De-regulation

[ace]

RE: De-regulation

(18/08/2012 21:00)skelmersey Wrote:  

(17/08/2012 18:33)ace Wrote:  I think my definition of slow, old, smelly and unreliable stems from my school days back in the early 1980's.
We had a school bus run by GM buses, much the same as everything else at that time. The bus was supposed to arrive at 8.40 every morning. Very often it would turn up at 8.55, making about 60-70 children late for school. The number of times our school Secretary was on the phone to GM to complain was ridiculous. She was a very patient woman normally, but you could tell after a while she was getting fed up of it. And that was when it bothered to turn up at all.
Very often we would just get the normal service bus, due to arrive 8.38, usually arrived around 8.50ish. I remember one morning in 1983, 4 of us went for the service bus when the school bus failed to turn up. It was almost 9.00 by this time and we were late for school. We got to the bus stop at 9.01, bus due 9.03, at 9.10 up rolled a 10 year old M registered GM bus. It was going that slow, my mate sitting next to me said 'We could run faster than this bloody bus'. It stank of cigarettes, as smoking was allowed on buses at that time, smelly black smoke belching from the exhaust, and we eventually arrived at school at 9.30. School teacher wasn't happy, secretary yet again rang to complain to GM, and a few weeks later there was a big assembly about it with the Headmaster. He was not happy one bit.
As for fares, well, weekly passes were introduced upon de-regulation, much cheaper than normal fares and have lasted strong to this day on many services.
And yes, you're right. It was a mammoth task for Stagecoach and other companies to overturn fleets left behind in the wake of public ownership. Looks like they've got it right now though.
This is just my experience, but highlights the reasons why I think de-regulation has worked.
It may not be perfect all of the time, but surely a vast improvement on how we used to live.

De-rugulation has not worked, you say you travalled to school in the early 80's but GM buses did not appear until d-reg in oct '86!!

In October '86 the big companies were split so that there were no monopaly anywhere but look at the situation now, even worse

It was indeed 1983 as stated in the post.
As far as GM are concerned it's all in a name. Maybe I got that wrong but I was only a child at the time so didn't take much notice of names, just remember the experience I had.
There was a huge monopoly as the whole service was Government owned and run.
You don't get unreliable buses these days. If you're expecting a bus you can now expect a reasonable aged (usually max 6 years old) bus to turn up on time, not to break down, smoke free, environmentally friendly and to run smoothly. Yes technology has moved on, but it's had to because of the COMPETITION. Companies don't spend millions on improvements if there's no competition.
If buses were like they were back in the 1980's they would be out of business in no time no matter how big they were.