Mastodawn

Anon Opin Oct 13

Growing up, the main bus in my town was every 10 minutes and always packed. I didn't worry about timetables I just left the house and knew it would be there. Now it's every half hour and completely deserted. This is no coincidence. Fund buses properly and people will use them.

Estarriol, Terrorist Dragon Oct 13

have them reliable and plentiful and people use them.

Mike Taylor 🦕Oct 13

@Thebratdragon @anon_opin But also: as usage falls off, running routes becomes unprofitable, so companies run the buses less frequently. It's a vicious circle.

@mike @Thebratdragon @anon_opin have you considered that not everything should be required to run at a profit?

Mike Taylor 🦕Oct 13

@pikesley @Thebratdragon @anon_opin Yes, I have considered it and agreed the heck out of it.

The real question is whether the companies running these routes have considered it. I doubt it.

@mike @Thebratdragon @anon_opin ok, I'll go you one further: have you considered that none of this should be in private hands?

Mike Taylor 🦕Oct 13

@pikesley @Thebratdragon @anon_opin Yes, I have considered that and agree the heck out out it. But I don't see how to fix it.

Jon Wood Oct 14

@mike @pikesley @Thebratdragon @anon_opin the right people just have to want it. After that it’s quite simple, the council buys some busses and starts running routes. For extra value the council says to the current operators they’re going to do so, and asks if those operators fancy selling their busses and cutting their losses before their routes are abandoned because they cost 10x as much and run worse.

@jon @pikesley @mike @Thebratdragon @anon_opin buys some busses, buys a depot, employs mechanics to maintain them, employs admin staff to do the DVSA paperwork as a bus operator, pays the insurance, competes with the big cos who gets interested all of a sudden. Buying buses and setting up the stuff to run them isn't a 'quite simple' Friday afternoon jolly. Sorry I forgot about employing anyone to drive them/train drivers. Deals with Reformheads objecting to the depot, forgot that.

@hicksy2 @jon @mike @Thebratdragon @anon_opin

BETTER THINGS AREN'T POSSIBLE well done you

@pikesley @jon @mike @Thebratdragon @anon_opin I didn't say impossible, I was just being realistic.

Mike Taylor 🦕Oct 17

@hicksy2 @pikesley @jon @Thebratdragon @anon_opin Exactly. For councils to do this (which I would welcome), incentives need to be aligned. And I have no idea how to make that happen.

@mike @pikesley @jon @Thebratdragon @anon_opin they also need £10-50Mn from somewhere....

purple: licenced to sticky plaster Oct 19

@hicksy2 @mike @pikesley @jon @Thebratdragon @anon_opin and the right to spend that on providing a public service

(whilst one might be inclined to expect that local councils, bodies elected to provide local services, are allowed to provide services, the reality is …thatcher'd)

Jon Wood Oct 19

@purple @hicksy2 @mike @pikesley @Thebratdragon @anon_opin you all realise parliament can pass laws right? If they really wanted to they could just pass one that says all the bus companies belong to councils now, but everyone is so absorbed in the idea that we can’t upset businesses or The Market we refuse to do anything good.

Estarriol, Terrorist Dragon Oct 19

@jon @pikesley @mike @purple @anon_opin @hicksy2

all you need to do is remove all the obstacles to councils running there own buses, that were deliberately put in place to make them uneconomic to tender for them when privatisation was first done, see also NHS services, housing etc etc etc.

purple: licenced to sticky plaster

@Thebratdragon @jon @pikesley @mike @anon_opin @hicksy2 ^ this exactly.

Over the last 40 odd years local authorities have been intentionally, somewhat explicitly, repeatedly undermined to the point they largely can't do ‘anything’.

Even things you wouldn't think of as privatised, like education, have largely been put out of reach of education authorities. Yes really.

(and we wonder why local elections get such little turn out)

But it very much doesn't have to be this way, we can, should, must, return power to our local bodies, and then we might start to get somewhere.