I’d sooner have a state-run monopoly than a private one

It’s said of fascist Italy that although it wasn’t on the whole a lovely place to be, Mussolini at least managed to make the trains run on time.

Now, just to make it quite clear, I’m not suggesting that the time is ripe for a fascist march on Leamington. I wonder, though, how bad the buses have to get before students lay down their passes and take up bloody insurrection instead. It can’t be all that far off. There are times when the English language scarcely seems endowed with the adjectives to describe the misery of the bus journey between campus and Leamington Spa. Each journey is fraught with potential dangers: the bus might be too full, or late, or it might simply not show up at all. It does happen.

And then there are the various niggles – the little tricks the companies play to squeeze a few extra pounds out of you. There’s no real reason for the 12 bus, for example, not to give change. Countless are the times I’ve lost a fiver to Travel Coventry after giving up on the (even less useful) U1. There’s also the stealth charge on travelling with Stagecoach after midnight, even if you’ve paid 300 quid for a yearly pass; and the fluctuating prices, which seem to correspond to the advertised fares only on certain days at certain times.

The drivers don’t help. Some of them, it is true, are friendly and helpful. But their professionalism is blotted out by the ubiquitous grump: rude and patronising, with a manner that suggests the customer’s mere existence is an unnecessary and unwelcome distraction.

There was a time when buses were a real public service, run by local authorities. Then, at least, there was somebody to complain to. But then came privatisation, for which we can thank Mrs Thatcher. The logic of privatisation was that competition would ensure accountability – that the market would eliminate poor quality providers.

And that would be just wonderful, if only there was actually some competition around. But there isn’t. How can I take my custom elsewhere? Walk? Take a taxi? Move to somewhere where another company operates? As it stands there is next to no incentive for the local companies to improve their service. The market has given us a choice not between the greater of two goods, but between the lesser of two evils.

We reported on theboar.org last week that fares are on the rise again. No doubt a rise in fuel tax on buses is partly to blame. But that doesn’t hide the fact that Stagecoach, which provides the U1, U2 and U12 services, makes itself a tidy profit, paying some very juicy dividends – such is the reward for investing in an oligopolistic service ready to squeeze students dry.

Would it not be a fairer, more equitable state of affairs for the money that we pay to get to campus to be re-invested in the service, or in the local community? Is it not time for local government to take proper responsibility for the buses? I’d sooner have a state-run monopoly that a private one. Local politicians, if nothing else, must maintain a reasonable service to stay in office. And, unlike private shareholders, they don’t profit from hard-up students.

I can almost hear the dismissive sighs of economics students, to whom state-run enterprise is probably unthinkable. I wouldn’t try to argue that privatisation doesn’t have its benefits for many industries. But public transport, I’m afraid, is not one of them. Nationalisation is a dirty word to many, but it seems like the only option.

The private sector has failed us. It’s time for the bus service we deserve.