Bus inquiry going nowhere

It seems the blasted customers have "facilitated some exclusionary practices by bus operators". So says the Office of Fair Trading, which today referred the industry to the Competition Commission. What have we done wrong? Here is paragraph 1.18 of the reference: "Bus users are most likely to get on the first bus that appears at the bus stop going to the destination they want." Competition policy, it seems, would be so much easier if human nature was different. The OFT's insight, offered with a straight face, illustrates how difficult it is to increase competition in the privatised bus business. The radical remedy would be to adopt nationally the London model whereby a central authority sets fares and pays the operators to run the buses. But it's hellishly expensive and few local authorities have shown an appetite for it. There may well be useful tweaks that could be made to the set-up, but the market's view that this inquiry is going broadly nowhere looks correct.