| Comment | To add to this, and without wanting to seem like a shill for the private operators, there are some things about our bus network that make it more expensive to run and much much less efficient than it could be. Raising costs that even a publicly owned network would face:
* Bus stop dwell times: When you compare to most other cities, there are far too many bus stops on most Glasgow bus routes, and they're far too close together. Buses spend a significant amount of their journey time dwelling at bus stops. This is a legacy of privatisation, with some bus stops established to serve specific operators, but it now being quite politically difficult to remove them. It's completely unhelpful for the bus network to have bus stops 150-250 metres apart on most routes.
* Drivers selling tickets: Unlike most continental cities where you purchase a ticket in advance, the default method here is for passengers to buy their ticket from the driver. This adds *a lot* to bus stop dwell times and makes journeys a lot longer than they could be otherwise.
Overall this makes the service slower, less cost effective, and less attractive for potential passengers. |
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