The decision to bring South Yorkshire bus services back under public control was announced by Oliver Coppard on Tuesday.
During a 12-week consultation, 76 per cent of people voted ‘strongly in favour’ of franchising.
But this has left commuters with questions.
Shefnews spoke to Fran Postlethwaite, convener of Better Buses for South Yorkshire, to discuss exactly what it could mean.
Q: What can commuters expect from franchising?
Public control will mean that SYMCA (South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority) can decide on routes, timetables and fares, rather than control being in the hands of the bus companies. The companies will operate the services with fare revenue going back to SYMCA. This should mean that decisions are made based on the needs of communities.
Fare revenue from more heavily used services can be invested back into the system to run other services – this is not possible under the deregulated system.
Q: What will be the biggest challenges in transitioning to a franchised system?
Obviously the planning involved is huge. It’s possible the bus companies might continue to make cuts in timetables and routes during the interim period.
There’s also the issue of bus workers’ pay and conditions – these need to be safeguarded to avoid companies attacking them to ensure they win franchises in a race to the bottom.
Q: Franchising is not set to begin until 2027, what will happen in the meantime?
This is one of our main concerns. We would like the process to be accelerated as people are eager to see changes as soon as possible.
Plans to give free travel to under 18s in Barnsley have already been made and this could be rolled out across the region before franchising starts.
Q: What can Sheffield learn from Greater Manchester’s franchising journey?
The experience of Manchester shows us the successful possibilities of this system – their network was fully franchised in January this year.
Revenue from fares has increased and ridership has gone up, so more people are choosing to use the bus. This is a key aim in the face of climate change and congestion on our roads.
It’s clear that if the present situation continues we’ll just see more decline with no real hope of positive change. At the moment we have no say in what the bus companies decide to do – having a democratically elected body in charge means we can take account of what people need.