Reading Westminster Watcher's column [routeone/Westminster/10 October] reminded me of the gulf in priorities between the Department for Transport (DfT), and those in our industry who are running fast to stand still providing today's provincial bus services.
We might have failings but complacency certainly isn't one of them.
We are only too well aware that without passengers we don't have a business and we know that in urban areas they want fast, reliable bus services.
Yet the biggest impediment is, as Westminster Watcher acknowledges, congestion – something he states operators can do "absolutely nothing about".
With most highway authorities taking little effective action, it would be more productive if the DfT were to not only review the outcomes of the Bus Services Act 2017, but to do so jointly with a review of the outcomes of the Traffic Management Act 2004.
While I readily accept that it is not the government's role to look after the needs of the industry's shareholders, it does have a responsibility for the nation's health, and we now all know that more congestion, apart from strangling the bus service, also creates dangerously high levels of air pollution.
Tim Gibson
