If you think franchising is just about transport experience alone, you’re wrong. It’s about a change
The Bee Network has seen growth in patronage
BY Anne Marie Purcell
Three months ago, I stepped away from my role at Transport for Greater Manchester, having led the successful delivery of the Bee Network and the UK’s first implementation of bus franchising. I moved from being accountable for transformation to supporting it as an advisor, a shift from delivery to direction.
I was told my experience would be in demand. Greater Manchester, after all, has become a blueprint for reform, a place where lessons were learned, mistakes were made, and success was earned. But until you step away you never really know but I needn’t have worried, the pace of change since I left has been significant:
- Patronage is rising: After years of decline, Greater Manchester has seen a 15% increase in bus patronage under the Bee Network. That’s not just a statistic, that is real people choosing to travel by bus rather than another mode and it’s a legacy I’m proud of.
- Devolution funding is growing: The Chancellor’s recent announcement of new investment has generated interest in transport from outside of the sector. Transport was on everyone’s radar and my messages hit the roof.
- The Better Buses Bill is progressing: Now in the Lords, this legislation builds on the 2017 Act and having been asked to contribute to its development from my experience in Greater Manchester, I see real potential in its enhancements.
- Franchising is expanding: Across the UK other authorities with devolved power have or are starting their own franchising journey, and small authorities are looking at how they can improve their transport network and respond to neighbouring or surrounding franchise areas.
The reality that investment in infrastructure must be matched by investment in people, skills, capability and technology
Since founding Purcell Advisory, I’ve been busy supporting many of these authorities, providing strategic advice, delivering insight, and practical guidance. But having started supporting other areas what struck me was the juxtaposition of my last article about Greater Manchester being the blueprint for franchising with the one by Louise Cheeseman in the same edition of Passenger Transport. Louise rightly highlighted the challenge of replicating Greater Manchester’s success across the UK, citing resource and skills gaps. I didn’t disagree. Louise is a brilliant advocate for our industry and a friend whose support I’ve valued since entering transport and through her founding role in Women in Bus and Coach.
Our articles reflected both the ambition and achievement, but also the challenge of scaling that success nationally. The reality that investment in infrastructure must be matched by investment in people, skills, capability and technology.
Being first to do anything is never easy, there was no blueprint, roadmap, or precedent. Both triumphs and hard-won lessons marked Greater Manchester’s and my own journey. However, what we, as a team, didn’t face in Greater Manchester – and what other regions now face – is the urgency to do the same, but in parallel with each other.
Greater Manchester completed all phases of franchising before others had really begun. In 2025 to 2030, we have multiple regions moving simultaneously whilst Greater Manchester starts their reprocurement. South Yorkshire, Liverpool City Region, West Yorkshire, Wales, West Midlands are on their way, and soon the North East, Cambridgeshire & Peterborough. Department for Transport pilots are nudging smaller authorities to begin their own journeys. Add rail transformation into the mix, and the pace is not just rapid it’s relentless.
Each devolved region is pursuing its own locally driven outcomes, and I strongly believe that’s how it should be if we want transport to succeed for local residents. But we must also recognise that franchising is a national reform effort unfolding in real time. Across the UK each region shares timelines, funding sources, and strategic goals: increasing patronage, improving services, reducing congestion, cutting emissions, and boosting local economies. But they also share many of the same challenges, driver shortages, fleet constraints, supply chain pressures, and strategic skills gaps. These aren’t isolated challenges; they’re systemic, and the scale and simultaneity of the reform are exacerbating them.
Being first to do anything is never easy, there was no blueprint, roadmap, or precedent
Local focus is essential and whilst informal collaboration is helping share learning, more formal collaboration and portfolio oversight could de risk delivery, unlock better outcomes nationally and use funding to generate economic growth by supporting supply chains and small to medium enterprises.
To do so we need to:
- map delivery schedules to limit conflicts;
- engage the supply chain with clarity and consistency;
- share knowledge effectivity to reduce duplication;
- explore cost efficiencies and resource pooling.
Furthermore, as authorities transition from policy to delivery, they must also step into a world where transport expertise, while vital, is no longer the sole requirement. The truth is, franchising isn’t just about transport, it’s about transformation. Franchising isn’t one operator buying out another; it’s also not about investing more money in the old deregulated model, where authorities paid operators for tendered services. It represents a fundamental shift in how public transport is delivered in the UK.
Unlike many countries, our institutions weren’t designed to specify and run transport networks: they were built to regulate operators, franchising flips that model. The public sector moves from strategy, policy, and regulatory setting to being an organisation that must respond operationally and commercially to a 24/7 network.
That comes with the need to:
- respond to customers and incidents;
- make data-led decisions;
- interrogate and analyse networks;
- design fleet and depot strategies;
- manage performance and contracts
- communicate with clarity and consistency.
Whilst securing operators, depots and fleet, it is essential to design how a public sector organisation will not only deliver the programme of franchising but also run the network. It must possess the skills, capabilities, structures, processes, and technology to assume roles and responsibilities previously held by operators, doing so with confidence.
The truth is, franchising isn’t just about transport it’s about transformation
The 15% patronage growth in Manchester didn’t happen because a new operator took over a depot from another operator. It happened because the authority took ownership. However, for this new ownership model to deliver on its commitments and increase patronage, it must put residents at the heart of decisions, investments, and improvements. The authority must have a day-in, day-out focus on improving the network and delivering on promises.
To do that, authorities need new capabilities, the ability to interrogate the network, understand investment optioneering, choose when and where to electrify, provide traffic information to customers, and performance manage operators and much more.
Delivering that change alongside the new operator regime, depots, fleet, brand, and transition requires people who understand, like I do, how to take an organisation on a journey. Just as transport takes passengers from A to B, franchising takes authorities on a journey of transformation. And it requires delivery expertise, people who understand, like myself, what it takes to deliver the outcomes within the budget and timescales set. Those who are full-time ensure the programme meets deadlines by finding solutions, pushing boundaries, pushing people and walking in every day with tenacity and grit to deliver. People whose role is to spend three years working long hours, including weekends and holidays, to meet deadlines and deliver on time and on budget. With the benefit of knowing that once they deliver, their role is done, they can take a break, unlike those who must run the operations.
If you think franchising is just about transport experience alone, you’re wrong. It’s about a change in who and how we operate the network. It’s about organisational change, it’s about digital transformation, it’s about a skills revolution, it’s about delivery expertise.
Of course, transport expertise is vital. In Greater Manchester, I surrounded myself with it, including Stephen Rhodes, our bus director, and his team, as well as specialists like Louise Cheeseman and many others. However, I also assembled a team of delivery and change experts who could drive the infrastructure, organisational, operational, people, and digital transformation. It wasn’t one or the other. It was both; it was a marriage of someone with my skills in change and delivery expertise, leading the delivery on behalf of and working with transport expertise and specialists.
Having delivered bus franchising in Greater Manchester and supported other authorities, I now possess a unique combination of skills and expertise, combining my traditional transformational and delivery expertise with transport technical skills that have successfully delivered franchising. This places me in a space that allows me to see the skills and capability challenges that we will face over the next five years to ensure all regions have successful transport transformations.
But those skills cannot be centralised around the larger devolved regions to the detriment of those living under the smaller transport authorities. I’m concerned about how smaller authorities will manage without this portfolio oversight and the risk that transport specialisms and large-scale consultancy gravitate toward the larger, combined authorities. That’s why, as Purcell Advisory, I will be hosting a free one-hour webinar in October for small LTAs, we’ll explore organisational change, franchising demands, delivery and transport capability needed to make it happen and lessons learned from Greater Manchester.
If you’re interested, follow my LinkedIn Page – linkedin.com/in/anne-marie-purcell-9ba684a – for announcements or contact me on purcelladvisory@outlook.com. Because franchising isn’t just a policy, it’s a promise. And delivering on that promise requires more than ambition, it requires readiness.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Anne Marie Purcell is a strategic advisor and partner in change, transformation, delivery and transport. She was previously chief transformation officer (bus franchising and Bee Network) at Transport for Greater Manchester. Purcell will speak at the UK Bus Summit in Manchester on September 11
This story appears inside the latest issue of Passenger Transport.
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