Well the cat is now out of the bag. In the Queen's Speech earlier today, the government has proposed a London-style franchising of bus services for the English ITA's, whereby routes, fares, ticketing and vehicles are decided by the elected mayor. I wonder how that will go down with the main players? Brian Souter said he would fight it tooth and nail and withdraw all of his assets from Nexus should it ever be implemented.
How would it work? Would a franchised operator take on everything currently operated in the area or would they take on the contracted routes and leave the commercial routes to existing operators? And would non-franchise operators be allowed to compete with franchised operators and if so how does the 'commercial services not being allowed to compete with contracted services.'
Well there goes liverpool in for a bad ride as joe anderson doesn't even like buses and if this franchise does come into play then lets see if the councils start investing into the public transport i.e bus lanes etc
Think is joe Andersen might not even be the labour candidate for metro-mayor of the Liverpool City Region , there has been other names bandied about .
So will there be a separate mayor for this then?
(18/05/2016 14:23)knutstransport Wrote: [ -> ]How would it work? Would a franchised operator take on everything currently operated in the area or would they take on the contracted routes and leave the commercial routes to existing operators? And would non-franchise operators be allowed to compete with franchised operators and if so how does the 'commercial services not being allowed to compete with contracted services.'
As I understand it, as in London, any operator could bid to run a route but the hours of operation, fares, frequency and vehicle type would be determined by the mayor's office. The successful bidder would have exclusive rights to run the service so QBP's such as 10, 14, 82, 86 etc. will be a thing of the past.
It may well be that the franchises would be in bundles of say five routes so that no operator would be able just to bid for the most lucrative routes. In essence this is what was the situation prior to 1986 except for the fact that the bus companies will now remain in private rather than public ownership.
All drivers will be on the same wage and should get a council pension as well
(18/05/2016 19:33)PO59 MXJ Wrote: [ -> ]All drivers will be on the same wage and should get a council pension as well
Are you sure about that? The bus companies are NOT being taken into public ownership and the employees (drivers) will continue to work for private companies as is the case in London where there are 13 different companies with very differing rates of pay.
(18/05/2016 17:17)Barney Wrote: [ -> ]As I understand it, as in London, any operator could bid to run a route but the hours of operation, fares, frequency and vehicle type would be determined by the mayor's office. The successful bidder would have exclusive rights to run the service so QBP's such as 10, 14, 82, 86 etc. will be a thing of the past.
It may well be that the franchises would be in bundles of say five routes so that no operator would be able just to bid for the most lucrative routes. In essence this is what was the situation prior to 1986 except for the fact that the bus companies will now remain in private rather than public ownership.
Now a case of wait and see how it will pan out , this will be the biggest change in buses since 26 October 1986 when it eventually happens .