Does anyone know where I can access any resources on how Nottingham developed its public transport netowork to what it is now? It is arguably the 3rd best system in the UK (behind Manchester and London) despite being the 9th largest city. With austerity getting worse in this country, I wonder if there’s anything worth learning about how to establish good public transport on a budget. Maybe similar sized cities like Leicester or even bigger like Leeds can adopt some of the strategies that made Nottingham into an easy place to travel around without a car.
There were large bus businesses before Stagecoach and First (BET and Tilling for example) but I think deregulation was ideological first and at best the emergence of local and regional monopolies was the invisible hand of the markets.