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What TFWM need to do is introduce contactless tap & go from only NX / only Metro to ALL buses and trams like how Swift Go works, then also brought into the trains when its introduced.

If they do that hopefully they can look into removing Tickets in the future, its very annoying when your at a bus stop and the fat family of 4 spend 10 minutes looking for change then your bus is late

One of the best features from a franchised network like London is you don't have to stick with one mode of transport if you've already paid, you can just tap and go for all modes of transport and be charged at the end

But more importantly they need to be useable first

Why would you a bus from Acocks Green (as an example) to get into the City Centre which would probably take over 35 minutes 

Its much quicker to get a bus or walk towards the nearest train station even its the opposite direction then get the train to Birmingham City Centre.

They need more bus priority lanes wherever possible in Birmingham - It worked for the A45 (X1/X2)

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In a nutshell, if you work for a company that doesn't make profit, then they can't afford to pay you and thus you lose your job.

In the case of the WMCA, if they don't make a profit through bus franchising, then they put up your council tax rates.

Someone could argue that Public Transport isn't intended to make a profit though its there to provide the best possible service for its passengers.

Although I still think we would be better off with an even more enhanced bus partnership (not franchising but something more than to what we have now) which could bring: 
Tap and cap for all buses/trams
Unified bus branding with one social media platform/website for all buses (@westmidlandsbus / westmidlandsbus.co.uk)

 

I think this is part of the idea - either people will just be put off from participating and "having their say" due to the complexity of it, or the only people that complete the survey will be those who wholeheartedly agree, without even looking at any of the associated documents, because they've been sold an idea that buses will "be cheaper and more reliable".
That is undoubtedly true, but those costs will be factored in by operators when it comes to bidding on contracts.

For many companies, it seems like the cheaper or 'easier' option to just outsource or contract-out work.

Whichever way you do it though, you still end up with problems with unions. Franchising won't stop workers from going on strike. Look at refuse collections in Birmingham and Sandwell - Birmingham operate their service themselves, while Sandwell use an external contractor (Serco). As soon as the unions dig their heels in, then the service crumbles.

Since there is loads of routes being ran outside of depots outside of the West Midlands, wouldn't it of been easier to franchise the Routes like London and not the entire system?

So that's reducing the Frequency, the 50 is the busiest but Route in Europe,
So if they reduce that then what are gonna do with routes in the Black Country

Yes from 16 buses per hour to 9
Every 10(DB) & 6(NX) to Every 6.66

Commerical network doesn't look so bad now   
Lets just pray the WM isnt bankrupt soon like Birmingham

2.15 - they want to save costs on the following corridors:

50 Birmingham Maypole
X3/X4/X5 & 110 Birmingham Sutton Coldfield

Right

TfWM has published documents about it, found some intreseting stuff

West Midlands Bus Network will be fully implemented by 2029 by which time there will be a vehicle requirement of 1177 vehicles to operate the West Midlands Bus Network
New Birmingham East depot to replace BC
TransportUK/GoAhead/Transdev/Midland Red/Rotola/NX was contacted for some questionnaire and NX got a "seperate meeting"
Seperated into nine zones, Wolverhmapton, walsall, west brom, dudley, birmingham north, birmingham SW, birmingham east, birmingham SE / Solihull, Coventry

https://www.tfwm.org.uk/media/k1ilbwhq/assessment-of-the-proposed-franchising-scheme-for-west-midlands-buses.pdf

Other than a load of new buses & a big bill for the taxpayer, I haven't seen any other benefits to the travelling public since Bee Network took over Manchesters Buses.

+The £2 Hopper fare
I don't see a problem with spending taxpayers money on Public Transport, they already pay for unprofitable routes at the moment anyway

Nobody can see the future and see if it will improve transport or make it worse - Best to give it a chance 

I would also hazard a guess that passenger loading data would suggest that not many people use that service to/from Shirley station.

Everytime I see the A15 it has 0 passengers, the 630 might help though as there are new connections being created

I could also sense NX who probably have quite a strong legal term could take legal action if he tries to buy depots and targets them for his plans considering he has basically Slated them. He certainly is living in Fantasy land if he also thinks clever people who aren't old, gullible or don't care will fall for his lies, much like his party people will See through his lies and cracks. There will be issues and eventually I think this whole plan will fall apart, the Tories will get re elected at mayoral level, sell the broken franchise back of to the likes of Rotala, NX and whoever replaces the Independents and we will once again get normality

You are living in 'fantasy land' if you think anybody will enter a mayor election focusing on bus deregulation. Ofc there might be problems with franchising but why would they go back after they have done it? 

Can't find it on Google but I'm sure I saw somewhere the weeks free travel cost Mr Parker £1m and 250,000 passengers took part?
If so that's £4 each by my reckoning?

What a good use of the TfWM budget

It will be a big change the branding will most likely be WMB (image) unless mayor wants to rebrand entire WMT, it looks smart anyway and the best branding out of the country in my opinion. I hope interior will be nice though, new NX is already pretty good.

The route numbers will be changed across the county (cant be the same anymore) Solihull new tenders are already using 6xx - Wolverhampton most likely 5xx, Birmingham will probably have simple one/two digit priority.

The WM however does not have enough depots to run all WM routes (some ran by SC in leamington/rugby) they need to purchase new sites in the WM area

Will also be interesting to see if the new franchise has Stratford X20, Tamworth 110 & Bromsgrove 20

It's to do with 'funding streams'. Metro regions that are keeping the £2 cap will be paying for it out of their own funding, or through a 'mayoral precept' on residents council tax bills.

Andy Street, when he was mayor, declined the opportunity to add this precept to our council tax bills.

There probably is enough money to fund a £2 fare cap here, but then Mr Parker wouldn't have the money to fund his franchising dream.

What is also interesting is millions of TfWM money goes out of the WM 

-the christmas free bus travel funded all NX routes (including outside of nBus) so people of Leamington Spa, Bromsgrove & Cannock got benefits from money which is meant to be for us
-stagecoach leamington got their hands on loads of electric buses (yes obviously for the coventry bus project) but do they need loads of them as they only run a few routes in coventry, bustimes show there are loads on routes that dont or barely go into Coventry Zone