Talks of Liverpools bus network being "council" run

[H101GEV (Administrator)]

RE: Talks of Liverpools bus network being "council" run

(29/10/2014 21:50)kuyoyo Wrote:  Basically, what the councils and PTEs need to do is look at their colleagues in South Yorkshire and the award-winning Sheffield Partnership scheme. Operations take most of the cost for operating services (still a small number of contracted services but these are mainly operated by either TM Travel or Sheffield Community Transport) while the PTE do the timetables and spend money on infrastructure work. All changes are consulted on in a fair and equal way. This is the way places should be going - and indeed here in the southern part of the North East, we are on the way to that.

This contrasts nicely with Merseytravel's botched "Quality" Bus Partnership routes, where frequencies on every corridor were reduced and overcrowding exacerbated. Ticketing is still not fully interchangeable between operators meaning large numbers of passengers have to commit to one operator and thus endure the less frequent buses as a result. Competition has been cooled to the detriment of passengers: on the 86 corridor, overcrowding is far worse since the QBP was introduced. Stagecoach's woeful run of ordering undersized buses is not helping as well.

Just imagine that lot getting overall control of the buses. Disaster waiting to happen. I'm not praising the status quo, either - Merseyside's buses have stagnated significantly since MPTE was bought out - but with signs of capacity improvements on the horizon and considering Merseytravel's track record on these matters, the status quo can't be any worse.