On 6 October, the Competition Commission published detailed and wide-ranging proposals to open up bus markets across the UK to greater competition. In May of this year, the CC published its provisional findings (and in August additional provisional findings on tacit co-ordination, see our September 2011 Bulletin following its investigation into the local bus market in the UK (excluding London and Northern Ireland).
The Commission's proposed remedies include:
- increasing the number and effectiveness of multi-operator ticketing schemes (recommending changes to the ticketing block exemption to assist this process) to make it easier for small new entrants to capture individual local routes;
- ensuring that new entrants and competing operators can obtain access to bus stations managed by other local operators on fair terms;
- recommending that the Department for Transport updates its best practice guidance for local transport authorities on tendering for supported services;
- recommending that the local transport authorities consider introducing partnerships with operators as a means of improving passenger information and growing bus patronage; and
- recommending that the OFT applies a high priority to identifying bus mergers between competing operators, takes a cautious approach in exercising its discretion not to refer small mergers and updates its competition guidance for the industry.
Jeremy Peat, Chairman of the local bus market investigation group, explained:
"these measures aim to get to the heart of the problems we have identified and open up local bus markets to entry and expansion... This is a comprehensive set of practical and sensible measures which will help encourage more competition and benefit passengers".
The Commission is consulting on the proposals before it publishes its final report later this year
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