OPINION: My thoughts on the bus franchising consultation

On 6th January this year, a public consultation was announced and launched by West Midlands Metro Mayor Richard Parker for people to ‘have their say’ on a future bus franchising system, and I urge readers to find out more and ‘have your say’ by taking part.

Having read through the documents provided, I will start this opinion piece by stating that I am not opposed to the idea of bus franchising in principle, and there are various aspects to it that I would agree with and support. And the purpose of this article is not to influence others on how they comment on the consultation.

The main concern I have is that this will end up costing ordinary taxpayers far more in the long-term.

I have believed for several years that there does need to be a wholesale review of the bus network in the West Midlands, to make sure it meets the needs of the people who use it, ie travelling passengers. I do fondly remember the days when there were consultations carried out that the public were invited to participate, when local network reviews took place in Solihull, Dudley, Sandwell etc.

One of the aims of the franchising scheme is to do just that: build a bus network that works for everyone who uses it, rather than just satisfying the commercial needs of privately owned bus companies.

Another aim of the franchising scheme is to ensure that bus fares are kept low, and affordable to everyone.

Under franchising, bus operators will be contracted to operate bus services, and they will be paid an agreed rate, with TfWM collecting all fares revenue. The WMCA (West Midlands Combined Authority) intends to own all depots and vehicles – which they will have to purchase from the current operators – which they will then lease back to the contracted operators.

So the contract price will factor in the costs of depot and vehicle lease/maintenance, as well as fuel costs and not forgetting the costs of employing and paying staff to drive and maintain the vehicles. And because nobody does this kind of work for free, the contract price will also include a reasonable profit margin for the operator to make.

At this point in time, the commercial bus network is “at risk” because bus operators are not earning enough revenue to cover costs and other overheads, as well as make a reasonable profit to invest back into the business through purchasing of new vehicles or giving staff a well-deserved pay rise. (Profits don’t just go into the pockets of shareholders, despite what many people are led to believe!)

Either fares go up – to increase revenue – or services get cut back and/or withdrawn – to reduce operating costs. That’s the cold hard reality of how privately-owned commercial businesses operate.

At present, I’m not quite seeing how the WMCA expects to pay operators a contracted rate so they are not making a loss, while at the same time promising passengers lower fares.

The WMCA is expecting that the franchising scheme will pay for itself through collecting revenue. But what if fare revenue doesn’t meet expectations? Bus operators still get paid their contracted rate, even if (theoretically) their buses don’t carry a single passenger all day. The WMCA admits in its franchising assessment that all revenue risk passes onto themselves, rather than the bus operators.

If there is a shortfall in funding through revenue income, the only other way to pay for this scheme will be an increase in everyone’s council tax bills through a ‘mayoral precept’. For those that are interested, that is one way that Manchester’s mayor Andy Burnham has been able to continue to keep single journey fares capped at £2.

And what will a future franchised bus network look like? The WMCA is already ‘anticipating’ that it can operate an ‘efficient’ bus network with far fewer buses than are currently in use today. It points out examples of “over-bussing” on the 50 and the Sutton Lines (X3/X4/X5/110) corridor in its documents, where it believes more buses are being used than is actually required.

It is probably true that without different operators competing against each other, for the average passenger loadings, fewer vehicles could be required. But this then comes at a cost of lower frequencies for passengers, and potentially more overcrowded buses.

To conclude this for now, in principle I am not opposed to the idea of franchising our bus network, if it results in delivering the promised improvements for bus passengers. However my main concerns surround how this scheme will be funded, and what additional financial burden will be placed on taxpayers, even those that do not use buses.

Bus services cost money to provide and operate, and those costs have risen in recent years to unsustainable levels, because ticket prices have not increased in line with the same rate of inflation. Which is why private operators have needed additional support funding to keep the current commercial bus network in place.

Everyone gets upset when Greggs puts up the price of their sausage rolls, or Costa puts up the price of a cup of coffee, but they go ahead and pay the new price regardless; no-one expects the Government or local authority to give them funding to keep sausage rolls below £2, or a cup of coffee below £3.

Franchising our bus services will deliver some benefits to bus passengers, but people should not assume that buses will somehow magically become more reliable and turn up on time, as well as being cheaper to travel on.


For the purposes of transparency, here are my own responses to the consultation below, and I have submitted them as my own individual opinion, rather than as any ‘official’ statement from West Midlands Bus Users.

It seems however that I may have said “something wrong”, as a week later I noticed that my response to the short questionnaire is still “pending moderation”. As are a number of others! I’d be interested in hearing from other participants who’ve had their contribution ‘moderated’.

All public responses can be found here: https://busreform.commonplace.is/en-GB/contributions/proposal/short-questionnaire


(S1) There are several challenges facing the West Midlands Bus Network which means that it is not performing as well as it could. Do you have any comments on this?

There’s a definite “chicken and egg” situation in that bus patronage is declining because passengers are being put off by longer journey times and bus service reliability caused by road congestion. But the trouble is that as more people switch to using their own cars, it is just making the traffic congestion worse. It is difficult to attract people onto buses for this reason. I also feel there has been in recent years a lot of ‘negative messaging’ surrounding buses perpetuated by the media, which fuels this perception among many people that “buses are expensive”, “buses are filthy and dirty” etc, which doesn’t help.

(S2) Reform is considered to be the right thing to do to address the challenges facing the local bus market. Do you have any comments on this?

I have believed for some time that there needs to be a ‘wholesale’ review of the bus network to ensure that routes meet the needs of passengers who use them, as travelling patterns have changed over the years. But I also believe that this ‘network review’ needs to involve passengers who use the buses, there is too much reliance on data and ‘modelling’ rather than asking passengers what they ‘want and need’.

(S3) Do you have any comments on the approach to procuring, operating, and managing the Proposed Franchising Scheme?

It appears to me that this will end up very expensive for the WMCA to set up, if it intends to buy depots and vehicles, for its contracted operators to then lease and use. I’m not sure if the WMCA has considered the costs of replacing vehicles at the end of their lifespan – one of the reasons for the slow update of ZEBs is their comparative higher cost compared to Euro6 diesel vehicles. The “Big Groups” (Arriva, First, Go-Ahead, Stagecoach etc) will no doubt benefit if they are not having to make any capital investment themselves into depot infrastructure and vehicle acquisitions, though I agree this also allows some enterprising smaller operators to become involved as well.

(S4) It is suggested that the Proposed Franchising Scheme will offer value for money. Do you have any comments on this?

There seems to be some assumption made that the franchising scheme will improve passenger ridership. On its own it won’t, there does need to be investment made in bus priority measures such as bus lanes/gates and ‘smart’ junctions, which are the only ways to improve bus service reliability. And these would benefit bus operators, whether services were operated commercially or under contract.
“Value For Money” is only really measured by whether bus users end up paying more for their fare to cover the enormous initial investment by the WMCA, or whether taxpayers as a whole see an increase in their council tax bills to justify this expenditure.

(S5) It has been concluded that the WMCA could afford to introduce and operate the Proposed Franchising Scheme, but this carries additional financial risk. Do you have any comments on this?

Of course there is a huge financial risk! And this would fall on taxpayers, rather than private commercial companies. Bus operators will still be paid to provide services, even if no passengers were carried. The commercial risk thus passes from private companies to the taxpayer, via the WMCA.
I’m not sure if the WMCA has closely looked at bus operators’ current operational costs in order to build up a picture of what the eventual contract costs could look like, compared to the expected revenue to be received.
One does have to question why so many commercially-operated services are no longer deemed to be viable, when considering operating costs and revenue received.

(S7) Are there any changes that you think would improve the Proposed Franchising Scheme?

When it comes to reviewing the network of bus routes, there needs to be a full public consultation that bus passengers can be actively involved in. Please don’t just design a bus network based on historical passenger ‘data’ or ‘modelling’. Ask people what they need. When it comes to services at risk of withdrawal due to ‘low usage’, find out “why” this is the case! Where do people want to travel to? Are these ‘at risk’ services no longer useful for passengers?

(S8) Do you have any comments on the Health and Equity implications as set out in the Health and Equity Assessment?

No comment, I believe in treating and considering everyone equally, regardless of their status.

(S9) Do you have any further comments?

There’s a lot of negativity in this consultation directed in particular at National Express as the ‘dominant’ operator, as well as statements about profits not being ‘invested back into the bus network’.
The whole purpose of a commercial enterprise is to make money and profit. Companies need to make profit so they can reinvest it, both National Express and Diamond Bus have used their profits to invest in new vehicles and technologies which have ultimately benefitted passengers in recent years.
While I am broadly in favour of the advantages that bus franchising will bring to bus passengers such as myself in the West Midlands region, I am concerned that the true costs are not being made clear, and I don’t think it will be possible to deliver the same current level of service provision at the current – or lower – fares for passengers, not without a huge increase in council tax-payers bills through a Mayoral precept.



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About WMBU

I'm Stu, and I created West Midlands Bus Users in 2013 to share news, info and opinion with fellow bus users in the West Midlands.
I've been travelling around on buses since my teens, and use them every day as I don't drive.

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