MOREBUS will not hike fares now it has a near-monopoly locally – but will have to put them up because of inflation, its boss says.

The Poole-based bus operator stepped in to take over nearly all the services offered by Yellow Buses before its recent collapse.

Morebus managing director said the demise of Yellow Buses showed how “precarious” some parts of the public transport industry are.

But he said his company faced “too much competition” to consider exploiting its new dominance in the Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch areas.

“We’re competing with rail, with cars, with cycling, with walking, with electric scooters,” he said.

“But the biggest competitor is people not turning out, staying at home with Netflix and Deliveroo.

“Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t go stupid with prices.”

But he said buses were facing rising inflation like any business, even though the supply of diesel was “hedged” to protect the business from short-term rises.

“What we are going to have to do is put our prices up because inflation is very high,” he said.

Morebus moved fast to take over almost every Yellow Buses route when the Bournemouth operation was closed after going into administration.

However, the three routes which are operated under contract from BCP Council – the 18, 33 and 36 – are to be run by another operator from August 15 under a six-month agreement.

The council said Yellow Coaches – the part of the former Yellow Buses which was bought by Xelabus – offered “best value” for the authority.

Mr Wickham said he was sad to see the demise of Yellow Buses, which is thought to be the biggest bus company to fail since 1990.

“It does show how precarious some of parts of the bus industry is at the moment. There’s a toxic combination of factors – people travelling less following Covid, people not going out any more,” he said.

“I don’t think Yellow Buses will be the last company to fall by the wayside this year.”

He added that “competition has done a lot of good for Bournemouth and Poole, with companies upping their game”.

But he said Morebus was now focused on getting passenger growing, as they were by large percentages in the previous decade.

“We’re working to get those passengers back and to get back to the growth trajectory we had before Covid,” he said.

“If people look to a year’s time or two years’ time, they will find things are much better than they were before.”