Jersey’s franchised bus network presents a positive lesson for service reform in rural areas, but care must be taken on the practicalities of its application, an industry expert has said.
Principal Consultant at Systra UK and Ireland Marc Winsland references work between Local Transport Minister Simon Lightwood and the Jersey government, passengers and operator LibertyBus, in April. Mr Lightwood’s discussions are expected to inform how franchising can be rolled out in rural areas in England as part of the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill and form efforts to challenge assumptions that other franchising schemes will follow a Greater Manchester approach.
Mr Winsland says that Jersey presents a positive example through its net cost model, which allows for commercial creativity to boost passenger numbers, but urges caution when applying it to England’s rural areas.
Calculating that Jersey’s population and geography give a population density higher than some English towns and cities, he notes the island enjoys dense corridors with reliable income allowing cross-subsidy that is much harder to achieve in counties such as Herefordshire or Cumbria, where distances travelled are much greater.
“That an island like Jersey has been able to implement franchising should be encouraging,” he says, “but the economics of running bus services in very rural areas of England are different to anything in Jersey.
“The island at its extremes is five miles long and nine miles wide; a journey in Cumbria can be 10 times the distance. The principle of cross-subsidy in that scenario only goes so far.”
But Jersey need not be discounted as a model in those scenarios; instead, Mr Winsland suggests it better serves as a “gateway example” to bridge the gap to European style models in Scandinavia and Switzerland, where remote communities are integrated through strong central planning.
“Jersey demonstrates that franchising is not closed off to those regions, but applying its structure to Herefordshire, for example, won’t work. European examples that have not felt comparable before can perhaps be made more so if we look to apply Jersey as an example of how franchising can work beyond mainland UK.”
