The Story of UK Bus Deregulation

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Of the various forms of public transport in the UK, one of the more contentious is the bus service, with the provision of this alternative to the car having been mired for decades in political turmoil, primarily regarding the matter of its government ownership and subsequent deregulation in the mid-1980s.

Prior to deregulation, the British bus industry was one that had been left to stagnate for decades, with the provision of generous subsidies meaning that there was no incentive for the management to want to invest in the future of the sector, despite the fact that passenger numbers were falling year on year as potential customers turned to the motorcar as their primary mode of transport.

In the 1980s, the Thatcher government privatised the system, meaning each of the individual bus companies would be forced to sink or swim on their own merits, and thereby engendering innovations in vehicles, service patterns, pricing and real-time information, though by contrast, a lack of major investment by the local authorities to support the bus industry, means its ability to work as efficiently as possible has been largely missed, and today the various firms still struggle to maintain competitive numbers against the car.

Chapters:

0:00 - Preamble
1:00 - The Nationalised Era
5:23 - Privatisation Begins
9:21 - Deregulation
13:22 - A False Hope?
18:00 - The Bus Industry Today
22:53 - Conclusion

The views and opinions expressed in this video are my personal appraisal and are not the views and opinions of any of these individuals or bodies who have kindly supplied me with footage and images.

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Thanks again, everyone, and enjoy! :D

References:
- "Buses: deregulation in the 1980s" by Louise Butcher (2010)
- AROnline (and their respective sources)
- Wikipedia (and its respective references)

[timatkins]

All that happened in our area was the duplicating of already well served profitable routes, while rural routes in desperate need for improvement were gutted because "the market could provide the appropriate level of service". It didn't. Instead, unprofitable routes had service cuts, or if not possible, just timed awkwardly resulting in falling ridership. This could then be used as proof that the service wasn't needed. Subsidy could be cut and the whole pattern would repeat, creating a narrative that rural communities didn't need bus services, because when they were provided they weren't used, when the truth was the service wasn't used because it wasn't fit for purpose.

[bobanob]

An efficient and well patronised public transport system should be accepted as a national economic asset and not as a profit making enterprise.

[john]

The primary purpose of a private company is to make a profit for the shareholders, not to provide a public service. If you want less car use, you must make buses attractive to use.

[lordmuntague]

Here's my experience of bus privatisation, and I've been a regular bus user since the 1970s:

1) Decent profitable route with 10 minute frequency gets privatised.
2) Private bean counter looks and says "We can carry that many passengers with fewer buses!" Frequency changed to 15 minutes.
3) Less frequent and more crowded buses causes reduction in patronage.
4) With fewer passengers bean counter says "We don't need that many buses for that many passengers!" Frequency changed to 30 minutes.
5) Rinse and repeat until route either disappears, gets combined with others into a twisty thing that takes forever to get anywhere, or local authority has to step in and subsidise it.

There are few if any innovations or investments done by the private sector that can't be done by the public sector for the same subsidy, and very many were. If incentives are an issue, legislate them in instead of chopping the structure into private bits and hoping for the best.

[chriswade]

I was living in Sheffield when the Buses were deregulated. Overnight the cost of a bus journey went up by a considerable amount overnight. We did get some competition on the more profitable routes. I now live in North East Lincolnshire, where Stagecoach hold basically a total monopoly on all bus services. They provide a very poor service On a considerable number of routes. I’ve lived in the same place since 2007. We haven no bus service after about 6-30 at night so unless you have a car, a trip to the cinema is impossible, unless you get a very expensive taxi. Where I live we only got a service on Sundays and Bank holidays last year. I consider the deregulation of bus services to be one of the largest acts of vandalism committed by the Tory party, only being exceeded by the privatisation of the railways.

[aful]

You know you've reached a new level of nerd when you get genuinely excited to watch a video on the impacts of bus deregulation.

[skylineXpert]

One of the biggest mistake in the history of the UK.
But Its kinda universal & not just in the UK.

Even in denmark we have a bit of a problem with busses In the rural areas.
If they even service during the summer holiday (In some areas they only do that mon-fri during the school year).

If you want to operate a bus route you kinda have to bid on these routes as well.

[drstevenrey]

I was wondering about this story since the Routemaster story. Thanks for you great work and another masterpiece.

[mburland]

Can you do a follow up video about those horrific minibus style buses that flooded the market in the 90s?

[av_oid]

Great mini doco! Look forward to your vids every week.
Services like busses (or better yet trains and trams) are best operated by governments as a public good. Some routes will always be uneconomic. (Edit for typo)

[chrismckellar]

Similar events happened in New Zealand when the government of the day forced city councils who had their own bus operations to make their bus operations into companies were most where purchased by Stagecoach. Since the 'privatisation' for local bus services in the 1990's lead to the race to the bottom in service contracting and poor service and passenger experience outcomes. The previous government change the law allowing regional councils greater flexibility to improve bus services to increase ridership through better service delivery especially the rollout of the 'open loop' national 'tap & travel' payment system for subsidised public transport bus, train and local ferry services across the country from 2024.

[stephenthomas]

Deregulation and privatisation of vital public services has never worked, on any level. The highest energy prices in the world at one stage last year..? Highest train fares in Europe..? Poisoned rivers as a toxic (no pun intended) result of private equity ownership and deregulation of human and agricultural waste standards..? I recall the ''wild west'' of provincial bus deregulation made even worse by Thatcher's 'great car economy' and the resultant epic congestion, pollution and mas concreting over of the countryside. Sorry to be so political here but so many of our problems are the result of the obsession fixation with laissez faire ideology of the 80s. Let's not even start on financial deregulation.

[northernblue]

NBC was only one company when it suited its purposes. It was impossible to get travel information from the Northern enquiry office at Sunderland for the United services that shared the same bus station. Staff not prepared to look-up details in the county-wide timetable or ring their 'colleagues' at Durham - the passenger was expected to travel there to find out about United services from Sunderland.

[LadySophieofHougunManor]

Awesome video as always and informative as always you know a lot of what was stated also explains the abject failure of rail privatisation in the U.K. as tocs couldn’t amend train timetables without government permission which was in of itself a long drawn out painful process and very slow

[neiloflongbeck]

The changes to the bus services in Cambridge removed bus routes serving villages that got students to their FE colleges, so increased car traffic in the county.

[TalesOfWar]

It's no shock or surprise that the only part of England who's transport system didn't turn to crap after the deregulation was London, who retained public ownership and control. It's the only part of England that has transport that's half decent because it's all integrated as an actual NETWORK.

[peekaboo]

The correct way to stop people from using cars to go everywhere is not to price people out of owning/driving one, but to give people alternatives that are highly desirable.

In Japan, the railways, roads and public transportation in general are all excellent, so although you can use a car (and you will have a good experience if you do), you might choose to get where you want to go by other means simply because of how good those alternatives are.

[mwgary]

This is a very interesting and informative video. I remember well when the deregulation happened. It was viewed as a bit of a disaster at the time. I think London bus deregulation deserves its own video, which had its own unique problems.

[rob]

I was a bus driver in Bristol fir over seven years and there was hardly ever sufficient time given to keep to schedule. This at odds with the drive green system that monitored braking, acceleration and steering, with the resultant score displayed on a table, complete with your name!

[trevor]

As a former Manager in the NBC in the 1970s, who then moved to Local Government and worked on the interface between the commercial market and the provision of non commercial, but socially necessary services by contracting and managing them, I make the following comment:

The franchising system in London, which was accepted by the UK Government as necessary, is now spreading to other parts of the UK, starting in Manchester and, no doubt, will spread elsewhere.