Fair point, but in Cornwall the majority of bus services have been run by First Group since 1996, and before that Western National since the early 1920s. Transport for Cornwall is meaningless, vanity project for the council to promote being Cornish, even though Red has never been part of Cornwalls colours. Having spent most of my childhood in Cornwall the local authority has a history of splashing money on vanity projects, the Cornish language being one of them. Going back to the bus operation I don't see how it will be sustainable, most of the routes are not going to make a profit, therefore the only way to keep these services running is to continue throwing cash at them.
In contract, Devon, the county next door has a thriving bus network, with many local services being supported in part by the council and run by Stagecoach or a local operator, even with the cuts of the last 10 years, the bus network is still very good and Stagecoach work to keep as many bus services going by joining them up with more busy ones to make them break even or make a profit, this is a very good example of what can be done if you work with the operators rather than bringing in a brand new one to run a contact with limited experience and having to rely on local bus companies to provide some services.
To echo
@carlberry, you can point to the different heritages of both FK and PCB. FK is the successor to Western National (1929) or even further back to GWR in Helston (1903), but then again, Plymouth Citybus is the successor to Plymouth Corporation from 1892. The idea is that PCB are some "Johnny Come Lately" or a cowboy outfit who would have O licenses set up is just not credible.
In terms of Cornwall Council, they have (in recent years) done a good job in promoting public transport. We shouldn't forget that they have largely protected their network of tendered services in contrast to many other counties; Somerset and Dorset have butchered their bus budgets and even Devon CC (who I think are a good pro-bus council) have had to make cuts to services. Note that the number of journeys in Devon has fallen markedly from 28.7m in 2014/5 to 24.2m in 2017/8 - not as "thriving" as you might think.
That's not a criticism of Stagecoach or DCC but a reflection of the impact of cuts and wider issues. Both council and operator have worked hard to retain links and there's no small amount of subsidy paid to operators to keep uneconomic but socially necessary services going.
CC have invested in the 16 e200mmc, bus shelters, and I believe, funded the refurbishment of the bus stations in the main. All of that is good stuff and to be applauded. However, they seem to have lost their marbles with the money being lavished, and some fundamental baffling decisions. Not least....
- Creation of a number of brand new services that seem to have little or no defined requirement. @richw is spot on when he points out that the Launceston to Bodmin Parkway will be of use only for passengers heading west. Is there much of demand for passengers from Launceston and Five Lanes to get a train west? Or to travel to Bodmin?
- Because of the above, then the Newquay to Redruth service (that might have some merit) is given a two hourly frequency which seems too low - it would have made more sense to invest in one route that might have had a chance of success, than to neuter it at the expense of another
- The introduction of early morning and later services on routes like Falmouth locals (I think that's right and they carry mainly pass holder) but a major established route like the T2 to St Ives has nothing after 2000.
- As I said before, if they wanted to really get people to modal shift on buses from cars, why weren't they proposing something like a higher frequency network in Truro where there is sufficient population density to really have an effect?
I really don't blame Go Ahead for this. They haven't set the network - the council has, and it was the council who set the timescale. Despite the ominous warnings of some, PCB did get outbases and depots sorted, did get sufficient vehicles mobilised. Yes, they were always going to have a challenge in getting staff but many of the issues that PCB have would have been equally challenging for FK in the East of the county. Had FK won, they'd have need a vehicle small enough to serve Polruan, or to obtain an outbase to operate Bude locals, or to recruit drivers in Liskeard....and I'm sure they would have.
