West Midlands Mayor to run bus services

[Stu]

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/queens-speech-mayor-run-greater-11350245

"Greater Birmingham's new regional mayor will take over bus services when they are elected in 2017.

New laws giving the mayor the power to run buses were announced in the Queen's Speech, as the Government set out its plans for the year ahead.

Voters in Birmingham, Coventry, Sandwell, Walsall, Dudley, Solihull and Wolverhampton will elect a West Midlands Mayor in May 2017. The new mayor will lead a regional combined authority.

A mayor will decide how often buses should run, how much tickets should cost and even what the bus service should be called.

Private operators will then be invited to bid to run particular routes. While a number of different businesses may be involved, the mayor will be able to specify that the service operates as a single regional bus service, with a common brand name and colour scheme on every bus."

Will be interesting to see how this works out! In particular the burden to the tax-payer! Anyone who imagines that the first thing a new mayor will do is sit down and plan an entire new bus network from scratch will be clearly mis-guided!

[PM]

Absolutely ridiculous... Time and time again, it's been proven that the most cost effective and passenger friendly way to provide transport is in a deregulated environment.

Saying that, Cornwall was given these powers but chose not to use them, hopefully the same will happen in most other places.

[Stu]

I am very sceptical about this new proposed 'Greater Birmingham' combined authority, and the role of this new elected mayor (there was a referendum a couple of years ago in Birmingham, and I voted 'no' to a directly elected mayor, which ended up being the outcome of the referendum).

The Birmingham Mail have painted this rosy picture of any new mayor sitting down and planning new bus routes and bus colours, but the truth is that this responsibility will no doubt be passed to some committee or already-elected body (a la Centro / Network West Midlands) to continue the work they have been doing, and therefore nothing will change.

Imposing a 'TFL-style' system on the West Midlands will (in my opinion) just lead to an increased burden on the tax-payer (especially those that don't use bus services) as public money will end up being used subsidising services that were otherwise successful while being fully commercially-operated, as well as funding cheap bus fares for all.

[PM]

I am very sceptical about this new proposed 'Greater Birmingham' combined authority, and the role of this new elected mayor (there was a referendum a couple of years ago in Birmingham, and I voted 'no' to a directly elected mayor, which ended up being the outcome of the referendum).

The Birmingham Mail have painted this rosy picture of any new mayor sitting down and planning new bus routes and bus colours, but the truth is that this responsibility will no doubt be passed to some committee or already-elected body (a la Centro / Network West Midlands) to continue the work they have been doing, and therefore nothing will change.

Imposing a 'TFL-style' system on the West Midlands will (in my opinion) just lead to an increased burden on the tax-payer (especially those that don't use bus services) as public money will end up being used subsidising services that were otherwise successful while being fully commercially-operated, as well as funding cheap bus fares for all.

You're right, a TfL style system would cost significantly more, Nexus said that's what they wanted then the powers that be said no to just that!

It'll be back to the bad old days of inefficiencies, fares too cheap, union gridlock (exactly as in France and Italy) and goodness knows what else.

I did think/hope?! the Conservative Party was against all this nonsense...

[Adam 404]

I personally don't like the idea of this at all!
The smaller, independent, bus companies could particularly feel the force of this causing lose of job on competitive routes and a Mayor with the power to "choose how often a bus runs" is a joke as particularly people who don't even now about public transport, i.e most MP's, will just guess things and just want buses for their constituency. No one acts like they are in it together in politics and battles over where buses should go with politics is only going to lower demand.

The 360 was a very poor, missed opportunity. If this proposed idea does go ahead... Would it of gone any differently???

I am not convinced it will work... What about those who may want to operate their own company when they are older... How will this affect them??

It is hardly broken. Multi Operator tickets are the way forward and this is hardly needed...

[PM]

I personally don't like the idea of this at all!
The smaller, independent, bus companies could particularly feel the force of this causing lose of job on competitive routes and a Mayor with the power to "choose how often a bus runs" is a joke as particularly people who don't even now about public transport, i.e most MP's, will just guess things and just want buses for their constituency. No one acts like they are in it together in politics and battles over where buses should go with politics is only going to lower demand.

The 360 was a very poor, missed opportunity. If this proposed idea does go ahead... Would it of gone any differently???

I am not convinced it will work... What about those who may want to operate their own company when they are older... How will this affect them??

It is hardly broken. Multi Operator tickets are the way forward and this is hardly needed...

The perceived issue of ticketing dominance in the WM is being solved by Swift anyway, revenue going into that is increasing and passengers are getting more flexible because of it!

[Liberator9]

Oh wonderful - about to stick their oar in. If it's anything like Centro's organisation and foresight then it'll soon be reverted. Also would it not be typical that we finally get a decent NX livery and we lose it in favour of some bland thing...although I'm sure NX would protest about that I hope.

Living on a route which is supposedly contracted from Centro it doesn't make a bit of difference - in fact it's been far far worse since it passed out of NX hands.

[GeminiFan1991]

So someone who probably hasn't caught a bus in years will be deciding how they're run. The whole idea seems ludicrous and I feel as though NX would be in put in a compromising position in terms of running of buses and if routes are taken off NX and given to other operators, theirs a risk of jobs potentially going.

[Adam 404]

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/the-buses-bill

One main thing for this is...

"Some local authorities may want to introduce newly-integrated, uniformly branded networks of services just as you see in London.

Others will just want to build and improve on what's already there.

Whatever approach is chosen — and that will be a local decision — we want to ensure that bus operators and the wider supply chain have as much notice of change as possible.

And that the effects on small operators are considered properly.

In every case, local authorities will need to work closely with the operators in their area to manage the process in the best interest of passengers, particularly during periods of transition which will need to be handled with care."

[Stu]

For me also, there are question marks over who would actually own the buses, if they have to be in one uniform livery? If they're owned by the respective operators, who pays for the costs of repainting them into this uniform livery? And who pays for the costs of designing this said uniform livery?

As much as people are for re-regulation of bus services, at the end of the day, if private companies can commercially operate a network of bus services, at no cost to the tax-payer, funded by (reasonable) profits generated from passenger revenues, that can not be a bad thing can it? And does it really matter what colour the bus is, if it turns up on time (or near enough)?

[Dylan4579]

Does this include every bus route, even the non-subsided ones?

[Liberator9]

I would dare say that operators would keep operating in their livery - I don't think NX would be keen to start repainting and refurbishing the fleet, again. Operators would retain their assets, including the buses. Looking at that bill, we already have the partnership which formed a few months ago (with only Diamond staying out) and we also have the open data - the fares, routes, timetables etc are all on Network West Midlands. We have the Swift card now which is growing in use. Really do we need any more intregration. I think the main focus now needs to be on the infrastructure, to help aid reliability - the latter one of the main things that passengers want and will notice!

I hope the Birmingham Mail is just putting out one of its inaccurate and exaggerated articles! Can the Mail not find a more recent picture... I'm sure it may just be a continuation of the current partnership, with further investment in new vehicles and perhaps better collobration rather than anything too drastic.

[notepanel]

I hope the Birmingham Mail is just putting out one of its inaccurate and exaggerated articles! Can the Mail not find a more recent picture...

Going off-topic, but for a change the Mail can't really be blamed for the photo - it is taken from National Express Groups image library for the Media.

http://www.nationalexpressgroup.com/media/image-library/

[JoNi]

"Combined local authorities with elected mayors to have POWER to franchise local services" according to BBC website listing bills in Queens speech which NOT the same as they will undertake franchised operations.
The open data aspect could lead to the West Midlands Vehicle Finder save Tony having to answer what route is 3301 on today!
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36320412&ved=0ahUKEwibrICHsOTMAhWKIMAKHbm3DhMQqG8IJjAD&usg=AFQjCNGfZBXXKhcLVleRklZLPhxkzgzExg

[Liberator9]

Going off-topic, but for a change the Mail can't really be blamed for the photo - it is taken from National Express Groups image library for the Media.

http://www.nationalexpressgroup.com/media/image-library/

Ahh right - I apologise in that case!

Useful link JoNi - so it is only a possibility then. However I see standards of branding - so companies may just have to bear a logo for the Mayor or be to a certain specification...