Damned if you do, damned if you don’t!

How should bus companies respond to competition and when should they compete? Philip Higgs considers the dilemma facing the industry

Philip Higgs is an associate director of TAS. Higgs’s transport career started back in 1986 with Blackpool Transport on the platform staff, practical experience that has proved invaluable as a consultant to bus operators and local authorities. He joined TAS in 1999. TAS has provided research and consultancy services to the public transport industry since 1989, and, with more than 30 employees and associates, is now the largest UK consultancy business to work exclusively within this field.

Philip Higgs is an associate director of TAS. Higgs’s transport career started back in 1986 with Blackpool Transport on the platform staff, practical experience that has proved invaluable as a consultant to bus operators and local authorities. He joined TAS in 1999. TAS has provided research and consultancy services to the public transport industry since 1989, and, with more than 30 employees and associates, is now the largest UK consultancy business to work exclusively within this field.

Stagecoach faces an investigation into its purchase of Preston Bus

Stagecoach faces an investigation into its purchase of Preston Bus

It is perhaps ironic that no sooner has the Office of Fair Trading announced its market study into competition within the bus industry that events in the municipal sector look set to grow the size of the very plcs they are so interested in. The recent referral of Stagecoach’s takeover of Preston Bus to the Competition Commission is the most recent example of this increased level of interest.

Since my last article on the future of municipal operators, Plymouth City Council has announced...