The Story of UK Bus Deregulation

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Of the various forms of public transport in the UK, one of the more contentious is the bus service, with the provision of this alternative to the car having been mired for decades in political turmoil, primarily regarding the matter of its government ownership and subsequent deregulation in the mid-1980s.

Prior to deregulation, the British bus industry was one that had been left to stagnate for decades, with the provision of generous subsidies meaning that there was no incentive for the management to want to invest in the future of the sector, despite the fact that passenger numbers were falling year on year as potential customers turned to the motorcar as their primary mode of transport.

In the 1980s, the Thatcher government privatised the system, meaning each of the individual bus companies would be forced to sink or swim on their own merits, and thereby engendering innovations in vehicles, service patterns, pricing and real-time information, though by contrast, a lack of major investment by the local authorities to support the bus industry, means its ability to work as efficiently as possible has been largely missed, and today the various firms still struggle to maintain competitive numbers against the car.

Chapters:

0:00 - Preamble
1:00 - The Nationalised Era
5:23 - Privatisation Begins
9:21 - Deregulation
13:22 - A False Hope?
18:00 - The Bus Industry Today
22:53 - Conclusion

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References:
- "Buses: deregulation in the 1980s" by Louise Butcher (2010)
- AROnline (and their respective sources)
- Wikipedia (and its respective references)