A few weeks ago, like many an academic, I got off the diesel at Leuchars Junction en route to St Andrews University. To find out that the Stagecoach bus to town had swept out of the station forecourt five minutes earlier. “It wis stupid to close the railway doon,” said one of St Andrews’ philosophical taxi drivers, pocketing his eight quid.
Scotland is presently supplying bus services to the world in the way that it used to supply tobacco or opium. Brian Souter of Stagecoach and Moir Lockhead of First Group are big, big names, fighting it out for control of services that are at least partly in the public domain, from Scandinavia to Hong Kong. Meanwhile bus use in the old country has been going down the Swanee. Over the past decade or so bus miles run have gone up by 25 per cent and passenger miles down by the same amount. A 1 per cent increase in the past year becomes a triumph for an industry that City analysts consider a near-miraculous cash cow. Why the paradox?
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