Over the summer I co-authored a new report for Common Wealth with Joseph Baines and Miriam Brett on the impacts of bus privatization and deregulation in the UK. One of our more shocking findings is that the “real” cost of cost of taking the bus and coach have doubled since 1987, while the real cost of driving one’s own private automobile has fallen by 12 percent over the same period.

These divergent costs matter for a number of reasons. First, they hinder efforts to tackle the climate emergency, as the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from car travel far exceed those of buses and coaches. Second, they have highly regressive distributional effects, as rich households in the UK are much more likely to own a car than poor ones, who instead rely on increasingly costly bus and coach services.

Soaring bus fares finance the private investments of the bus companies, which partially offset the collapse in government investment in public transport since 2011. They also finance the millions in dividend payments that the bus companies have paid out to their shareholders, which include high net worth individuals, banks, asset management companies, and firms owned by foreign governments.

Our report makes it clear that the deregulated, privatized model of bus service must be replaced with municipal and public bus ownership to usher in a green, affordable, and vibrant future for passengers and communities across the UK.

A summary of the key points in the report was published in Tribune Magazine.