(26 Jul 2026, 11:28 pm)stagecoachbusdepot wrote In theory, except they will just factor their profit into their tenders. Private opcos shareholders will still cream off profit, just via a slightly different mechanism (contract value rather than revenue). The financial savings, if there are any, are likely to come from improved integration, including removing duplicated services/routes. Whether a franchised network run by NEMSA and Nexus will be more efficient than the current offering from private operators remains to be seen.
Yeah, but not the outsized profit certain routes have. Because if they try and take too much cream off the top they'll end up losing a depot to a different operator.
I'm not a fan of franchising over pushing out the big groups out entirely, but to say it's a waste of money is just silly. People screamed that Manchester would be just as bad, and you don't hear a peep out of them now. Magic money tree was always a Tory lie, as it is now, it's an excuse for privatisation.