Greater Manchester Franchising

[iMarkeh]

RE: Greater Manchester Franchising

(30/03/2021 22:00)dounowhoiam Wrote:  From a financial perspective (despite the main goal of franchising to provide a better service for the general public) if the profits made from busier routes are used to help subsidise quieter routes then it is achieving it's goal of being better value than what is already offered. Companies are happily able to run frequent and high demand in the daytime and make substantial profit, but are much more reluctant to use that to run it in the evening expecting TfGM to pay them through the tendering process.

I think this logic is great but what I think is being missed out here is that in London a tender can be 2-4x the cost of an equivalent tender in Manchester. I know that London does have a number of extra costs involved but TFGM may well want those extra costs put in (the centre comm system and driver radio people for example in London requires more staff than the current, a bit more limited service offered in Manchester. London operators lease buses due to the requirements and limited use once London life is done. Operators in London are also very limited in terms of interworking so a lot of dead millage. You get the idea, there are extra costs in London but if TFGM aspire to be TFL, those costs could end up here too.

Companies basically get a bit greedy when they know that money is more guaranteed and they know TFL has large pockets so they kind of milk that. Purely to show the extent of this. Outside of London, companies seem to be wanting £100-£150k per bus, per year and the tender prices seem to reflect that. In London, a 1 bus service in Bromley had the lowest complaint bid at £475k. In the end, it was awarded in a group tender for £258k Still way over what a company would want for the same tender outside of London.