NEW CHANCES TO GET IT RIGHT

摘要

There are few surprises in the Tyne & Wear Quality Contract Scheme Board's opinion statement on Nexus's proposed quality contract franchising regime (Buses December), as the quality contract provisions of the Local Transport Act 2008 were never going to deliver a fully integrated transport system of the kind that has existed for many years in continental European cities. This is because it is impossible to do so from the starting point bequeathed by the Transport Act 1985, which introduced the concept of deregulation to UK bus services outside London and Northern Ireland. Like it or not, the past 30 years have effectively taken local authorities out of bus provision and all the power has vested in the operators and increasingly, therefore, in the big five transport groups, which the board highlighted in terms of the weakness of Nexus and its sponsoring North East Combined Authority in the area of bus service planning.