The pace of change in England’s bus network is unprecedented, and little of it is for the good.
Passenger numbers are still well below pre-pandemic levels, Government support ends in October and networks will contract to reflect lower patronage, driver shortages remain nationwide leading to significant unreliability, costs of wages, energy and spare parts rocket, two of the largest operators have moved ownership to offshore infrastructure funds, and the few local authorities with successful Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIPs) are wondering how they can implement them in the required timescale.
Let’s start with the change in the ownership of two of the five largest transport operators from a stock market listing to infrastructure funds. These are the kind of funds that own the water and electricity companies, and we know what a wonderful job they have done there. They are foreign owned, bring no knowledge of transport and their business model is to extract regular dividends for their owners and load up the companies with debt. Go Ahead fought off a hostile bid many years ago, but the current board of directors seems happy to roll over and take a payoff.
That’s possibly because they have no vision t…
