Bus industry big guns take aim at Competition Commission findings

The Competition Commission’s belief that there’s not enough competition in bus markets is flawed, say Britain’s biggest bus operators. And they don’t think much of the Commission’s proposed remedies such as bus franchising either.

Andrew Forster

29 July 2011

Stagecoach and Arriva are critical of the Competition Commission’s support for bus franchising

Britain’s major bus operators have fired a barrage of criticism at the Competition Commission’s provisional findings on Britain’s bus market outside London.

The Commission concluded in May that there was an absence of head-to-head competition across much of Britain and that this allowed incumbent operators to reduce the quality of services, for instance by shortening hours of operation, running less frequent or lower quality services, or increasing fares above the level that...