Talks of Liverpools bus network being "council" run

[Mayneway]

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

(02/11/2014 19:52)Dentonian Wrote:  The whole idea of Deregulation was that Operators should NOT run commercial services if they felt they wouldn't be profitable. One of tenets of Deregulation was that cross-subsidy is "evil". Over the years, Public Holiday ops have been a bit of a joke. It took years to convince Stagecoach that even a straight Sunday service should be viable - and longer still for First and Arriva. At one time, GMPTE (as was) started to stipulate Public Holiday timetables on Sunday contracts, but for some reason they backed down, so some smaller Operators in particular still work on the basis that nobody uses buses on Public Holidays.
I can't remember when Glossop last had Boxing Day or New Years Day services, but Hattersley is a big council estate so probably still has many carless households. Having said all that, it is only in the last few years that Stagecoach have introduced Boxing Day and/or New Years Day services, and many suburbs still don't get services on either day.
I'm not sure the 219 competes with Metrolink, but I think running 216s on these days - unless City are playing at home - is a bit of tokenism on their part.
As for Metrolink in general, that is probably THE strongest argument against buses coming back into politicians control you can get as far as Greater Manchester is concerned.

I don't know. I used the 216 last Boxing Day to get into Manchester and it was fairly busy. I use a mega rider but I'm sure they were charging flat fares of £4 instead of singles. So I would imagine it's quite profitable for them.
Don't forget there's been a huge shift in the last few years. Not only from a retail point of view but a lot of shift/factory workers work bank holidays and Boxing Day is near enough a normal day.
Hattersley is a huge council estate although it's debatable whether car ownership is lower than in Glossop where incidentally there is two large council estates, Gamesley and Hadfield.

Stagecoach's line has always been that some areas don't warrent a service on Boxing Day and New Year's Day, but how do they actually know that?