(Yesterday, 7:00 pm)ne14ne1 wrote She is. They started on day 1 of her taking office but the process takes years…

NECA is currently at the franchising assessment stage of the process. This means they are gathering and analysing extensive data from operators to model whether the proposed franchising scheme is financially viable.

In reality, it's unlikely to be sustainable. Even Manchester has run hundreds of millions over budget, and their original projections significantly overestimated the profitability of the commercial network. London, as we know, relies on substantial annual subsidies to maintain its services.

Unless the intention is to maintain the status quo - in which case the network may continue to cross-subsidise itself commercially, as it likely does now - but any ambition to expand services will certainly require additional funding.

Initially, this funding gap might be covered through BSIP allocations and stupidly high growth expectations built into the business case, but over the longer term, it's likely a local tax of some kind will be introduced to bridge the shortfall, and that will be the same for most areas I suspect. 

The franchise model doesn't work from a self sustainable business case. But, many politicians have committed to them as they are big vote winners and highly emotive, so they will press on irrespective. Ultimately though, it will cost even those who don't use the bus, over time.