It's only the state that can get our buses out of this state

10:36am Friday 14th December 2007

Comments (0)   Have your say »

BUS travel in south Bucks will only ever really improve if national politicians vote for the state to take much tighter control of public transport.

It's utterly absurd that such a vital service is left in the hands of private companies which end up competing for customers on the busiest routes - while "uneconomic" journeys are scrapped.

It means that people living in rural areas and passengers travelling at off-peak times are often left to their own devices.

That's the nature of commerce. You can hardly blame the bus companies, Arriva and Carousel, for trying to make a profit.

You can hardly blame them for not being able to look at the bigger picture and running fully comprehensive services across the county.

By and large, they have to operate like any other private firm.

They are not charities; they are businesses.

So you can also hardly blame Arriva for deciding to put up its prices from next week by between 5p to 20p per route for single and return fares.

I can't imagine that running buses is a particularly lucrative business, so you can't really fault the firm for trying to maximise its profits.

I am not a particular fan of Arriva, especially since its service receives lots of complaints from our readers, but it is an easy target. Could you or I really do a better job running public transport in these conditions?

Of course, it should send buses to remote areas every 15 minutes until late in the night every single night of the week. That would eventually restore confidence in bus travel and make it viable for people to give up their cars.

But could any private firm really afford to send out empty buses out every night in the hope the culture of the country would eventually change? Of course, they couldn't - but the state could.

In 1986, Mrs Thatcher's Tory government deregulated the bus service and allowed private operators to compete freely.

It must have sounded a good idea at the time because, after all, we pride ourselves on being a free country and we all resent state control.

However, the policy plainly hasn't worked, especially in an era when green transport is being promoted above all else.

And before you accuse me of being anti-Tory, the present Labour government doesn't come out of this covered in glory either. Far too little has been done to redress the balance.

So we end up with a situation where you can buy a return ticket from one bus company, and then find the rival firm refuses to honour it and makes you pay again.

Once again, it's easy to blame the bus companies, but apparently competition law makes it hugely difficult for the companies to agree a deal.

The county council is currently looking at acting as a middleman and introducing a booklet scheme.

It's all spitting in the wind, really, when you compare the situation with other countries. I'm always amazed at the availability and low-cost of buses when I visit family in Toronto, Canada.

Yet here in Bucks, it's often cheaper and easier to take taxis, especially when you are travelling in a group.

I don't necessarily suggest taking it all into state ownership, but much stricter regulations are necessary. From next year, I understand the county council will have greater controls of operators, but if councillors ditched Arriva and Carousel for any particular reason, who would replace them?

No, I don't normally advocate government control as an answer to anything, but in this case only the state can get us out of a very sorry state of affairs.