(01 Jun 2023, 4:35 pm)busmanT wrote 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).