God forbid Radamfi would keep on topic rather than throwing up chaff of other countries, modal shift etc etc
The fact is that this is the usual ideological stuff that is usually trotted out. I remember Radamfi from about 4 years reckoning that based on Surrey (and extrapolating that nationwide), bus services would be increasingly subsidised (e.g. fewer commercial services) and that it would be a pre-cursor to his utopian Dutch vision of the centralised control of services by a public body. Of course, that has turned out to be rubbish as YoY spending cuts were clearly baked into local government central grant.
Here we have it again.... a unyielding, unwillingness to accept what is actually happening.
Teflon is almost 100% spot on in his analysis. The only thing that I would point out is that inflation is a rather crude measure in some respects in that it encompasses everything whilst an individual industry may have specific challenges. That is certainly the case with the bus industry - increasing fuel prices and the fuel duty escalator were definite factors -
http://www.speedlimit.org.uk/petrolprices.html
Getting back onto Utopian visions, the view from Radamfi is that operators will not be able to operate sustainably and can always exit the market. I assume that the view is that the public sector will, of course, be able to step in. The reality is that should ENCTS remuneration be insufficient, the likeliest move will be that services (or individual journeys) will be cut. This isn't a portentious prediction of doom - this is what happens now! We're seeing it across the country.
The main issue that has been experienced is in terms of some skewing of the market. The upside for operators are those instances of being able to fill spare capacity on existing services - perhaps those cross country services where pass holders now fancy a day out where they otherwise wouldn't have bothered.
The real losers have been in three main areas:
1. Local services and especially in smaller market towns. The relatively small numbers of passengers were pensioners anyway and operators were getting fare X. Now they're getting a reduced fare Y but the nature of the service is unlikely to generate any additional passenger journeys.
2. Tourist areas where pensioners at full fare were previously a welcome revenue source during the summer season and so pass remuneration reduces that considerably
3. Instances where considerable additional resource for relatively little additional revenue to offset costs
As we have said before, it's not the fault of pass holders nor the companies. It is the government who introduced a scheme and are insufficiently funding it, and also not funding local bus services. As ENCTS is a statutory instrument but bus service provision is not, the easiest way to reduce ENCTS is to reduce patronage by not providing services in the first place.
Another person who is illustrating this is Peter Shipp, evil overload of those corporate gits EYMS
http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/try-...-fare-better/story-20917723-detail/story.html - and yes, remuneration levels are most assuredly being cut.