Britain’s small and medium-sized bus companies are adjusting to rapid changes, but ALBUM Conference speakers also identified opportunities. Robert Jack reports

 
East Midlands mayor Claire Ward

 
Within the ALBUM grouping of Britain’s remaining municipal and independent bus companies, there is understandable pride at their combined contribution to the bus sector. ALBUM members are at the top of user satisfaction surveys and have a strong track record of winning awards. Nottingham City Transport, the host of this year’s ALBUM Conference, is the current UK Bus Operator of the Year, having won the title last November for a record sixth time.

That pride sits alongside growing apprehension about the direction of travel for Britain’s buses. Opening the ALBUM Conference in Nottingham last week, David Astill, managing director of NCT and chair of ALBUM, warned of the uncertainty faced by the sector.

The biggest fear of all is perhaps the uncertainty posed by franchising – a policy that is being promoted by central government and embraced by a growing number of areas in England, Scotland, and Wales. Many ALBUM members fear that this seismic shift in the industry’s regulatory structure could see decades of hard work crumble to dust.

Ahead of the conference, Bill Hiron, Astill’s predecessor as ALBUM chair, summed up the mood of many ALBUM members when he spoke with Leon Daniels for the Lunch with Leon podcast, which is produced in association with Passenger Transport.

“Franchising is a warm, cuddly word which implies that you have a choice,” he said. “Unfortunately, that’s not the case, is it?”

Whether they like it or not, ALBUM members recognise that franchising is coming – indeed, it has now been fully implemented in Greater Manchester. The question is whether they can adapt, survive, and positively influence changes.

Astill struck a hopeful note: “We are an agile, capable industry that is capable of responding to events.”

No franchising here

In a month that has seen the West Midlands commit to franchising and West Yorkshire unveil its new region-wide Weaver Network brand, the East Midlands is an outlier in having a mayor willing to stick with the status quo. This decision has been made because the dominant operators in her locality – Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire – are felt to have performed well.

After her speech to the ALBUM Conference, East Midlands mayor Claire Ward was asked why she had not pursued franchising and instead placed her faith in Enhanced Partnerships as the way forward.

She responded: “I’m a very pragmatic politician and I take the view that when you start in building a new region that already has some great services … why would you start by ripping it all up and not start with what you have and seeing if you can make it better, and deliver the level of service that we see in this city across rest of the region?”

Why would you start by ripping it all up and not start with what you have and seeing if you can make it better?

She continued: “I am also really conscious that this is a brand new authority. I’ve spent the last year building the authority from scratch. We don’t take powers fully until April next year on the transport authority. Bringing four transport authorities and four transport plans together into a region that is not just based on two cities but huge numbers of rural communities, small towns, and villages is no easy task. 

“And therefore, simply to use the rhetoric of franchising to lead people to believe that we can solve those matters overnight, I think would have been an injustice really … That’s why I was very clear at the very start, before I was elected, that we will engage with the bus companies. We will build on the success that we have here, working with those companies to make Enhanced Partnerships work.

Ward said that franchising would also remain an option that could be employed if it was ever required, describing this as a “reality” rather than a threat. To demonstrate that franchising is not required. Ward is looking to bus operators to help improve multi-modal connectivity.

“It’s so difficult to get across this region and I say that to people who often don’t understand what it’s like to not have access to a car and not live in the city,” she said.

No one-size-fits-all

While many places are pushing towards franchising, speakers at the ALBUM Conference expressed their belief that there will be no one-size-fits-all approach. Guillaume Chanussot, chief executive of French transport group Transdev in the UK and Ireland said “no single model fits all” while Jason Prince, director of the Urban Transport Group, spoke of his admiration for the industry’s SMEs and said Enhanced Partnerships would probably be the preferred choice for most of the country outside of the major conurbations.

Meanwhile, Daniel Pearman, city transport director at Leicester City Council, explained how bus travel has been transformed through a deep partnership with bus operators and an ambitious Bus Service Improvement Plan. He declared: “Partnership working can deliver much faster than franchising”

However, Richard Wellings, principal public transport officer at Nottingham City Council, warned that bus operators were under pressure to show that three core ambitions could be delivered without resorting to franchising:  integrated ticketing, a single network fare structure and timetable/route co-ordination.

Seize the opportunity

David Leeder, founder and managing partner of Transport Investment Limited, offered a sobering array of statistics, setting the economic challenges faced by the government, local authorities and the bus industry. But he also sees a window of opportunity for agile bus companies.

“There’s a general sense that there will be a lot more funding – and I think there won’t be … because the economic situation is rather difficult,” he said.

“I think for shrewd operators … what you should be doing is working with your local authorities to structure deals that are symmetrical and well thought through and economically viable now, rather than waiting for horrible things to happen.”

Leeder pointed out that London has shifted away from Department for Transport funding and towards support from local taxpayers, who now contribute £90 per resident per year to the capital’s bus network. He questioned whether voters in other British cities would be willing to pay higher taxes to support their bus networks.

He reminded delegates that multiple regulatory models existed before the bus industry was deregulated in 1986, and said the devolution agenda meant there would be a divergence of models. “It won’t be the same answer in every area,” he said

Innovative operators should be getting in quickly and influencing the answer in their areas

“So again my message is innovative operators should be getting in quickly and influencing the answer in their areas.

He concluded: “Proactive operators can do deals with local authorities .. This is an opportunity and I think the ALBUM audience is especially well placed to exploit that opportunity simply because you are decision-makers, you are not at the end of a long chain within the bus groups.” 

 
This article appears in the latest issue of Passenger Transport.

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