Owen Jones (Wait for a bus and then recount me the market knows best,21 January) rehearses the problems of poor bus services external London and even suggests some elements of the remedy, but critically jumps to the wrong conclusion. Privatisation of parts of the industry is not the reason for falling bus spend and worsening services. That was happening before privatisation and indeed a decent case can be made that privatisation has helped to slow the decline.
The London services he praises are actually delivered by the private sector, or deliver at least as much private sector profit as those elsewhere. He is right that those of us external London need fare simplification and something like the Oyster card. However,the fact that we don’t already gain such services in the metropolitan areas is at least as much due to the incompetence of the public sector authorities as it is to the privately owned bus companies.
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Source: theguardian.com