The Competition Commission reverts to type
The Competition Commission is conducting a two year inquiry into the local bus market I don’t know about you, but I prefer my fudge to come from Devon and contain clotted cream rather than come in the form of thousands of pages from the Competition Commission’s (CC) dithering economists. Of course no doubt I would […]
Building the case for bus – one fact at a time
We need to assemble the case for bus – piece by piece Facts and evidence doesn’t always win the day (otherwise we would be living in a very different world!) but if you want to win a public policy debate having a combat ready armoury of evidence at your disposal is important. And important becomes […]
Bus services – a tale of three Englands?
Is England split in three now as far as bus services are concerned? London – enjoying one of the best bus services on the planet. The Metropolitan and large urban areas – where the bus remains a player and so far cuts in supported services have been minimised. And then the rest – where for some […]
The end of bus deregulation red in tooth and claw?
Bus wars could be consigned to history The Competition Commission is a black box that sucks masses of data and information in but what’s going to come out of it you don’t know until the lid suddenly opens. Or half opens in the case of the interim report. And the interim report is paradoxically both […]
What future for BSOG?
DfT have been sending out some clear messages recently that although the funding level for BSOG may be fixed – the way that it’s paid, and what it’s paid for – is not. Public money is a precious commodity these days and although the ‘could have been worse’ reductions in BSOG indicate that the bus […]
20 things I learned from our big city cycling conference in Sheffield
After all the hard work that we put into it (along with conference organisers, Waterfront and key partners CTC and Sustrans) I couldn’t have been happier with the way our big city cycling conference in Sheffield went. More than 80 delegates (a good cross section of local transport authority and cycling organisations) turned out for […]
The bus as media cause celebre
The humble bus has recently become a media darling – will it last? In the media’s chart of zeitgeist cuts, buses were in with a bullet this month following CBT’s launch of the Save Our Buses campaign. Indeed bus cuts were number two on the BBC website for a while. In times past buses only made the […]
Total mobility – brave new world
I don’t go to that many general transport conferences these days as I fear I will feel like I’ve heard too much of it too many times before. So it was a pleasure to go to an LSE Cities evening event last week on electric mobility. A get together of an eclectic and international mix […]
Hammond's world of numbers
Philip Hammond is the equivalent of a particularly able finance director, parachuted in to take over what he sees as a failing company – a company perilously close to administration. He’s no romantic like his equally able predecessor, Lord Adonis, but he is just as focussed. You know where you are with Hammond. Mainly because […]
A perfect storm?
A storm brewing for the city regions outside London? It’s not just the indifferent weather that’s been casting shadows over the long summer days. At the back of many minds is uncertainty and concern over just how bad it’s going to be once the spending review kicks in from the Autumn onwards. And for local […]