ABSTRACT

The 1985 Transport Act represented a fundamental change in the philosophy of planning and controlling bus services in the United Kingdom outside London. It reversed the trend, seen in the legislation of the previous two decades, to increase the involvement of local government in the coordination, financing and planning of local bus services. The legislation relied instead upon a belief that the forces of the market were capable of stimulating adequate responses to maintain local bus services; provoke innovatory responses in supply; and above all generate an increased efficiency in operations. This was to occur in a market where the secular trend of demand, over the previous 30 years, had been one of continuous decline.