For years the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (CA) has been adamant, at least in public, that it would introduce bus franchising.
So I was a little surprised to hear the Authority’s CEO say, when asked at the recent Local Transport Summit about its commitment to franchising, that it was not. But then went on to say: “But we are, if franchising proves to be the answer.”
Apart from this being a logical position you would expect any sensible local authority to take – after all you would only go down the franchising route if it was self-evidently the right way to improve bus services for passengers – this does seem to be a sign that the CA is having second thoughts about the wisdom of franchising.
Clarification needed
Yet at the same summit, Andy Burnham, Greater Manchester’s newly elected mayor, said: “Be certain, buses are going to change.” So I’m puzzled.
After years of saying that it was committed to franchising, the Combined Authority’s CEO says it isn’t, yet Andy Burnham says things are going to change.
I wonder if the two actually talk to each other?
It’s time that the CA clarified its position once and for all.
After all the work it has done to assess the merits of franchising (I was told a while back it had a large team of consultants looking into the matter) you would have thought that it would have made up its mind by now, one way or the other.
I’ve said before that I thought Andy Burnham is unconvinced by the merits of franchising, given the considerable financial risks that go with it. So if he says that it is certain that buses in Greater Manchester will change, but his CEO says the CA is not committed to franchising, I wonder what changes he might have in mind?
Meanwhile, at the recent UK Bus Awards, Leon Daniels, MD of Surface Transport at Transport for London, warned the bus industry to be alert to the threat of emerging technologies, especially driverless vehicles.
I agree. I’m no technology geek or expert. But I have this sense that how and why we travel is going to change out of all recognition over the next two decades.
Change coming
That may sound like a long time. But the advent of driverless cars is, in business planning terms, not that far away. And, if car ownership also changes with people being able to book cars hour-by-hour or daily, with the car being in your driveway without having to pick it up, we might see the demand for bus travel in its traditional sense fall through the floor.
Looking into the future and guessing what the landscape may look like is no easy task, but operators need to be ahead of the game, not led by it.
