If this is pursued then it's the biggest change to buses in a generation. The bits that stood out for me are:

Buy your shares in Mercedes/EvoBus now
There's going to be a lot more Sprinters on the road soon. This report loves Demand Responsive Transport and cites Tees Flex as one of its best practice examples. As well as 17 more pilot projects announced yesterday, the report suggests DRT could be used to as a flexible way to provide evening & weekend services where demand is low & spread out. As such, DRT should be integrated into the scheduled network in terms of branding, timetabling & ticketing. I think this is a great way forward & hopefully it sees towns keeping a core timetabled route in the evening and the rest of the town becomes a DRT zone when the scheduled buses have gone to bed. The report also suggests promoting DRT as a safer way to travel as the door to door nature reduces waiting at bus stops. There's a suggestion a reformed BSOG could pay an enhanced rate to DRT services.  

Improving Roadside Information 
The report asks LTAs to use bus stops as 'free advertising', so as well as high-quality timetable information the infrastructure should be used to promote the advantages of bus travel to passing car users. This is something I've long wanted to see. Hopefully we see the end of anonymous bus stop flags strapped to a lamppost with no clue as to who or what stops there, when it may come or where it may go. The report also asks for partners to actively market their services, including specific tourist services. 

Network Changes
I'm not convinced this report is telling us there's going to be many whole-scale changes or improvements to the network. There's lots of mention of 'reviewing' but also it says LTAs may face 'difficult decisions' about the services they run. This almost always translates to cuts. The impression I get seems to be about stabilising the network before looking to grow patronage. Any new services seem to be about connecting rural communities or extending current service provision into evenings and weekends. There's a few mentions of the change in working patterns toward out-of-town employment parks and shift working so we may initially see more amazon-style worker services. There's specific mention of new 'economically necessary' services which provide access to employment.

Road Management 
The report talks a lot about using traffic management in the form of bus priority to speed up journeys. It also moves to make LTAs legally obliged to consider bus priority in future road developments. We've kind-of seen this done half-heartedly in the past where councils force developers to build in raised curbs & bus stops in new developments but they rarely follow through with a bus service to match. Hopefully Enchanced Partnerships will see bus services genuinely incorporated into urban planning from the start. I'd imagine this will be a big part of a lot of future service improvement partnerships - LTA will build a bus lane in return for operator enhancing timetable and buying new vehicles. There's mention of new powers to enforce traffic violations, LTAs should be careful as not to come across as attacking motorists or the while thing will become too politicised. A good enough bus 'product' should attract users without penalising them for using their cars. 

Legal Complications
I worry there could be some heel-digging by anti-regulation operators like Stagecoach. The report now specially encourages cross-subsidy from profitable services to support unprofitable ones. So if an operator is required to use profits from the 'mainline' to operate the village shopper bus I would have thought they would want some protection from competition on their mainline? Similarly, as the report suggests competitive over-bussing should be removed, how will, for example, GNE be persuaded/forced/compensated for backing down on the Coast Road? Then if these partnerships become legally binding, or at least the operator is only ever going to be paid BSOG if they play ball, then we are surely just edging toward franchising via the back door?

Certainly it'll be interesting to see the reports published toward the end of this year to see how different LTAs respond. I'm sure we'll see some overly ambitious plans as well as some fairly uninspiring ones too. It'll definitely by an interesting 2022 for buses, but probably a fairly uneventful 2021 as bus operators tread water to see what their LTA partners come up with.