The 1985 Transport Act deregulated the bus industry in Great Britain. The aims of the Act included encouraging small firms to run bus services and allowing competition between bus companies. TRRL carried out a comprehensive programme of work to monitor the effects of the 1985 Act, including case studies of the local effects of changes in services. This report covers competition between two bus companies on a route between St. Austell and Fowey in Cornwall. One company was Cornwall Busways, a subsidiary of the National Bus Company, and the other was Roselyn coaches, a small independent operator with a few local bus services, which had in the past concentrated mainly on contract hire services. The monitoring began a few weeks before deregulation, and continued for just over a year. The report describes the progress of the competition, including changes in services, patronage, service quality and passenger attitudes. A year after the competition had begun, the services on the route had increased by half and patronage had grown to a much greater extent than might have been expected, given the change in services. In May 1988, when monitoring by TRRL ended, the two companies were continuing to operate on the route.
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