Sir – Unfortunately, a competition inquiry (Report and Leader, August 27) will probably ignore the main factor that keeps fares down, and be unable to admit that competition can increase fares, if the market isn’t managed.
The main factor that drives down fares is the provision of bus lanes. This substantially reduces operating costs.
The risk of another bus company running a rival service means that when costs go down, fares tend to go down too.
An important supporting factor is the provision of cycle lanes. This reduces demand for short-distance bus travel, leaving the buses to provide for longer trips. This means that buses are fuller for more of their journey, so the fare-per-mile doesn’t need to be quite so high.
In Oxford, we’ve been providing for buses and cyclists for 35 years; we need to keep doing this if we want bus fares to be lower. We probably also need to resist the temptation to switch to trams!
Unfortunately, we’ve also seen that competition leads to lots of single-decker buses and long dwell times at bus stops, especially on routes where companies compete head-to-head.
This increases costs and fares. Competition doesn’t always produce the optimum result.
This needs to be controlled, with the bus companies obliged to use double-deckers and electronic ticketing on the busiest routes.
Richard Mann, Oxford
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