It has been a huge improvement in places like Manchester which the OP mentioned has switched to the London model. Before it was unbelievably expensive and fragmented in terms of the service with different providers requiring different fares or weekly/monthly passes. Also never knowing when a bus was going to show up.
Now their an app which shows you when your next bus will arrive tracked by gps so you can leave the house on time to get there, and fares are standardised at £2 per trip or £5 all day.
Before the standardised pricing you had people on minimum wage who would be paying an hour or two of their wage just to get to work.
All this came due to the local Government mandating it, these things could have been implemented before by private companies as they have existed in London for years but they simply chose not too.
alt Hacker News
It has been a huge improvement in places like Manchester which the OP mentioned has switched to the London model. Before it was unbelievably expensive and fragmented in terms of the service with different providers requiring different fares or weekly/monthly passes. Also never knowing when a bus was going to show up.
Now their an app which shows you when your next bus will arrive tracked by gps so you can leave the house on time to get there, and fares are standardised at £2 per trip or £5 all day. Before the standardised pricing you had people on minimum wage who would be paying an hour or two of their wage just to get to work.
All this came due to the local Government mandating it, these things could have been implemented before by private companies as they have existed in London for years but they simply chose not too.