Yes. In a way, that point is tied up with what previous witnesses said about integrated fares, which could address some of the problems with exact-fare systems.
I take a slightly different view from the others. I have been around the industry for more than 50 years. I was around in the days before deregulation and the days since deregulation, and I worked in the industry at the time of deregulation. Over the past 30 years, since deregulation, I have seen the bus industry perform much better for the passenger. In the pre-deregulation days, the passenger was near the bottom of the heap. I worked for the Scottish Bus Group, which provided millions of journeys throughout Scotland every day. It was all about performance and production, rather than about the passenger or end user.
I look around with the benefit of that experience and I see bus companies that are commercially motivated and which understand the passenger much better than they used to. They understand that marketing can reach the passenger; they understand the market and that they can sell products in it. Of course it is not perfect, but I believe that we are much further on. I have seen the figures, and I know the reasons for them. I suspect that the bill cannot address some of the issues, such as home working and internet shopping, which have affected bus passenger numbers hugely. People are not travelling because they are working on electronic machines at home.
A lot of the issues could be addressed by the part of the bill on bus service improvement partnerships. I am a great believer in partnerships. Partnerships between local authorities and bus companies can achieve a great deal. Local authorities can provide the track. One problem, which Chris Day mentioned, is the marked difference in passenger loss across the country. It is fairly flat in many parts, but the reduction is fairly frightening in the west and south-west of Scotland. A lot of that is to do with access to the roads, parking, control and providing the track.
I have been at a Confederation of Passenger Transport conference for the past two days. The question of using roads such as the M8 into Glasgow was raised. Bus operators using the M8 are finding themselves held back by the sheer amount of traffic on the road. If buses were given a track or priority, they could get their passengers through much more quickly. That would persuade a lot of people to leave their cars—perhaps at park-and-ride sites—and travel into the city centre by bus. The bill can address some of the problems through encouraging partnerships between local authorities and bus companies.