De-regulation

[St Helens Rider]

RE: De-regulation
Actually GM Buses was only split in the mid 90's.

[skelmersey]

RE: De-regulation
My point was GM buses did not exist in the early '80s and the previous post refers to de-reg, and 10 years from then an 'M' reg vehicle would have been new in 1973

[Mayneway]

RE: De-regulation
It's hard for me to comment given that I was only born in 1983, but I would say deregulation 'did' work. It got off to s shakey start but early/mid 90's were d-days hey day, certainly in Manchester. All the major corridors were awash with operators offering cheap fares, and even the small estate circulars saw competition between little gems and bee line.

The problems started with the GM split ( in Manchester anyway), the company should have been split into 4 instead of two. In later years both the 'big boy's have been allowed to swallow up to many smaller company's with out so much of a blink of an eye.

An example of what happened where I live in East Manchester. In 2005 Stagecoach bought Dennis's of Dukinfield. The office of fair trading gave the green light to the takeover as their was still sufficient competition from Maynes along Ashton new road, but in 2007 Stagecoach then bought Maynes wiping out that last bit of competition.
In my opinion the OFT should have insisted Maynes was sold to a different company, possibly an out side company such as transdev to keep an active amount of competition in the area.

[St Helens Rider]

RE: De-regulation
I don't think the Government operated fairly in the case of the GM Buses split. GM Buses was split into 2 whilst West Midlands was allowed to stay as one - I feel that this decision was purely political.

[wirralbus]

RE: De-regulation
West Midlands had already gone to NXWM , but being in staunch labour area GMPTA didnt see why they should have to sell it until the Government of the day forced the issue and to make sure it did sell it was split into two halves , there may have been a MMC problem if one of the major bus groups had got the GM Buses operation in its entireity .

[Mayneway]

RE: De-regulation
I'm sure I read in the Greater Manchester buses buses book that the idea of a 4 was split was on the cards.

[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.

[ace]

RE: De-regulation

(18/08/2012 23:34)St Helens Rider Wrote:  Actually GM Buses was only split in the mid 90's.

That was due to privatisation, not de-regulation.
That was when Stagecoach and First were born in 1996.

[wirralbus]

RE: De-regulation

(19/08/2012 18:30)ace Wrote:  

(18/08/2012 23:34)St Helens Rider Wrote:  Actually GM Buses was only split in the mid 90's.

That was due to privatisation, not de-regulation.
That was when Stagecoach and First were born in 1996.

Notice how the companies as such started in Scotland , Stagecoach in Perth and First as Grampian Regional Transport in Aberdeen .

[Metroline1511]

RE: De-regulation

(19/08/2012 12:09)St Helens Rider Wrote:  I don't think the Government operated fairly in the case of the GM Buses split. GM Buses was split into 2 whilst West Midlands was allowed to stay as one - I feel that this decision was purely political.

Apparently local politicians in the West Midlands were more pragmatic. They didn't want privatisation but they realised it was inevitable. They therefore put in an employee bid so as to retain as much control as possible, at least until they sold on to National Express.

(19/08/2012 17:43)wirralbus Wrote:  West Midlands had already gone to NXWM , but being in staunch labour area GMPTA didnt see why they should have to sell it until the Government of the day forced the issue and to make sure it did sell it was split into two halves , there may have been a MMC problem if one of the major bus groups had got the GM Buses operation in its entireity .

Strictly speaking, GM Buses was split in 1993 and both companies sold in 1994, prior to National Express taking over West Midlands Travel in 1995.

Ironically, the government insisted that GM Buses split to help maintain competition in the area. However, not only have they taken over several independents, but the companies are now parts of First and Stagecoach with around 8000 corporate buses each, compared to GM Buses that only had around 2000 buses.