 - that's over £700m in today's money. It was only via the policy of competitive tendering and privatisation that brought subsidy down, and you don't have to look hard to see the opposition that those moves had at the time. Nor the impact on driver terms and conditions in places like Harrow, Bexleyheath and the London Forest dispute; it wasn't without pain.


There are stats available https://webarchive.nationalarchives...gov.uk/ni_transport_statistics_1999-2000_.pdf or https://www.infrastructure-ni.gov.uk/articles/northern-ireland-transport-statistics

However, to grab a few examples...

So Ulsterbus is still in the decline pattern that provincial UK experienced through the 1970s. Meanwhile, Belfast is experiencing growth... Investment in Bus Rapid Transit and other priority measures?

	1999/2000	2003/4	2008/9	2013/4	2018/9
Ulsterbus	48.2	46	44	40.5	38.7
Citybus (Metro)	21.3	19.5	26.5	26.4	26.2 (plus 3.7m Glider)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 26 Dec 2023 ==


Low fare policies that required a lot of revenue support, such as the People's Republic of South Yorkshire.

I don’t have the answers, but population trends also need to be factored into this discussion. Belfast population has been growing. This is even more the case for London, since an inflection point - in the early 80s, I think. One really needs the per-head trends to draw conclusions.