It's not just in rural areas though. The PTE's have seen a continual drop in bus usage since de-regulation, whereas in regulated London bus usage has consistently risen over the same time. It's hard not to conclude that the way the buses are organised has had some effect on this, particularly as Londoners generally have more public transport options to begin with.
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Fares regulation to be scrapped?
- Thread starter mikeg
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It's not just in rural areas though. The PTE's have seen a continual drop in bus usage since de-regulation, whereas in regulated London bus usage has consistently risen over the same time. It's hard not to conclude that the way the buses are organised has had some effect on this, particularly as Londoners generally have more public transport options to begin with.
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RailUK Forums
Is there any Sunday service?
There are Sunday services, funded by the council, but usually no more than 3 or 4 buses each way. They seem to exist simply to allow people tog et to Llanelli, Carmarthen or Swansea for a couple of hour sof retail therapy.
The route that goes past our house has nothing after 1752, Mondays to Saturdays, and nothing at all on a Sunday, and it serves quite a few of the suburbs of Llanelli apart from ours.
The route that goes past our house has nothing after 1752, Mondays to Saturdays, and nothing at all on a Sunday, and it serves quite a few of the suburbs of Llanelli apart from ours.
shinkansen1966
Member
Government are about to press on with allowing unlimited rises in higher education tuition fees. So why not rail fares ?
It may mean
all sorts ever more convoluted restrictions on off peak rail fares and
consistantly above inflation rises for season tickets: 8,9,10% rises
Would anyone actually use the service though? At the end of the day a commercial company is not going to pay for empty buses to drive around.
Indeed. The village I grew up in is in a PTE area. Although it's a village it's in a bit of sprawl where most of the villages blend into each other.
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Precisely.
Whereas a non-commercial service can be given a bit of time to grew. The changes to bus services in West Yorkshire at the end of this month mostly consist of minor reductions to services in the late evening, early morning and Sundays. This will make life harder for a few people who use them to get to work. Some will get a car and stop using the buses at other times. They may be less likely to use the train less as if they have the car it may be as easy to do an entire journey in it. Some of the chopped buses will be replaced but by a different company - annoying if you have a season ticket for the one that's no longer running it.
TfL will put on a new bus route and people can use it safe in the knowledge it'll be around for a while. not chopped after a couple of months as it hasn't built up a following in that time.
Where I live the last bus is progressively getting earlier and earlier. Perhaps it'll reach a point where it's not worth using to get home from town. If that happens people may drive in to save on the cost of a taxi. Then the buses in start to become uneconomic.
And few bus companies seem to take a long-term view.
Well put Deerfold. A commercial company not only wants to make a profit, it wants to make as much profit as it can, suaully looking for an x% return on assets.
In contrast, a non commercial organisation can seek only to cover it's costs, and invest any profit it does make into cross subsidising less profitable service, or improving services long term. As you say, it also allows services to grow and develop.
In essence, as with Sunday train services, we are back again to the debate over whether limited services actually put people off using public transport at all. Many of those that run will be used only by those who have no other option. Due to the sparse nature of services on many routes, those with a realistic alternative are not going to opt for something with three or four hour gaps in the schedule.
With both buses and trains, some services will never make a profit but are deemed socially necessary. It seems to be purely a matter of bad or good luck as to whether you actually live in area that is deemed worthy of evening and Sunday buses, at least in these parts, and this can only get worse on the railway with less regulation.
In contrast, a non commercial organisation can seek only to cover it's costs, and invest any profit it does make into cross subsidising less profitable service, or improving services long term. As you say, it also allows services to grow and develop.
In essence, as with Sunday train services, we are back again to the debate over whether limited services actually put people off using public transport at all. Many of those that run will be used only by those who have no other option. Due to the sparse nature of services on many routes, those with a realistic alternative are not going to opt for something with three or four hour gaps in the schedule.
With both buses and trains, some services will never make a profit but are deemed socially necessary. It seems to be purely a matter of bad or good luck as to whether you actually live in area that is deemed worthy of evening and Sunday buses, at least in these parts, and this can only get worse on the railway with less regulation.
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