Paul Weaver wrote:
On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 18:16:30 +0100, Joe wrote:

From TfL Press Room
/*
Competition for contracts in London's £1.4 billion-a-year bus
market
is increasing as Transport for London (TfL) announces that National
Car
Parks (NCP) has been awarded its first contracts to operate London
bus
routes.

So they'll be competing with themselves?

I suppose they take the view that if they didn't operate those routes,
someone else would. They're only following their rival, Centra, anyway.

There's something a bit sad about companies who only want to run buses
in London, e.g. NCP, Metroline, Connex in the past, Serco perhaps in
the future.

They're not real bus companies; if there was an opportunity for new bus
services in Bolton, Bristol or Brum they wouldn't spot it. But call it
a franchise and they all come running! It's like they have no
initiative or creativity. They cannot grow a business. All they are
capable of is cutting costs. It's the sad side of public transport in
my opinion.

Dominic