The 7A bus runs four times a day, six days a week. Its 12.5 mile (20 km) route connects four settlements in South Cambridgeshire. But it only runs thanks to a tax payer subsidy of £124 per passenger.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to give them all accounts with Uber?
Jean Wakefield is three months shy of her 80th birthday. She is also - probably - the 7A's most regular passenger. Most Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays she catches it to shuttle between her home near the Imperial War Museum at Duxford airfield and a friend's house in the village of Sawston. She is one of three passengers we meet on the 7A, as it completes two loops through countryside that straddles the M11. "There were more people who used to use it, but several of them have died," Mrs Wakefield, who trained as a nurse, says.
Yes. Yes, it would appear that it would be!
She agrees it gives her some independence and says without it she would have to walk, take a taxi or ask a friend for a lift.
Which might be the only options available in future:
Brian Clifford, A2B's owner and managing director, says he expects passenger numbers to be lower this year. Mr Clifford says "as much as you try and alter it and play with it" the 7A "just never seems to work". He adds: "It doesn't run from a high population area to a high population area. It doesn't run particularly where shoppers or commuters want to go." But it provides "links to villages and settlements that have nothing else".
Given them all Uber accounts and be done with it!
"£124 per passenger" "12.5 miles"?
ReplyDeleteI know petrol/diesel is expensive, and maintenance and wages are now exorbitant but ... WTF?!
The real reason it 'supposedly' costs so much, and why 'no' company will ever be able to make ends meet, let alone make a profit on such routes is ... because of all the red-tape (and the wages of all those bureaucrats 'needed' to enforce it as well as all the extra 'compliance personnel' every company must pay for to ... 'comply' - no more a man and his bus, with Mrs. doing the books companies), over-regulation and elf-an-safety (throw in insurance against not just accidents but frivolous litigation and it's a wonder any company can make a profit doing anything).
It's (I know I say it a lot) Cloward-Piven all the way, yet again. Demand and enforce unrealistic, unnecessary costs and regulations on a company, then complain it's too expensive to run (amazingly the bureaucrats and compliance 'industry' never seem to be short of funds though).
Uber and taxi's sound wonderful ... until, if you like me live in such a tiny rural village, you realise there 'are' no Uber or taxis (there aren't enough passengers or business to make it profitable) and getting one from the next 'big' town (distance only 4 miles) costs a minimum fare of £20.
Here's an idea. Get rid of all the excess, parasitic, waste of the regulators (and their cushy, air-conditioned, jobs 'for the girls') and I just bet some "entrepreneur" will fill the slot (decades ago we had no service, but had the post-bus, multiple church and youth-club mini-buses, and some guy who just took his mini-bus out to get some beer money, and that isn't mentioning the farmers who'd let you sit on the trailer, or the milk tanker who'd drop you off 'on the corner' - all long gone now).
Where I live there is a bus service of sorts, but it isn't very frequent. As a political campaigner, I was out delivering leaflets when I was cornered by an old lady complaining about the bus service. In discussion, she'd recently given up her car, and some few years previously her husband had died, reducing her from one part of a 2-car family to zero cars. It wasn't worth my breath explaining to her that 10 thousand or so electors 99.9% of whom have cars don't make it very good business for a bus company!
ReplyDeleteDon't they have the small 18 seat buses in the UK like we do over here in rural France? We have one that the regional bus service runs between the village and the market town on market days - total cost for return trip - 1 euro.
ReplyDeleteYes we do have smaller buses too. In this case it sounds as though a medium sized hatchback would get the job done.
DeleteIt is not impossible that there is no uber service there either - not everywhere in the UK has taxi service
ReplyDelete"The real reason it 'supposedly' costs so much, and why 'no' company will ever be able to make ends meet, let alone make a profit on such routes is ... because of all the red-tape..."
ReplyDeleteSpot on!
"It wasn't worth my breath explaining to her that 10 thousand or so electors 99.9% of whom have cars don't make it very good business for a bus company!"
Even small companies would like to be in the black!
"Don't they have the small 18 seat buses in the UK like we do over here in rural France?"
It seems they do, though I suspect even that would be too big, as anon points out!
"It is not impossible that there is no uber service there either - not everywhere in the UK has taxi service"
True, but there's likely to be some sort of service that would be cheaper.