Bus deregulation in Great Britain was the abolition of Road Service Licensing outside of Greater London for
bus services. This began in 1980 with the abolition of Road Service Licensing for long-distance bus services and was extended into local bus services in 1986. The abolition of Road Service Licensing removed the public sector's role in fare-setting, routes and bus frequencies and returned these powers to bus operators under the
Transport Act 1985
The Transport Act 1985 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It introduced privatised and deregulated bus services throughout Great Britain and came into effect in October of 1986.
The Act was created as a response to growing concern ...
.
History
![Busgraph1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Busgraph1.png)
The bus industry grew significantly after the First World War in Britain with many demobilised soldiers starting bus companies with new skills in motor engineering and driving acquired through their military service. These bus services began to erode the railways' profits as they abstracted passengers from railways, the impact of this on the railways led to the creation of the
big four. The bus industry then began to consolidate and many were acquired by railway companies. Remaining independent operators however were holding the bus industry's profit margins down through running "pirate buses" which only operated at peak demand. The railway and bus industry lobbied Parliament and the Road Traffic Act 1930 established
Traffic Commissioners
The Traffic Commissioners for Great Britain are responsible for the licensing and regulation of the operators of heavy goods vehicles, buses and coaches, and the registration of local bus services in Great Britain.
History
The Road Traffic Ac ...
with oversight of safety as well as commercial regulation - the setting of fares, routes and timetables. Road Service licensing allowed rival bus operators to object to the registration of new services if it encroached on their market share and could appeal licence applications in traffic courts, which were adjudicated by the area Traffic Commissioners. From the 1950s until the 1990s, traffic engineering practices for improving traffic flow and counting vehicles
according to the road space they consumed, rather than the number of people or amount of goods transported, dominated local government and the traffic engineering profession.
The
postwar Labour government had a policy of nationalising public transport and was in compulsory purchase negotiations with bus companies during the postwar period.
Tilling Group
The Tilling Group was one of two conglomerates that controlled almost all of the major bus operators in the United Kingdom between World Wars I and II and until nationalisation in 1948.
Tilling, together with the other conglomerate, British El ...
entered state ownership in 1948, with
Red and White in 1950. Nationalisation of the bus industry was incomplete when the Conservatives won the
1951 General Election and the process was halted. Labour resumed nationalisation after it increased its majority in the
1966 General Election.
British Electric Traction
British Electric Traction Company Limited, renamed BET plc in 1985, was a large British industrial conglomerate. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but was acquired by Rentokil in 1996, and the merged company is now known as Rent ...
pre-emptively sold their bus operations to the government in 1967. In 1969, these bus companies were consolidated in the
National Bus Company in England and Wales, and the
Scottish Bus Group
The Scottish Bus Group (SBG) was a state-owned group of bus operators covering the whole of mainland Scotland.
The origin of the grouping was the operators owned by and including the Scottish Motor Traction company, which were transferred to ...
in Scotland, answerable to the Scottish Secretary. Most bus services were in the hands of the state or to by
municipal owned bus operators.
The
Thatcher Government commissioned a
white paper
A white paper is a report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body's philosophy on the matter. It is meant to help readers understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision. A white paper ...
into the bus industry. This resulted in the implementation of the
Transport Act 1985
The Transport Act 1985 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It introduced privatised and deregulated bus services throughout Great Britain and came into effect in October of 1986.
The Act was created as a response to growing concern ...
on 26 October 1986 and the deregulation of local bus services in Great Britain. Transport deregulation did not occur in Northern Ireland.
London
London has had a different regulatory regime from the rest of Britain since the establishment of the
London Passenger Transport Board
The London Passenger Transport Board was the organisation responsible for local public transport in London and its environs from 1933 to 1948. In common with all London transport authorities from 1933 to 2000, the public name and brand was Lond ...
in 1933.
At its peak in the 1950s, the
London Transport Executive
The London Transport Executive was the organisation responsible for public transport in Greater London, England between 1948 and 1962. In common with all London transport authorities from 1933 to 2000, the public name and operational brand of ...
owned a bus fleet of 8,000 buses, the largest in the world.
Mayor of the
Greater London Council
The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area. The GLC was dissolved in 198 ...
,
Ken Livingstone
Kenneth Robert Livingstone (born 17 June 1945) is an English politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until the council was abolished in 1986, and as Mayor of London from the creation of the office i ...
adopted a policy of open hostility to the Westminster government. The Government responded by abolishing the GLC and its transport functions were transferred into
London Regional Transport
London Regional Transport (LRT) was the organisation responsible for most of the public transport network in London, England, between 1984 and 2000. In common with all London transport authorities from 1933 to 2000, the public name and operatio ...
, branded as London Transport, which reported to the Secretary of State for Transport and not to any locally elected body. London Transport at the time still had crewed buses long after they were phased out in other cities and the losses incurred by London Transport meant that buyers for bus companies were unlikely to be found.
Although deregulation did not apply to London Buses, in April 1989 it was split into 11 quasi-independent companies that were
privatised
Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
in 1994/95.
Decline in Patronage
Bus patronage grew after the war as soldiers were de-mobilised and greater prosperity led to greater use of the bus however, travel patterns began to change with the steady growth of car sales, and other social changes such as the growth of television which reduced evening travel. Most large private bus companies in England included a core industrialised urban area, which was profitable, and a rural expanse which either barely covered costs or lost money. These larger bus companies cross-subsidised their rural services with profits from their urban operations. Fares had largely remained unchanged since 1930 partially due to companies growing by acquisition - safe from the threat of new market entrants - but opportunities to improve profitability through consolidation were eventually exhausted. Increased patronage from the end of the 1930s economic depression, and the end of the Second World War provided natural growth in patronage and profitability however, fares began to rise in the 1950s as labour costs increased, passenger receipts declined, and operational efficiency deteriorated due to increasing traffic congestion.
Decriminalised parking enforcement
Decriminalised parking enforcement (DPE) is the name given in the United Kingdom to the civil enforcement of car parking regulations, carried out by civil enforcement officers, operating on behalf of a local authority. The Road Traffic Act 19 ...
would not be introduced until 1991.
In 1965, a rebate on
fuel duty was introduced to assist operators in meeting their costs.
In 1968, the New Bus Grant was introduced, which provided up to 25% of the cost of new one-man-operated buses, rather than crewed buses with a driver and conductor. This made full staffing of bus services easier at a time of labour shortage, and lowered costs significantly in a labour-intensive industry. However, these buses were slower in service than crewed buses and were more vulnerable to "bus bunching" due to drastically increased passenger loading times, particularly where fare stages - were not revised and simplified. The loss of crewed buses was largely correlated with urban bus services requiring exact fares with no change being given on the bus. The New Bus Grant was phased out in 1980.
Councils gained powers to subsidise bus services when the
Transport Act 1968
The Transport Act 1968 (1968 c.73) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The main provisions made changes to the structure of nationally owned bus companies, created passenger transport authorities and executives to take over pub ...
came into effect. Councils with their own bus transport department could subsidise their own buses through the
rates
Rate or rates may refer to:
Finance
* Rates (tax), a type of taxation system in the United Kingdom used to fund local government
* Exchange rate, rate at which one currency will be exchanged for another
Mathematics and science
* Rate (mathema ...
, but could not subsidise private/nationalised bus services. Prior to this, the bus company negotiated with the Traffic Commissioners on these issues as part of meeting their Road Service Licence obligations. Municipal bus departments were resented by the large bus operators as these operations, being separate, deprived the larger bus companies of profitable market territory to help meet their rural bus services obligations as part of their road service licence. Much of this cross-subsidy arrangement was destroyed in many parts by the formation of
Passenger Transport Executives in 1969 which cleaved the profitable urban operations from the loss-making rural operations, which were folded into the new
National Bus Company in 1969.
Conservative governments at that time favoured redistributing bus resources to their often more rural constituencies, whereas Labour's electoral base was more urban and sought to lower fares and introduce additional services in cities. Rising car ownership was seen as valuable for creating jobs in the
motorcar industry.
Effects
The 1985 Act abolished road service licensing for local bus services and allowed for the introduction of on-street competition for local bus services for the first time since the 1920s. To operate a service, all an accredited operator was required to do was provide 56 days' notice to the
Traffic Commissioner
The Traffic Commissioners for Great Britain are responsible for the licensing and regulation of the operators of heavy goods vehicles, buses and coaches, and the registration of local bus services in Great Britain.
History
The Road Traffic Ac ...
of their intention to commence, cease or alter operation on a route. Traffic Commissioners previously had to consent to fare increases but were stripped of this power. The
deregulation of long-distance buses had already occurred in 1980.
Legal changes introduced through the 1985 Act were;
*Bus companies could not object to the registration of services from other operators.
*Revenue support - a general block grant subsidy from local government to an operator to cover losses was abolished.
*Local Councils were given the power to support specific unprofitable services deemed socially necessary - these however had to go out to competitive tender.
*Traffic Commissioners were stripped of their role in fare-setting.
*Municipal bus departments were reconstituted as
arm's length
The arm's length principle (ALP) is the condition or the fact that the parties of a transaction are independent and on an equal footing. Such a transaction is known as an "arm's-length transaction".
It is used specifically in contract law to ar ...
companies governed by companies law.
*Low fares policies such as
Fares Fair
Fares Fair was a public policy advocated by the Labour Party administration of the Greater London Council (GLC), then led by Ken Livingstone. The policy of low public transport fares was implemented in 1981, but was later ruled to be illega ...
and in South Yorkshire were made illegal as then constituted.
The Acts had the effect of transferring financial risk from declining patronage from the public sector to the private sector. Operating costs in the bus sector decreased as restrictive practices were phased out, either on a voluntary basis through agreement with trade unions or through these operators becoming insolvent. Industrial action also decreased significantly as both employer and workforce were exposed to the market. Value-for-money for the public sector became easier to demonstrate as subsidised routes were tendered on a competitive basis, giving the public sector a better understanding of specific costs.
Bus infrastructure, such as
bus station
A bus station or a bus interchange is a structure where city or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. While the term bus depot can also be used to refer to a bus station, it generally refers to a bus garage. A bus station is l ...
s and
bus stop
A bus stop is a place where buses stop for passengers to get on and off the bus. The construction of bus stops tends to reflect the level of usage, where stops at busy locations may have shelters, seating, and possibly electronic passenger ...
s remained with their previous owner. Competition cases meant that privately owned bus stations had to be open and available on a non-discriminatory basis to all operators. Local councils retained ownership and responsibility for bus stops, including maintaining timetable information, and bus flags which shows which route numbers called at said stop.
The quality and accuracy of passenger information deteriorated significantly as information on fares moved out of bus stops and was only available through word-of-mouth. Timetables in many cases were poorly published by the operators and complete network maps - which showed all services, including competitors' - were not published at all. Network stability improved over time as networks settled.
Patronage
![Busgraph2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Busgraph2.png)
The Conservative government at the time argued that the abolition of restrictive licensing would increase patronage by allowing bus operators to respond more quickly to passengers' needs. While bus networks did change radically; maintenance of market position, or fighting existential threat was the dominant driver of operators' behaviour immediately after deregulation. Patronage continued to decline across Great Britain, but its impact was uneven; the English "
shire counties
A non-metropolitan county, or colloquially, shire county, is a county-level entity in England that is not a metropolitan county. The counties typically have populations of 300,000 to 1.8 million. The term ''shire county'' is, however, an unoff ...
" saw a continued decline in line with previous trends, however resources were diverted towards larger settlements and away from smaller villages as resources because prioritised.
Public transport usage had been declining in Metropolitan Counties in the years prior to deregulation, except for
South Yorkshire
South Yorkshire is a ceremonial and metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of Doncaster and Sheffield as well as the boroughs of Barnsley and Rotherham.
In N ...
(+7%) due to its fares freeze, and in
Tyne & Wear
Tyne and Wear () is a metropolitan county in North East England, situated around the mouths of the rivers Tyne and Wear. It was created in 1974, by the Local Government Act 1972, along with five metropolitan boroughs of Gateshead, Newcas ...
(+10%) due to the opening of the
Tyne and Wear Metro
The Tyne and Wear Metro is an overground and underground light rail rapid transit system serving Newcastle upon Tyne, Gateshead, North Tyneside, South Tyneside, and the City of Sunderland (together forming Tyne and Wear). The network opened in ...
. The other five PTEs saw declines;
West Midlands
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
-11.7% ,
Merseyside
Merseyside ( ) is a metropolitan county, metropolitan and ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England, with a population of List of ceremonial counties of England, 1.38 million. It encompasses both banks of the Merse ...
-22%,
Strathclyde
Strathclyde ( in Gaelic, meaning "strath (valley) of the River Clyde") was one of nine former local government regions of Scotland created in 1975 by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 and abolished in 1996 by the Local Government et ...
-39.8%,
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...
-36.4%,
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority, combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: City of Manchester, Manchester, City of Salford, Salford ...
-50.5%.
This most significant decline in patronage was in
Metropolitan counties
The metropolitan counties are a type of county-level administrative division of England. There are six metropolitan counties, which each cover large urban areas, with populations between 1 and 3 million. They were created in 1974 and are each di ...
as the as the incumbent former PTE bus operators lost revenue support, had the most extensive networks in their market, and redirected resources to maintain market dominance.
Cross-subsidies were drastically reduced, and former
PTE bus operators cut early morning, evening, and Sunday services to reduce losses and prevent loss of routes.
South Yorkshire PTE
The South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive is the passenger transport executive for South Yorkshire in England. It is supervised by the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, which consists of representatives from the metropolitan b ...
had a low fares policy in place, by freezing fares before several years of very high inflation. The average fare in South Yorkshire in 1984 was 5p Patronage decreased drastically as full economic fares were reintroduced.
Deregulation and privatisation failed to address the primary cause of decline in patronage, which was surrounded by rising car ownership, such as the abundance of cheap or free parking,
car-oriented housing development, and the growth of
out-of-town retail centres, which all drove forward the decline in bus patronage.
On-street Competition
Almost immediately existing operators faced competition on their most profitable routes, both from new and existing operators, and other municipal operators seeking to increase revenue. This would often result in the incumbent operator retaliating by starting up operations on the new operator's home market. Tactics included cutting fares and operating extra services.
The Act also provided for the privatisation of the National Bus Company which was divided into 70 separate legal entities and sold, with the sale of National Coach Holidays to
Shearings
Shearings (legally Shearings Travel Limited) is a coach tour operator, part of the Leger Shearings Group, based in the United Kingdom. The tour operator brand specialises in holidays including escorted tours, unescorted tours, short breaks, se ...
in July 1986 the first. Many were sold in
management buyout
A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management-, and/or leveraged buyout became noted phenomena of 1 ...
s, including some 24 which introduced employee ownership in the form of
employee share ownership plans. However they quickly began to be bought out by transport companies
Arriva
Arriva plc is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Sunderland, England.[First
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...]
,
Go-Ahead,
National Express
National Express Group is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Birmingham, England. It operates bus, coach, train and tram services in the United Kingdom, Ireland (National Express operates Eurolines in conjunction ...
and
Stagecoach
A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...
.Intense competition sometimes resulted in a bus war, requiring the intervention of the authorities to stamp out unscrupulous or unsafe practices.
Workforce Pay & Conditions
Industrial stoppage decreased sharply after deregulation with the abolition of the protected market, many inflexibile practices which had accumulated and were standard across the bus sector prior to deregulation were removed; differing wage rates for driving different vehicles, which were in some cases allocated on seniority as part of
collective bargaining agreements
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and rights for workers. The i ...
, or as part of a
side agreement (minibuses were largely introduced as a workaround),
demarcation disputes, maintenance of pay differentials, inflexible rostering were phased out as incumbent operators struggled to survive the threat from new market entrants who had no such restrictions. Pay and conditions worsened for drivers across Great Britain, including in London.
Competition Cases
![Buses of Stagecoach and East Yorkshire Motor Services in Kingston Upon Hull, East Yorkshire 30 May 2009](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/Buses_of_Stagecoach_and_East_Yorkshire_Motor_Services_in_Kingston_Upon_Hull%2C_East_Yorkshire_30_May_2009.jpg)
In 1988,
Southern Vectis
Southern Vectis is a bus operator on the Isle of Wight. The company was founded in 1921 as "Dodson and Campbell" and became the "Vectis Bus Company" in 1923. The company was purchased by the Southern Railway (Great Britain), Southern Railway b ...
became the first operator to attract the interest of the regulators when the
Office of Fair Trading
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) was a non-ministerial government department of the United Kingdom, established by the Fair Trading Act 1973, which enforced both consumer protection and competition law, acting as the United Kingdom's economic ...
forced it to allow competing operators access to
Newport bus station
Newport Central bus station ( cy, Gorsaf fysiau Canol Casnewydd) is a bus terminus and interchange located in the city centre, Newport, South Wales. It is the largest road transport hub for public services in the county. It is situated on the ...
. It was also reprimanded for operating extra services purely to stifle its competition.
In 2000
was found to have been employing bus inspectors to usher passengers away from competitors' services.
In 2004/05
Cardiff Bus
Cardiff Bus ( cy, Bws Caerdydd) is the dominant operator of bus services in Cardiff, Wales and the surrounding area, including Barry and Penarth. The company is wholly owned by Cardiff Council and is one of the few municipal bus companies to r ...
was found to have engaged in predatory behaviour to stifle competitor 2 Travel.
In 2006/07 Stagecoach Manchester and UK North engaged in a bus war on
route 192 and on the
Wilmslow Road bus corridor
The Wilmslow Road bus corridor is a 5.5-mile-long section of road in Manchester that is served by a large number of bus services. The corridor runs from Parrs Wood to Manchester city centre along Wilmslow Road, Wilmslow and Oxford Roads, serving ...
that caused traffic chaos in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
. UK North were found to have been engaging in unsafe work practices with two managers jailed.
In November 2009 the
Competition Commission
The Competition Commission was a non-departmental public body responsible for investigating mergers, markets and other enquiries related to regulated industries under competition law in the United Kingdom. It was a competition regulator under t ...
ordered
Stagecoach
A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...
to sell
after it had adversely affected competition in the area, forcing Preston Bus to sell in January 2009.
Between March 2000 and July 2002, First Scotland East sought to increase its market share of local bus services in and around Edinburgh. As a result, a bus war sparked between FirstGroup and Lothian Buses, with fares cut, additional vehicles drafted in, routes diverted and timetables altered.
Lothian Buses complained to the Office of Fair Trading, claiming that FirstGroup was engaging in anti-competitive behaviour, in an effort to become the dominant operator in Edinburgh However, it was later ruled by the Office of Fair Trading that FirstGroup's conduct represented "legitimate competition".
Despite this, following the ruling, First Bus curtailed their network of services in most of Edinburgh and East Lothian, ending the bus war. Heavy losses were made, which resulted in cutbacks in many parts of their operations.
The current bus war happening since 2021 between Redline and Arriva on the Aylesbury - High Wycombe bus corridor. Frequencies being tightened even further by the month with Arriva launching new duplication service X30.
Bus wars still periodically occur. In 2011,
Connexions and
Transdev in Harrogate were engaged in
Wetherby
Wetherby () is a market town and civil parish in the City of Leeds district, West Yorkshire, England, close to West Yorkshire county's border with North Yorkshire, and lies approximately from Leeds City Centre, from York and from Harrogat ...
. Another recent example was the 2018–19 bus war between
,
Stagecoach South
Stagecoach South is a bus operator providing services in South East England. It is a subsidiary of Stagecoach. It operates services in Hampshire, Surrey, and Sussex with some routes extending into Brighton and Wiltshire. It operates 487 buses fr ...
and
Safeguard Coaches
Safeguard Coaches is a bus and coach operator based in Guildford.
History
Safeguard was established in 1924 by Arthur Newman, when he converted an accident damaged lorry to carry passengers, and by 1927 was running bus services to the newly con ...
in
Guildford
Guildford ()
is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...
.
Ownership
When deregulation started, there was an explosion of new entrants to the bus market - the most notable being Stagecoach, which began as a long-distance coach operator which entered the local bus market. Many district councils' bus departments were sold or went bust due to the difficulty abandoning old practices such as route cross-subsidy, transporting school pupils without financial compensation from the local authority, and inflexible collective bargaining agreements agreed long before deregulation. Market consolidation continued through the 1990s as companies grew through acquisition, the largest of these consolidations was achieved by Grampian Regional Transport - a former municipal bus operator which was willingly sold by Grampian Regional Council - which rebranded as First Group.
Only
12 operations remain in public ownership, the largest being
Lothian Buses
Lothian Buses is a major bus operator based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is the largest municipal bus company in the United Kingdom: the City of Edinburgh Council (through Transport for Edinburgh) owns 91%, Midlothian Council 5%, East Lothian ...
in Edinburgh.
As at 2010 the big five operators,
Arriva
Arriva plc is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Sunderland, England.[First
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...]
,
Go-Ahead,
National Express
National Express Group is a British multinational public transport company headquartered in Birmingham, England. It operates bus, coach, train and tram services in the United Kingdom, Ireland (National Express operates Eurolines in conjunction ...
and
Stagecoach
A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...
, controlled 70% of the market. With the sale of Arriva to
Deutsche Bahn
The (; abbreviated as DB or DB AG) is the national railway company of Germany. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). The Federal Republic of Germany is its single shareholder.
describes itself as the se ...
and
Abellio
Abellio (also Abelio and Abelionni) was a god worshiped in the Garonne Valley in Gallia Aquitania (now southwest France), known primarily by a number of inscriptions which were discovered in Comminges, in the Pyrenees. He may have been a god of ...
,
ComfortDelGro
ComfortDelGro Corporation is a multi-national land transport company listed on the Singapore Exchange, operating about 35,000 vehicles in seven countries. It was formed on 29 March 2003 through a merger of Singapore-based land transport compa ...
,
Transdev
Transdev, formerly Veolia Transdev, is a French-based international private-sector company which operates public transport. It has operations in 17 countries and territories as of November 2020.
History
The group was formed by the merger of V ...
and
Veolia Transport
Veolia Transport (formerly Connex and CGEA Transport) was the international transport services division of the French-based multinational company Veolia until the 2011 merger that gave rise to Veolia Transdev. Veolia Transport traded under the ...
also owning operations, 24% of operators were in foreign ownership in 2010. This has increased with
RATP Group RATP may refer to:
Transportation:
* RATP Group, or ', a public transport operator based in Paris, France
* RATP Iași (), a transit operator responsible for public transportation in Iași, Romania
* RATP Ploiești (), a transit operator responsi ...
and
Transit Systems
Transit Systems Group is an Australian-based public transport company, which also operates overseas through its subsidiary Tower Transit Group. Transit Systems Group is a subsidiary of the Kelsian Group, formerly SeaLink Travel Group.
History
...
having since entered the market.
Edinburgh's
Lothian Buses
Lothian Buses is a major bus operator based in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is the largest municipal bus company in the United Kingdom: the City of Edinburgh Council (through Transport for Edinburgh) owns 91%, Midlothian Council 5%, East Lothian ...
also did not become privatised as it was successfully resisted, while
was privatised but purchased by the city council.
Criticism
Opposers have claimed that since deregulation and privatisation, passenger numbers of UK buses have declined, fare costs have "skyrocketed", and services have become unreliable. Many local authorities have reduced their spend on socially-necessary bus services, lowered their reimbursement rates for
Concessionary Pass holders, neglected
bus priority
Bus priority or transit signal priority (TSP) is a name for various techniques to improve service and reduce delay for public transport, mass transit vehicles at intersections (or junctions) controlled by traffic signals. TSP techniques are most ...
enforcement, provided abundant cheap car parking and have failed to ensure new housing developments are condusive to bus operation.
Franchising of bus services
Greater Manchester
![Victoria Bus Station & Manchester Cathedral - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/Victoria_Bus_Station_%26_Manchester_Cathedral_-_geograph.org.uk_-_2338741.jpg)
Following the
Bus Services Act 2017
The Bus Services Act 2017 (c. 21) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It provides for local transport authorities to create partnership schemes to improve bus services in their areas, and to introduce advanced ticketing schemes.
T ...
, Greater Manchester would become the first city-region to start the process of bus franchising by requesting data from bus operators, with it being confirmed on 24 June 2019 that the option to franchise bus services would be the preferred option in the
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority, combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: City of Manchester, Manchester, City of Salford, Salford ...
area, starting in
Bolton
Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish people, Flemish weavers settled in the area i ...
,
Salford
Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...
and
Wigan
Wigan ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, on the River Douglas, Lancashire, River Douglas. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. Bolton lies to the nor ...
on 17 September 2023, with subsequent areas being franchised over the course of 2024. The proposed franchising change process in Greater Manchester was subject to legal challenges by the
and
Stagecoach Group
Stagecoach Group is a transport group based in Perth, Scotland. It operates buses, express coaches and a tram service in the United Kingdom.
History
Stagecoach was born out of deregulation of the British express coach market in the early ...
, with Rotala taking the case to
Judicial Review
Judicial review is a process under which executive, legislative and administrative actions are subject to review by the judiciary. A court with authority for judicial review may invalidate laws, acts and governmental actions that are incompat ...
. The appeal was rejected in the end.
Intelligent Transport released an article in April 2021, suggesting "that franchising could become a more attractive proposition" as the "transport industry begins to recover from the hugely damaging effects of Covid-19". The
West Yorkshire Combined Authority
The West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) is the combined authority for West Yorkshire in England. It was established by statutory instrument under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 on 1 April 2014. It is a s ...
has also expressed support for the franchising of bus services, with an expectation that it may not be completed until 2027.
See also
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Deregulation and privatisation of the PTE bus operations
The Passenger Transport Executive (PTE) bus operations were the bus operating divisions of the passenger transport executives in the United Kingdom. In 1986 they underwent a process of Bus deregulation in the United Kingdom, deregulation and priva ...
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Privatisation of London bus services
The privatisation of London bus services was the process of the transfer of operation of buses in London from public bodies to private companies.
For half a century, operation of London bus services for public transport was under the direct co ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bus Deregulation In Great Britain
Bus transport in the United Kingdom
Economic liberalization
Economics of regulation
Transport policy in the United Kingdom
1986 in transport
1986 in the United Kingdom
Bus wars