Was D-Reg pointless?

[skelmersey]

Was D-Reg pointless?
As we are now 30 years into the time since the de-regulation of bus services I wonder if anyone like me thinks that the reasons for it have backfired.

It was supposedly done to increase competition and give passengers a choice of operators and fares with company's vying with each other and supposedly offering lower fares in the process. Operators were privatised and in some cases split up as they were deemed too big and would have too much of an advantage in this new market.

The competition did occur for a good while but we really have a situation now in which we have operators that are much bigger now that what we had prior to this. Arriva and Stagecoach are surely bigger than the PTE's and the NBC's back in the day. And surely taking we have higher fares now than we had then taking into account inflation of course.

It was supposedly done for the good of the passenger but really it was another exercise of Thatcher to rid the government of costs that help the low paid and vulnerable.