(31 Mar 2024, 2:08 pm)Adrian wrote I agree with you about the comparisons to Manchester. I don't think there's another network similar to what ours would cover, servicing three Cities, within five Metropolitan boroughs and two rural counties. It's not going to be easy, but doing nothing is a non-starter. The majority of the commercial networks are on life support right now, and if we do nothing, there will be nothing.
A completely public network would be my preference, and hopefully that'll be something that can be aspired to, if Labour keep their promise of scrapping the ban on municipal operators, but I don't think it's impossible for a public-private partnership to work in the interim. It does need almost a blank canvas approach though.
The funding comes from the devolution deal, and depending which candidate you talk to, there's various ideas about drawing in additional funding.
Honestly agreed that we need to do something as it's broken but personally just can't see franchising being the answer. It feels like we're just going from one problem to a whole lot of other problems. Like just looking at railways, the franchising model has been an absolute disaster and this isn't exactly a million miles away.
One of my biggest fears though is franchising is anti growth, as it's all about minimum cost. You can away with on urban routes as people are only on for 10 minutes but that's not the same in rural areas.
Getting 'Angel' buses which are basic as you can get with little advertising anywhere because the PTE isn't going to focus on somewhere like Alnwick and it doesn't matter for the operator whether there's 1 person or 20 people on is just a disaster waiting to happen. Arguably for them having 1 person on would actually be better, less cleaning etc.
We should wait it out imo until the next government is in and go public rather than jumping at the gun. It's only going to be 6 months max as no chance are the Tories going to win. Starmer really would have to do something extra special for that to happen.