Union-wide bus services to be driven by market forces

Date: 21/05/1998

By Chris Johnstone

MARKET forces and European bus services are set to become travelling companions as Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock explores ways of improving the sector's efficiency.

Regular public tenders for bus services and clear statements of the standards demanded and subsidies offered by local authorities are high on the list of the Commissioner's options to transform Europe's Cinderella buses.

A discussion paper outlining Kinnock's thinking on how the neglected sector should evolve will be published before the end of July, with EU laws likely to follow later.

The initiative is part of the Commission's Citizen's First policy to improve grass-roots transport services. It recognises that facilities tend to be best where there is some element of competition, but baulks at endorsing the free-for-all deregulation which took place in the UK in the 1980s.

This led at first to a flourish of competition, with several bus companies vying for passengers on a single route. Almost a decade later, the many have thinned out into a few large companies.

Across the rest of Europe, competition is having a mixed effect in fuelling change and encouraging efficient services. Local and regional bus services can still be - and are - protected as monopolies in some parts of the EU.

In others, contracts for the exclusive operation of bus services are sporadically opened up to public tender, with bids possible from companies throughout the Union. St Tropez on the sun-kissed Mediterranean and Norfolk on the windswept North Sea both launched EU-wide tenders for their bus services earlier this year.