Re: But public money... @Alan
It's interesting that you can see some of what you say in the deregulation of the bus network from the Passenger Transport Executive (PTE), run by Tyne and Wear around Newcastle and the immediate area (and probably the other PTEs from around the country).
The PTE ran a fully integrated transport system that included the bus services and the Metro rail system.
When it was set up, it was arranged around interchange hubs, and your journey would often be bus to a hub, Metro between hubs and bus to your destination. This was paid for as a single ticket via 'zone' pricing, so you could buy your ticket on the bus by asking for a Ticket to the zone your destination was in (that you could find easily on a map), and that would cover all steps. Public transport across the Tyne was mostly restricted to the Metro, and all of the zones were well served by a comprehensive bus network.
The result was that almost everybody used it. It may have been a bit slower than travelling by car, but if all you needed to do was get yourself across the region, it was a no-brainer. You just used it, like you use the underground in London.
Roll forward to 1986. The bus regulation the PTE ran was removed, and the PTE themselves had to divest the bus operations (although they continued to run the Metro). Suddenly multiple operators started competing for the lucrative routes and ignoring the less profitable ones. Buses started crossing the Tyne again. Road traffic across the bridges slowed to a crawl. People did not know how to price a journey, and had to buy several tickets from different operators. Use of the Metro started to decline, because it was no longer the common trunk to link the hubs together.
Eventually, all of the local bus companies ended up being bought by the national bus operators, which essentially stifled the competition, resulting in effective monopolies.
They are finally trying to re-introduce a common fare system AFAIK. I no longer live there, so I'm a bit out of the picture.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
