Bus Competition Inquiry

[WatcherZero]

Provisional results published today:

http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/inquiries/ref2010/localbus/pdf/Summary.pdf

 

[bb21]

Does someone fancy bullet-pointing the most important points? My head hurts from reading a 300-page book in a week.

 

[WatcherZero]

I only skimmed the conclusions but from what I remember.

* Bus routes take too much time and investment to set up and become profitable
* TA commisioning isnt working both because they are designing the tenders so that a certain operator wins, or because there arent enough competitors for decent competition.
* Deregulation aint working as its leading to bus wars, larger competitors are muscling out smaller ones and smaller ones dont have the resources to start new routes.
* The practise of overlapping a competitors route with small parts of many routes of your own, overwhelming them with higher frequency.
* Good value return tickets meaning a passenger has to choose the same company for the return, rather than the first available.
* Theres a significant barrier to new entrants of a local market, competing against an incumbent whose already recieving efficency of scale, knows the local market, and it costs to much to setup a depot in a new area against a competitor who already has one.

Theres no ideas for solutions yet but it seems to be picking out setup costs (depot in particular), over competition (bus wars), entrenched local operators being too powerful to dislodge and poor tendering as the main issues. It also concludes the market is failing and something has to be done.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Provisional results published today:

http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/inquiries/ref2010/localbus/pdf/Summary.pdf

This is certainly a detailed report, but as you say, it is stated only to be the summary of the provisional results. Thank you for taking the trouble to post this report on the forum. I started reading it, then put it off until I had a quiet couple of hours to read it slowly.

Was there, or is there to come, any final report on the matter.

 

[mbonwick]

Already been released, and the window for objections has closed!

All the CC have done with it is proved how absolutely ****ing incompetant they are. If you read the ful thing through it's very apparent how little idea they have of public transport, let alone the business of it.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

All the CC have done with it is proved how absolutely ****ing incompetant they are. If you read the ful thing through it's very apparent how little idea they have of public transport, let alone the business of it.

If they are in the position that they enjoy in public life, the Competion Commission should have the services of acredited experts in the field that they have as their project-in-hand, in order to help them formulate their reporting upon the matter set for them to make their report.

Would you be saying that they did not have services of such people with the knowledge required to formulate the report in a true fashion? If so, this is a most worrying state of affairs.

 

[ivanhoe]

Basically the CC is only bothered about Competition matters. It was never in their brief to recommend new structures. That can only be instigated by Government.

I would recommend that London has the same system as the rest of us. Only then, will local people and their elected reprsentatives have control of Bus policy. London would come to a halt and then recognise what a mess Bus deregulation is. It only took one Act of Parliament to bring in Bus deregulation. It would only take one Act of Parliament to end it. Labour had 13 years to do something and chose to move the deckchairs instead. The coalitions transport policy is HS2. . God help us

 

[WatcherZero]

I thought it reccomended Bus franchises in complex metro areas, specification of services ala TfL rather than tendering individual routes?

 

[radamfi]

Labour had 13 years to do something and chose to move the deckchairs instead.

There are strong vested interests preventing an end to deregulation. For years, SNP said that they wanted to end deregulation but now they have been in government for a long time and it isn't even being considered. It may or may not be a coincidence that Souter donated a substantial amount of money to the SNP a few years ago.

I don't even believe Quality Contracts are law in Scotland. Is that right?

It was reported in Local Transport Today that West Yorkshire are still pursuing QCs but also working towards a watered down partnership approach. QCs have been delayed to at least 2013. I think this is the first hint that they will eventually chicken out of it.

 

[WatcherZero]

They have been called the nuclear option and have been available for a decade but no Council has dared used them for fear of ****ing off the bus companies.

 

[317 forever]

Although Quality Contracts have not been applied, there are Quality Partnerships in Chester, Liverpool and Oxford. At least these represent agreement between the local Council and the bus companies, unlike Quality Contracts.

 

[WatcherZero]

QP's in Manchester too.

 

[142094]

York has Quality Partnerships with First for the Park and Ride buses.

 

[W-on-Sea]

There's a "voluntary Quality Partnership" in Southend, too. For all the good that it does in a place in which the only operator with any concern for quality of service or responding to customers concern is a minor player & independent.