Professor John Hibbs must be turning in his grave. He was one of the strongest architects of the 1980 and 1985 Transport Acts. They brought wholesale deregulation to coach and bus operations and led to the subsequent activities that transformed the industry.
Former Secretary of State Nick Ridley’s belief that buses would be provided by many micro-operators, even owner-drivers, in fact turned out to be the opposite. The ‘big five’ today operate over 90% of the services in the UK. Most of them have significant rail businesses as well.
Industry supporters of bus franchising
And here, well over 30 years on, we have the prospect of bus franchising in urban cities and further support for those notions by several existing operators, such as Abellio, ComfortDelGro and Tower Transit.
Our industry was amazed to see a Conservative government increase the prospect of regulation with the Bus Services Act. It had been used to defending its corner under Labour, but it never really expected such from the Tories. Now elements of the trade are supporting the idea, too.
Professor Hibbs, when he reviewed deregulation in 1997, concluded that it had mostly worked. He thought that competition from the private car was a constant regardless of regulatory regime, but that subsidy had been squeezed out, the dead hand of central planning and ownership had been removed and the trades union had been brought to heel.
Although difficult to prove the counterfactual, things had got worse in terms of ridership – but not as bad as it would have been under public ownership and tight regulation, he concluded.
‘These things are cyclical…’
Those of us in the upper quartile of age and experience know that things are cyclical. Organisational reforms, for example, often reverse the changes made last time. So no surprises that the pendulum is swinging away from deregulation and towards franchising.
What, we ask, is wrong?
My contention is that in fact what has changed is the social and economic basis of society. In the 1980s, the enemy was the private car, pure and simple. Buses were powered by diesel, shopping was done in high streets and people went to work every day.
Fares were paid in cash and taxis were for the well off or small groups coming home after hours.
The bus has become a tool for elected representatives to use. Ken Livingstone started that. He provided for a massive increase in the London bus network (never deregulated, of course) and cheap fares so children could get to and from school, the unemployed could look for work, workers could get to work, and the bars and restaurants of London were easy to access. In short, he saw buses as the economic haemoglobin of the city.
Buses are ‘now a tool’
Later came air quality concerns. The bus is now a tool to reduce pollution, not just by its very existence but as an energy consumer itself.
And finally, online shopping, work from home Fridays, the disappearance of cash and our friends from Uber are all now in mainstream lifestyle.
The pendulum swing, therefore, is a response to socioeconomic changes and politicians grabbing the bus as a tool to deliver social change. To do that, they want control. I hope they’ve got the money…
