Franchising and Enhanced Partnership (EP) approaches to bus service reform share grounds, and scope for flexibility in each should be explored by local transport authorities (LTAs) in England, Department for Transport (DfT) Director for Buses and Inclusion Stephen Fidler told the Route Forward conference on 16 September.
He was among keynote speakers at the event, which was organised by Backhouse Jones and the Confederation of Passenger Transport. Mr Fidler notes that work around buses in England majors on making services better for passengers but adds that both franchising and EP have many such levers that “do not cost a huge amount of money.”
“There is no one-size fits all,” he continues. “It all depends on the circumstances of the LTA, and crucially, on the operators in [its] area. The government’s focus is on providing that toolbox of options and a toolkit that [LTAs] can choose from and then supporting and empowering that local choice to make it work.”
Mr Fidler led the DfT team that delivered the 2017 Bus Services Act, and he notes that the current Bus Services (No.2) Bill incorporates a lot of knowledge gained since the earlier legislation became law.
“We have learned a lot about what is working and what is not,” he continues, adding a hope that industry members and LTAs can see that reflected in the Bill.
It includes helping to make EP and franchising work better for smaller operators, with Mr Fidler acknowledging how involvement of those businesses in the first round of bus franchising contract awards in Greater Manchester “did not work as well as it might have done.”
He continues: “We have already strengthened some of that in the Department’s statutory guidance, and we are working with ALBUM, operators and LTAs to really understand and keep [it] updated with what works well.”
EP and franchising are tools to grow bus patronage, says DfT man
As a DfT veteran, Mr Fidler has worked with multiple governments and even more ministers. He told delegates that the current administration is more committed to buses than any other he has served under.
“What [ministers] really want, in a nutshell, is to see passenger numbers growing,” he adds. “They are realistic, too, that that will not happen by magic.” Upping the customer offer is front and centre, with reliability and punctuality, comprehensive networks, safety, affordability, journey speeds, information availability and roadside infrastructure all part of the equation.
Such a collection of focus points “is not a rocket science list,” he adds, but it is rooted in what passengers want and what drives growth. Few such improvements can be delivered by an operator or an LTA alone; joint working and a shared agenda are needed, regardless of whether franchising or EP is in play.
Underlining the extent of flexibility in both mechanisms, Mr Fidler says that neither is an end in itself. Instead, “they are a means to an end for those improvements for passengers.”
Key for LTAs is identifying a balance between the asks they place on operators and the commitments they make in return. For franchising, that largely relates to contract terms and payments, but he notes how an EP allows a transport authority to bring a wider range of items to the table that grow usage and reduce operating costs.
Partnerships must major on what bus passengers need
Structures of both franchises and EPs may vary significantly. For EPs, the scale of items that can be included is key; Mr Fidler believes that no EP has yet used all the powers included in the 2017 legislation, some of which are of moderate cost.
“In general, more can be achieved… where there is more money from the LTA, but the most impressive partnerships have been those that have really focused on passengers. They have understood passengers’ views and focused on fixing the areas that data tells them have low satisfaction and are putting people off the journey.”
An independent Chair is a further key to EP success. Some partnerships such as Derbyshire, Leicester and Portsmouth have delivered strongly, but others have not. In those cases, the work is being reviewed “with the aim of bringing [them] up as much as we can to the standards of the best, certainly on those lower- to no-cost measures.”
For franchising, Mr Fidler believes that contracts could be created that place “much more responsibility on the operator” than is the case in first-mover Greater Manchester.
He highlights the Jersey approach, where Tower Transit subsidiary LibertyBus works closely with the contracting body, as a model with many transferrable elements. Equally, more rural LTAs where a significant portion of the bus network is already tendered could explore franchising under area-specific conditions.
Hinting that human resource levels at LTAs will be an important consideration in how franchises are structured, Mr Fidler adds that in combined authority areas with large teams in place and an integration piece with other modes, the Greater Manchester model is likely to work best.
But for smaller local authorities, the commercial model of franchising could be quite different, he continues. To that can be added scope for a franchise to cover only part of an LTA’s area.
“You could use franchising as a targeted local tool to help you deliver a priority scheme or a [bus rapid transit] network, or you could use it to integrate demand responsive transport with some fixed-route corridors. It can be a really flexible tool, not all or nothing,” although Mr Fidler acknowledges that such models are untested.
DfT advises against waiting for bus work to fully mature
While the Bus Services (No.2) Bill continues its way through Parliament, Mr Fidler advises LTAs and operators not to wait until it gains royal assent before thinking about how the measures within it could be deployed. That task can start now, he says.
Among other topics covered in his speech was direct award of franchising contracts and a need to ensure that guidance around that leaves the process working effectively.
Mr Fidler described his address as “a whistle-stop tour” of what the government is doing around bus services in England; much more is still to come, and the next parts will be delivered on a step-by-step basis with a lot of devil-in-the-detail.
Regardless of the model chosen, passengers – and not politics – must be at the heart of decisions, DfT’s buses chief concludes.
Further coverage of the conference will follow in routeone online and in print.
