STAGECOACH has criticised plans by Labour to give English city and county regions increased influence over bus services, deeming them "costly and unnecessary structural change" and saying they would lead to higher passenger and taxpayer costs.
As part of the discussion on English devolution, party leader Ed Miliband yesterday announced a manifesto commitment to let the regional and city authorities regulate services as is currently done in London. This would enable bus fares and routes to be set locally and combine them with other public transport links.
"For too long everyday working people have found their journey to work made harder and more expensive than it needs to be by a deregulated system that fails to serve the public interest," Mr Miliband said.
However, Britain's biggest bus operator strongly opposed the move as inappropriate.
The Perth-based group's chief executive, Martin Griffiths, said the plan "would land people in England's biggest city regions overnight with a tax bill running to hundreds of millions of pounds, as well as leading to higher bus fares".
He said bus operators already provide "extensive, integrated and high-quality bus networks, which are central to regional economies and local communities in England's biggest city regions".
Not only are city region fares considerably cheaper, he added, they also show higher customer-satisfaction levels than their London counterparts, with access to "frequent, integrated bus services and smart ticketing".
Stagecoach cited research showing passenger satisfaction in London was at 83 per cent against an average of 88 per cent outside of the UK's capital. Furthermore it said weekly bus travel is about 40 per cent cheaper in the city regions than in the capital.
"It is time politicians stopped peddling the myth that London is best and has a monopoly on good bus services," Mr Griffiths said.
Stagecoach also said London has enjoyed environmental advantages such as congestion charging and notably higher public funding per capita.
Mr Griffiths said Stagecoach was one of Britain's five biggest bus operators - along with First, Go Ahead, Arriva and National Express - who have poured £1.4 billion into their services outside London in the past five years, with his and other operators "already working on extensive plans to deliver better buses and stronger city regions".
In addition, he said that as well as offering better taxpayer value, the plans "will provide even better transport integration, more local political engagement and a greater voice for customers".
Necessary to this, he explained, is "supportive central and local government policies that make a practical difference for bus passengers".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article