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One of very few, hence the cut, as you said you " Fully understand how the bus market works"

It still goes against the messaging led by Andy Street, NXWM and TfWM behind the recent fare rises, as per my original point that you continue to ignore.

West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street, said the changes were a "tough decision" but were to avoid bus routes being cut.
NXWM added the price rises were needed to "protect the bus network in the face of rising costs."

so the 'network' is maintained

Try telling that to someone who now has to change buses to get to Birmingham!

Routes that don't carry enough passenger get cut, always happened, WMPTE did it back in the 1980s, private companies have done it all over the UK ever since. London is trimming routes that duplicate others along main roads.

Wait until TfGM find how much money it costs to run dead routes and see what they do.

Fully understand how the bus market works, Tony.

It just goes against the grain of the messaging around the fare increase and communications most recently from TfWM.

https://www.wmca.org.uk/news/bus-network-protected-until-2025-following-40-million-investment-from-tfwm/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-65960329

West Midlands Mayor, Andy Street, said the changes were a "tough decision" but were to avoid bus routes being cut.
NXWM added the price rises were needed to "protect the bus network in the face of rising costs."

It saves 2 buses so a massive cash saving

Just goes to show what nonsense the 'Protecting the network' fare increase was really doesn't it!

Seen a letter from Green Bus which says:
"We spent August 2023 to try to place our services with another bus operator. After lengthy negotiations we came to an agreement with a large firm earlier this week. They would have operated services on our behalf. Sadly they withdrew from the agreement on Thursday morning. We now have no choice but to withdraw our services".

Hopefully the large firm concerned will instead concentrate on reliably running the services they already have! 

There are some frequency increases from the 24/09. Timetables on TFWM site.
28 increasing back to every 12 mins during the day etc.

What major reductions are there?

I didn't say major reductions.

But there are definitely some services that aren't showing as reverting to their pre Summer frequencies (even from 24/09) and other services with frequency reductions on Weekends.

As I said initially, stealth cuts!

More stealth cuts and Summer timetables becoming permanent ones by National Express West Midlands coming this September!

A15 service is revised from September.

Looks like another box ticking exercise by TfWM rather than a route that's actually any use!

We'll see how long this incarnation lasts!

The mileage reduction is also likely negatively influenced by the higher number of rural routes cut as they often involved routes running over longer distances.

Take the former 144 to Birmingham - curtailing the route to Catshill (alongside the reduction in evening services) lost a considerable amount of milage in just this one instance / your talking 20 miles lost per former journey.

The 146 Brum to Redditch was lost, the 150 Brum to Redditch was cut, the X20 was changed to not go to Brum - these all involved significant milage losses yet don't really give an accurate picture. Take the 144 for example - in 2010 it ran on a 20 min day time frequency between Worcester and Brum.

Now that link is lost yet if you take the 63 route that operates along the same route from Rubery to Brum - very little has changed on that route in terms of frequency since 2010. Just looking at the 144 cut would make people think there's a significant issue yet put it in context in the bigger picture, actually very little has changed on that route corridor.

Only the small matter of the fact that the NX Bristol Road services are less frequent now too! 

This evening I have been looking at options to travel to/from the Coventry City game which is in Shrewsbury tomorrow. As it's a strike day for LNWR, I checked the journey planners for trains back from Birmingham New St (as TFW seem to be terminating there after 5pm). The last train is the 1950 to Northampton - conveniently calling at Hampton-in-Arden, Berkswell, Tile Hill, Canley, Long Buckby and Northampton only - with no Coventry or Birmingham Int'l where I would usually get off. At first glance I thought this was a mistake but even the LNWR twitter team have told me this service is only stopping at the listed stations - how strange!

Presumably due to the strike there is nobody to dispatch at this time at Birmingham International or Coventry due to the strike! And they can't self dispatch.

From QE run via Harborne Lane up to Fiveways then into town. There is no direct bus now along Harborne Lane to the QE/Selly Oak/Longbridge - plenty of useful links there.

Can't see this bringing a six figure turnover increase to the 20 that it would need to sustain extra PVR! 

Perhaps it could extend to Birmingham from the QE via the old 21 route through Harborne. Would provide further useful links as the 21 is certainly a much missed service.

Not sure how this would replace any of the 'much missed' 21 or provide any further useful links!

Amusing to see the vehicle type magically got 15 years newer for a photo with David Bradford! 

Is there any plans to rejoin the outer circle? Or is the split helping with timings and reliability?

If it involves saving PVR or cutting costs then they'll probably do it.

If it increases costs then you have no chance!