Ever wondered the answer to this question? I've posted a series of articles on my Substack tracking the course of public transport policy in the UK through the 20th century. I answer that title question in the article I have posted today

You can access the rest of the series here

There are still two more articles to come out, tomorrow and Friday, which will bring us up to present day, subscribe if you are interested!

by shawbawzz

16 comments

  2. I honestly didn’t realise we were in a mess. I use busses every day, and there are some minor niggles but overall I’m quite happy with the service.

    I know Edinburgh is a bit of the outlier in that the council still owns the bus service, but what is the mess you’re referring to?

  4. How come Lothian Buses are the exception to the rule and avoided privatisation when Glasgow and others were?

  5. Gangsters own some of the bus company’s 

    Prob don’t help any.

    Mcgills. 

  6. Very interested in this! Fucking nightmare living where I do and it shouldn’t be for anywhere. Not to mention sky high prices.

    This is why it angers me so much when people tout public transport as a solution to climate change in Scotland. I get it, but have they tried being 100% reliant on public transport with no car whatsoever anywhere in Scotland other than Edinburgh? It’s soul destroying. My life is controlled by bus timetables that are largely built on fantasy and it’s exhausting.

  7. Moved to Glasgow from Vancouver last year. Bus services here are shockingly bad. I have to show up at least 15 minutes early to my local stop (the #6) because the bus could be anywhere from 10+ minutes early to 20 minutes late. I have waited more than an hour for a bus to get home from work on multiple occasions.

    Sometimes I’ll wait so long that 2-3 buses were supposed to have come and when one finally shows up it’s just the one and it’s so packed that I’m lucky to even get on it. What happened to the other two buses? If they were late they would have shown up all together but instead they’ve just disappeared apparently.

    I understand that the situation is a little complex here (thanks, Margaret) but back home I buy 1 ticket and it lasts for a couple hours and gets me on any number of buses/trains/ferries that I need without ever having to pull out my wallet a second time. We absolutely need to fight for something like this here.

  8. Do you think the people in charge honestly care one little bit? That’s your answer

  9. Are we allowed to advertise our personal business on this sub? I assumed not. 

  10. A 15 minute bus journey costs me over a fiver, one bus an hour that more than not turns up late and sometimes not at all.

  11. Will say, it’s still leagues ahead of any bus sysem I’ve experienced in Greece

  13. There’s such a bizarre disparity in services in many places – some routes have decent frequency and are reliable, while others are a complete -train- bus wreck. While I don’t expect everywhere to have a bus every 5 minutes, it’s not unreasonable to at least have a reliable service – so if there’s meant to be a bus every hour, it should turn up on time every hour.

    There’s also strange anomalies, where it’s super easy to get to some places but not others.

    For example, if you’re in Dundee and want to go to Arbroath, you’re good – a choice of a coach (30 minutes), or two “normal” stopping services (40 minutes going fast via the A92, or just over an hour via Monifieth and Carnoustie), all from Stagecoach.

    But if you want to go to Perth, your choice of service buses are slow and winding through the Carse of Gowrie, or via Blairgowrie, both taking well over an hour. Realistically, you need to get the Megabus/Flixbus/Ember, which are fine for most people but have poor accessibility.

  15. I think any conclusion that public > private > public means the private part was a failure is a bit too simplistic. The public services of old weren’t fit for purpose and union involvement and pay policies as well as the lack of funds to upgrade services and infrastructure were major issues.

    The privatisation brought investment, competition and broke up unions and gave passengers more choice, however it wasn’t without downsides and as a regular McGills passenger in the west I’d much rather see a Lothian model here rather than this fragmented shambles we have.

  16. I live in a semi-rural, tourist-heavy area, and about a year ago, SPT took over our local bus services. They decided that a 16-seat minibus would be sufficient to cover quite a wide area. However, with all the surrounding hillwalking and the steady stream of tourists, the bus is often packed to capacity. It’s uncomfortably hot, the seats are cramped and awful, there’s absolutely no storage space, and — to add insult to injury — it costs nearly a tenner to get into town, and that’s just for a 30-minute journey.

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