THE recent rise in First Glasgow bus fares ("Bus passengers ‘held to ransom’ with fares hike", The Herald, Janaury 9) comes as no surprise, yet highlights many of the problems of the industry, which we were told would flourish under deregulation and privatisation. I struggle to understand the business model of FirstBus, with its long-term decline in usage, yet I'm sure there are many financial analysts out there who will say that its financial management and shareholder returns are perfectly good, so what's the problem?
The problem is that we have a free market bus system which over-relies on competition to maintain fares and customer service. Yet even in Glasgow, competition is limited to some main roads, and even there, it can be more of a race to the bottom with minibus competition.
Last year's consultation on bus services was encouraging in its suggestion of council-owned, not-for-profit bus companies, with the model being Lothian Buses. Compared to an annual decline of 1.5 per cent overall, Lothian has been increasing annual usage by 2.5 per cent in recent years.
However, what concerned me were the questions which the consultation did not ask. It did not ask about keeping fares affordable. One of the fundamentals of bus services is, that to maintain a critical mass of users, you have to keep fares cheap enough and quality high enough. FirstBus also seem not to grasp these principles.
Also missing were any questions on what would reverse the decline in bus usage in most of Scotland. There was no vision of what would convince more people to choose bus services in towns and cities. I would like to see a bus service that looks more like that in the rest of Europe. That is a fleet of modern, low-polluting vehicles, integrated with local rail services, with all fare revenue collected off-vehicle, thus speeding up services and improving reliability.
But instead in Scotland, we have a silo approach to transport, with separate consultations on concession fares and pollution control. The way concession fare revenue is reimbursed at only 56 per cent is one of the reasons why fares are going up. And I think it is deplorable that buses are going to be targeted first in meeting pollution standards, when they are used by the poorest in society.
I'm left with the impression that the Scottish Government is not bothered enough about the decline in bus usage, as there are so few votes in it. Yet low bus usage affects us all, not just the users. Congested roads and air pollution are a problem for us all. Let's hope that my impression is incorrect, and the Government starts treating buses as a service and not a business.
Arthur Homan-Elsy,
55 Deanburn Road, Linlithgow.
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