Ridley blasts PTEs
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TRANSPORT SECRETARY Nicholas Ridley last week attacked the efficiency of the Passenger Transport Executives.
Speaking at an Association of County Councils conference, Mr Ridley said that if the PTE fleets got their costs down to the levels of the National Bus Company operators in the same. metropolitan counties, they could save between seven and 23 per cent of their total costs.
This would be equivalent to eliminating between 30 per cent and 95 per cent of their bus subsidy levels "without a penny on fares or a single service reduction".
If the most expensive PTE cut its costs to the level of the most cost effective it could cut £17m a year without touching fares or services.
It was not only in the metropolitan counties that such questions should be addressed, he went on. There was an enor mous range of expenditure on subsidies in counties which were very similar.
Shire counties were spending anywhere between less than 50p and more than £12.50 per head of population on bus subsidies.
Metropolitan counties were spending between about £8.50 and well over £45. It also seemed that the cost of running a bus for a mile in the shire counties this year was going to vary from under £1 to about £1.70. "If the bus strays over into metropolitan county its costs seem to jump to anything up to £2 per mile or more".
"You may tell me this is simplicity and not the whole story. But when I see numbers like these I must take notice," Mr Ridley added.