(01 Jun 2023, 10:22 am)Adrian wrote It'd give the elected mayor of the NEMCA (NECA will be dissolved when we elect a mayor) the power to bring in franchising of bus services across the whole LA7 area, and unlike areas without transport powers, there's no consultation process with the Government before doing that.

NEMCA would take over the managerial responsibilities of the bus network, including setting services, routes, hours of operation, branding, ticketing, payment methods and passenger information. Operators would need to bid for franchises (typically lots, as oppose to single services under current Nexus contracts) to run services in the LA7 area, as commercial registrations wouldn't be permitted - typically because NEMCA would take over the Traffic Commissioner's role on bus registrations for the area.

Secured services are currently cobbled together from dozens of places that commercial operators feel aren't worth serving at particular times of day or at all. They try and fill as many gaps as possible, whilst not really providing the best or most convenient route from A to B. With a full franchising scheme, these places would be served by services included by a lot, without the ability of an operator cherry picking say the X1 in Washington but abandoning the 82 as not viable. Of course, on the other hand, it's guaranteed money for an operator regardless of how a service performs, so I'd hope the contracts will include some significant performance-based objectives to them.

In my opinion, franchising is a great start and the most likely way we'll get an integrated transport network, but it's far from ideal. The sooner the ban on municipals is removed, the better.

There's a document the Govt released here, which you may find of use: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk...nities.pdf

Let’s see how Manchester get on with their franchising first, before we wish for it up here. 
There is no guarantee that franchising will deliver better services - indeed I suspect we’ll see the return of forced interchange onto Metro which won’t prove popular with passengers and will be seen as a worsening of services.
Life and people’s expectations have changed a lot during the last 37 deregulated years.
Deregulation has lasted more than twice the length of the PTE era (and the NBC era) and as lot longer than the BTC/THC nationalised era (1948-1969).