Due to car trouble, this week I have been commuting by bus. Although a car is convenient and often necessary for my work, I do like just being able to sit back and let someone else do the driving for a change.

Of course, it’s also more environmentally-friendly if more of us leave the cars at home and take public transport.

I like the half-hour or so it takes to get into Bradford, spending it not getting steamed up by everyone else’s stupid driving, but reading a book, contemplating the day’s news or just staring out of the window at the crisp winter mornings.

What I’m not so enamoured about, though, is the actual cost.

I know that if I was taking public transport on a permanent basis, I’d be able to take advantage of season tickets and such-like, but the day-to-day cost to the occasional commuter is, to my mind, the one thing that stops more people using public transport.

I worked out that the daily cost of fares is, pretty much, more than what I’d spend on taking the car into work, factoring in not only petrol but a week’s division of tax and maintenance costs.

Surely, if the green lobby is going to get more people on the buses, then it should actually be cheaper than running a car? If you’re sacrificing the convenience of your motor and putting yourself at the mercy of timetables and possible overcrowding, then there surely must be some recompense in monetary terms?

I realise that the bus companies have to, you know, make some kind of money out of services, otherwise they’re just not worth running.

However... remember when public transport didn’t actually have to make a profit? Remember when the buses were run by the state, not private companies who, quite rightly, wanted some kind of return out of the service they were providing?

In these straitened times, of course, it would be a pipedream to expect the Government to fund the running of buses and trains. It’s been two decades since public transport was privatised by Margaret Thatcher, and the state purse has grown used to not providing this kind of service to the public.

I’m a simple old soul, though, and I can’t help thinking that if there was a state-run service, that ran at a more reasonable fare structure, then more people might use buses. Hey, we could even go the whole hog and have a return to the days of bus conductors. Who knows, a positive knock-on effect might be a return of classic TV shows such as On The Buses.

I once knew a bloke who was convinced the country started going to hell in a handcart the moment they “allowed” women to work as ‘clippies’ on buses.

Or maybe, in this context, it was when they “allowed” a woman – namely Mrs T – to sell off public transport. Now you’ll have to excuse me – my bus leaves in two minutes.