Owen Jones Tries The Bus

In a Guardian Comment Is Free piece, Owen Jones has penned “Wait for a bus and then tell me the market knows best”, contrasting the deregulation of bus services outside London in 1986 with the situation in the capital, where, let us not drive this one round the houses for too long, the Thatcher Government shied away from tinkering with buses because many potential Tory voters still used them.

Disappointed of Stockport remains disappointed

While Jones correctly observes that, in round numbers, the number of bus journeys each year outside London has decreased in the last 30 years from 2 billion to one billion, and that in the capital, the reverse is true - an increase of 100% - what he does not tell is how deregulation was structured, which made the problem significantly worse.

On deregulation, bus companies could split off early-morning services, and those operated after 1800 hours, into separate profit centres. And that was just weekdays: Sundays could be treated as a further profit centre. No cross-subsidy was required between these. So if an operator could not make a profit out of early morning, evening and Sunday services, they were entitled to “hand in the keys” and leave it to someone else.

Many of these marginal services ended up operated either with local Government subsidy, by contract operators willing to provide the service at a lower cost than the big companies - usually by using older, smaller vehicles - or both. As local authorities have had to make cuts in recent years, these services have suffered. Hence the dearth of evening and Sunday services, even in towns and cities.

It goes without saying that many operators will not accept one another’s tickets. For many towns and cities, the idea of smart ticketing, as with Oyster in London, is no more than a dream. Cash is the only means of payment. Information provision, for the operators, is someone else’s problem. In Crewe - for instance - a typical cross-town journey that cost £1 in 2003 now operates less frequently - and costs £2.60.

But where operators can make a decent profit from daytime services, competition - for which read “other operators looking to cream off a little of the profit for themselves” - may be provided. In Liverpool, established operator Arriva, as successor to the city’s bus company, found Stagecoach buying up another operator, using its vehicle allowance, and putting on competing services. This is then labelled “choice”.

One should not, though, think Arriva, or anyone else, is above such stunts. When Chester’s formerly municipal-owned buses were sold off in 2007, Arriva missed out, and so, out of spite, put on competing daytime buses on two lucrative routes. Operator-only daily and weekly tickets were offered. Evening services? You wish.

So while demand in London is buoyant, out in the provinces, unless local authorities are prepared to underwrite a higher standard of provision, service levels are gradually dwindling. The only growth market is in the availability of private hire vehicles, especially popular with families, and doubly so when carrying shopping back home from town. Much bus patronage comes from pass holders - and so is, once again, publicly subsidised.

Almost everyone else goes by car. The bus has become a remaindered transport mode, except in London and, perhaps, the biggest cities. That is Mrs T’s legacy.