A new dawn for buses?
Last month, the Bus Services Act 2025 became law, introducing a number of important reforms which could help transform local bus services. So will the Act mark ‘a new dawn for bus travel in the UK’ as the Government claims?
The bus sector is still largely privately run, but the 2021 National Bus Strategy, Bus Back Better, gave local transport authorities a bigger role by requiring them to set up ‘Enhanced Partnerships’ (EPs) with bus operators in order to access funding and coordinate local services jointly. Some EPs – such as in Leicester and Portsmouth – have been able to deliver tangible improvements. But not all local authorities have been able to achieve the same level of results, with sparser rural area still proving more difficult to serve on tight budgets.
Franchising – whereby the local transport authority determine the services and routes that are needed, as well as fares, and commission bus companies to run the services – is an alternative model. London has long benefited from publicly run services by Transport for London. Outside the capital, franchising has been available to mayoral combined authorities since the Bus Services Act 2017, but it can be costly and risky. So far only Greater Manchester has taken the leap, delivering significant improvements by integrating buses, trams and other local transport under the Bee Network.
Other Mayor Combined Authorities plan to follow Manchester’s lead in the next few years, with Liverpool due to start operating franchised services from 2026; Cambridgeshire and Peterborough hoping to do so from 2028, and West Yorkshire committed to franchising its bus services in the future. The new Act now extends franchising powers to ALL local authorities as well as the ability to set up municipal bus companies.
Franchising can be transformational
Used well, franchising can be transformational. Potential benefits include:
- The ability to plan bus services (and other local transport like trams and home to school transport) as a network, ensuring timetables align and there are no significant gaps
- Bringing all bus services all under one brand with a single source of information and the ability to use standard fares – including fare caps – across the whole network
- More efficient public spending, with the ability to use fare revenue from more profitable services to support less profitable ones
- Being able to better align transport with other policy areas like planning, for example ensuring new housing developments have public transport connections.
But having the legal power to change the way local buses are regulated is not the same as having the ability to do so. A lot of local transport authorities lack the funding or capacity and capability to undertake a franchising process. That’s why we are working with Department for Transport to ensure that barriers like funding and resources are addressed, but also that the ‘full-fat’ franchise or ‘slimline’ EPs are not the only type of models available to local transport authorities.
We’ve been working with the Confederation for Passenger Transport (CPT) to examine different types of hybrid options and the suitability and shortcomings of the different regulatory models. This new resource, which is endorsed by the Department for Transport and local government bodies, will ensure different authorities are well equipped to make an informed decision on what will work best for them, and their communities. It includes a handbook outlining the pros and cons of the different models and a toolkit local authorities can use to assess the models’ suitability to their local needs.
Protecting bus services
Another very important provision in the Bus Services Act is the requirement on local authorities to identify existing services which are “socially necessary” i.e. essential to enable residents to access vital services like education, employment and healthcare, and to consider mitigations if bus operators propose to cancel or alter them. This is very welcome and can help protect services in future.
However, it overlooks areas where services have been cut over time and are lacking currently lacking, leaving many communities underserved.
Marcus from Swindon told us what happened when his local bus service was withdrawn:
The withdrawal of the last bus service along Wootton Bassett Road, Kingshill Road, and Bath Road in August has left approximately 7,000 residents in Swindon without any access to local public transport. This severely affects families, the elderly, and those with lower incomes who are already struggling with the rising costs of living.
I am not expecting a return to the early 1990s when we were served by almost 400 buses per day, but we do need access to a public transport network that serves our community. We need options.
Our local MP here is the Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander. I recently met with her about the withdrawn bus service, and she is now arranging a meeting with the local authority and the two local bus companies as well. Hopefully we can explore some options and get some improvements.
To address the issue, we have called on the Government to require local authorities to establish a minimum service level standard – a minimum level of service people living in different types of areas should be able to expect. This would enable authorities to identify any vital gaps in provision and work to address them, not just protect existing routes. We are also calling on the Government to better target existing funding to places with the biggest gaps to ensure no community is cut off.
The Transport Select Committee agreed and endorsed this ask in their recent report (recommendation one). While in its response the Department for Transport suggested it would be “very challenging to implement at a national level, whilst also ensuring value for money”, we are doing more work to map the gaps in provision and continue to work with the Government on bus funding reforms to ensure community needs are taken into account.
Bus stop standard
We are also delighted that the Act commits to the publication of a new national guidance for accessible and safe bus stops. Again endorsed by the Transport Select Committee (report recommendation nine), we first called for a national standard for bus stop infrastructure and information in our Better Bus Stops: Creating a national bus stop standard report. This is important because, whilst 86 per cent of people live within a ten-minute walk of their nearest bus stop, almost of quarter (23 per cent) are put off using the bus because of poorly maintained bus shelters. A national standard at bus stops would make taking the bus easier and more attractive, boosting passengers numbers. The Government already has a team working on the guidance and we are working closely with them on its development. We have established a regular stakeholder group with the Bus Centre of Excellence, local authority representatives, relevant NGOs and broad group of infrastructure manufacturers to and feed into the development of the government guidance, and to carry out further work.
Following a follow-up report with Optibus on printed information last month, we are currently writing another in-depth report to identify appropriate features that are required for different passengers’ accessibility needs at different categories of bus stops. We are also planning a checklist for local authorities for auditing bus stops and criteria for prioritising and scheduling infrastructure upgrades.
Overall, the new Bus Services Act delivered changes we have long campaigned for, and we remain at the centre of the process ensuring benefits are felt at the local level.
Sign Marcus’s petition to reinstate his local bus services.
