Ah yes. Public transport…
The railways in Britain were built and designed in C19 and haven’t had much done to the basic layouts since – most of the track follows the same routes that it did then. I have had it explained to me that many long distance routes in Europe were able to be redesigned due to dictator-lead urban renewal in the 1940s and this did allow for the installation of easier bends and straighter lines between towns. This is not the case in Britain.
Previously the rail service was one entity – now it is god-knows how many, with the actual rails and stations operated by yet another company; the whole business was once an excellent example of a working monopoly – especially if you compare it to now… There are now too many chiefs paring down the Indians – and we all know that it is never the chiefs that are sacrificed in economy drives. Public service routes are left to fester because they do not make money, just so that the boss-man can say that no-one uses that service and it can therefore be closed down. Hub stations are improved, turned into palaces of gleaming chrome (because that is where most passengers will be waiting for their delayed trains) and suburb stations are allowed to fall victim to vandals because there are no longer any staff on site to watch over them. The trains are maintained on an I.R.A.N. basis – Inspect and Repair As Necessary – and the older ones have to cover for the newer ones because the suppliers are now having to cover for several different customers with several different requirements to as low a unit cost as possible, all demanded by a committee of suits living safe in the knowledge that they will never need to travel by train (you only have to look at the train designed with the on-board toilets flushed not by a handle but by a button, and to the same design and same height as the emergency stop button – no longer a chain – which caused havoc not too long ago…).
And the companies don’t want to spend more than necessary – who does – so redundant duplication and over design are now terms from the past; from the previous generation of trains in fact, when there would be two or three cables – not one – for important power lines so that the service could still be run until the train reached its terminus, for example.
And the company which owns the track and the stations wants to save money too, so the gangs which did repairs and maintenance found themselves out of a job but with a recommendation that they might try and join the company that had been awarded the contract to…repair and maintain the track – but under contract themselves and usually for a lower wage. Stations were sold off too, to people who suddenly found themselves now regarded as rail staff by potential rail-users who expected railway stations to be staffed by rail-workers and not other members of the public living in a now reclassified domestic dwelling with a railway alongside…

Buses? Name a bus company that will train its drivers. You want to be a bus driver you will have to get your P.S.V. license yourself – there are too many looking for work for the companies to worry about training their drivers. But there is a problem with this routine: local knowledge by staff declines. Drivers become prepared to move to where the work is – which is good news for the companies! I travelled on a bus last summer in Cornwall driven by a Scouse driver living in Exeter (so he had to travel to get to his working area every day) who had been working for the company in Wales a couple of weeks before. Good news for him maybe, but the old couple whose stop he missed because he didn’t know the area didn’t seem too happy… Had the delay been a traffic jam a driver with local knowledge would have known how to get to his nest stop by using other roads; not the case anymore.
But in other areas the buses will be late because the gas people decided to dig up the high street to fix a gas leak caused by cheap piping, or because an HGV had to double park to off load as lazy drivers parked on the double yellow lines, inconvenient traffic accidents, or (as happened in my old area a few years ago) part of the route has suddenly – over night and without consultation with the bus company or its users – become a one-way street but not in the same direction as the bus was going!

Just a few pointers – and this is before anyone starts on the antisocial aspects of public transport (travelling with the public, essentially)…

Flood.