Options appraisal
Franchising, Enhanced Partnership and BSIP-led improvement compared against your objectives, budget and risk appetite.
Bus Reform Strategy and Business Case
Franchising, an Enhanced Partnership or something in between. We help Authorities make that choice on evidence, then build a business case members and auditors can rely on.
The Bus Services Act 2017 gives Authorities real choices. Each one commits money, people and political capital for a decade or more. Many Authorities start the assessment before they have agreed what they want the network to achieve.
The result is a long, expensive process that answers the wrong question. A sound strategy starts with the passenger outcomes you want. It then tests honestly which model will deliver them at a cost you can carry.
Franchising, Enhanced Partnership and BSIP-led improvement compared against your objectives, budget and risk appetite.
A structured assessment that meets the statutory requirements, including an honest view of whether franchising is proportionate to your problems.
Patronage and revenue projections, risk-adjusted cost comparison and a subsidy trajectory, set out in the Five Case Model.
Whether the Authority has the mandate, funding and team to deliver the option it prefers.
Briefings and decision papers for elected members and senior officers.
Operator, supplier and procurement intelligence to test what the market can deliver.
Right of Way training builds skills and knowledge for your teams.
Set a passenger-centred ambition, make the strategic choices and agree the level of risk the Authority will accept.
View the Right of Way course
A step-by-step guide to UK bus franchising under the Bus Services Act 2017: assessment, audit, consultation, decision and implementation.

An Optimised Enhanced Partnership can give passengers one network experience while Operators retain fare revenue, but it requires the Authority to lead the proposition, procure the common platform and govern growth as a commercial partnership.

A conventional Enhanced Partnership can improve common standards, but each Operator retains its fare revenue, products and customer relationship, leaving the Authority to coordinate growth across several propositions.

Under a gross-cost model, the Authority sets the passenger proposition, receives the fare revenue and carries the risk when patronage does not arrive.

What a Franchising Assessment has to prove about affordability, procurement and delivery, and where the hard work really sits.