A study of the supply of and demand for peak public transport services in an area centred on the large free-standing town of Northampton is reported. Two publicly-owned bus companies supplied virtually all the stage services within the area while, by contrast, 24 privately-owened bus and coach companies supplied the vast majoroty of the numerous contract services to schools and workplaces. In the morning peak the two goups of companies ran comparable numbers of in-service vehicle kilometres in their respective areas of operation. While the publicly-owned companies carried about twice as many passengers as the private ones they generally catered for shorter journeys so that the numbers of passenger-kilometers carried by the two groups were comparable. A smaller though significant amount of transport was provided for workers by employer-owned vehicles. Fares were not charged at all on the majority of works services and on many of the remainder were only nominal so employers were shown to provide substantial financial support for public transport within the study area, alongside the County Councils (who provided the overwhelming majority of school services) and central government. There was judged to be only very limited competition between the stage buses and other services