The Mayor has handed you the once-in-a-lifetime chance to take your local buses into public control. It's a London-style system called franchising and he's consulting on it right now!

Franchising allows fares, routes, and timetables to be integrated and planned in the public interest. It's the system used in every other European country. It would also put passengers and the planet ahead of private profit.

You've only got 10 weeks to take part! We've created a guide on how to take part to support public control below. You can use it to fill in the short questionnaire online or on their paper survey. Please cast your vote NOW.

If you want to download a paper copy to post to the Mayor free-of-charge, please click here.

Start your online response to the consultation now

Q1: Overall, to what extent do you support or oppose the introduction of the Proposed Franchising Scheme? Please tick one box only.

Suggested Answer: Strong support

Guide: This is your vote in favour of moving to franchised control.

Background: The Mayor will publish the results of this questions showing what percentage of people voted in favour. We need to make it as big a majority as possible.

Q2: Why do you say this? Please write in the box below.

Guide: We suggest saying, in your own words, that you strongly agree that franchising is the best strategic option. Evidence for this includes:

• it is more certain to deliver, as the alternative system (Enhanced Partnership Plus) is conditional on operator support.
• it makes it legal to introduce a single set of simple tickets and can provide a single app for passengers.
• it has been deemed to be affordable where the Enhanced Partnership Plus has been deemed unaffordable.
• it gives the public more power over the services we fund.
• it will reduce profits leaking out to shareholders when ticket sales rise.

Q3: The Proposed Franchising Scheme would cover the whole area of South Yorkshire. Do you have any comments on this?

Guide: We suggest saying, in your own words, that you support it covering the whole area.

Q4: The Strategic Case summarises the South Yorkshire bus network’s day to day challenges and concludes that it is not performing as well as it should be. Do you have any comments on this?

Guide: We suggest supporting their identification of 8 key areas of poor performance. These include bus services are too often late, unreliable, inaccesible, changeable (e.g. service cuts and timetable changes), and infrequent; they do also too often feel unsafe and tickets feel confusing.

However, we also suggest adding comments that address:

• The wider drivers of unreliability and unpunctualit, e.g. poor driver terms and conditions.
• The lack of power and voice over the changes to services.
• The lack of trust that complaints will produce a change.
• The timetable is poor.
• The lack of trust that complaints and queries will result in service improvements.

Q5: The Strategic Case concludes that a Proposed Franchising Scheme is the best option for South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority (when compared to EP and EP Plus) to deliver its aims and strategic objectives for buses in the region. Do you have any comments on this?

Guide: We don't think there need to be many comments here. The key reason put forward in the business case is that franchising gives strategic control of decisions, meaning that we have certainty that changes will come. They are not, as would be the case without franchising, subject to the agreement of the operators which has not yet been secured and could be removed in future.

Q6: To what extent do you agree or disagree that the introduction of the Proposed Franchising Scheme will improve bus services in the South Yorkshire region? Please tick one box only.

Suggested Answer: Somewhat agree.

Guide: We suggest only "somewhat agree" as the evidence from experts at Transport for a Quality of Life, and international experience, suggests that we need franchising in combination with sufficient public funding and publicly owned operators to deliver a world-class bus network.

Q6b. Why do you say this?

Guide: We suggest raising the need for publicly owned delivery and full funding.

Q7: The Economic Case concludes that, of all the Bus Reform options considered, the Proposed Franchising Scheme would offer the best value for money for the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority. Do you have any comments on this?

Guide: Please state the strength of the economic case for franchising is good, with it retaining nearly £90 million in profits across the period. It also has a higher benefit-to-cost ratio. It is over 30% better at reducing congestion and air quality, noise, carbon emissions, and road accidents.

Q8. The Commercial Case concludes that the Proposed Franchising Scheme reduces barriers to entry by providing fleet and depots to operators, thereby supporting increased competition for franchise contracts. Do you have any comments on this?

Guide: We suggest saying, in your own words, that you think it is the right decision to bring bus depots and vehicles into public ownership. We suggest you also ask that drivers become council employees (through a so-called Direct Labour Organisation) and that we have a council-owned Operator of Last Resort in case we need to guarantee services keep running (e.g., an operator has their contract taken off them for poor quality services or pulls out due to their own financial mismanagement).

Q9. The Financial Case concludes that the Proposed Franchising Scheme would be affordable for the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, but that there are further risks which would need to be carefully managed. Do you have any comments on this?

Guide: You could raise concerns that the financial case doesn't strongly support franchising. Reasons to be concerned include that the current assessment doesn't show that if bus use grows, franchising will be even better for finances as it retains more of the profits in the bus network (by stopping them getting paid out as dividends to private shareholders) allowing greater investment and improvements.

Q10. The Management Case concludes that the Proposed Franchising Scheme is deliverable and sets out how South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority would implement and manage it. Do you have any comments on this?

Guide: We suggest saying in your own words that you want the management of bus services become more participatory under public control. You could ask that a transport board be created to make decisions about local services with represenatives from local councils, businesses, and passengers alongside employed transport experts and bus drivers.

You could also raise the following points:

1. Bus drivers to have their terms and conditions increased and protected so that they never decrease when different operators start running services. Bus drivers are employed through a Direct Labour Organisation to do this OR very strong and specific conditions are written into the franchise contracts.
2. Bus passengers can report bus companies for bad services and that enough reports result in operators being fined or being kicked out from the region.

Q11. Do you have any further comments?

Guide: Please say, in your own words, that you would like to see:

1. A publicly owned bus company. See why here: https://weownit.org.uk/public-ownership/buses
2. A clear timetable for when different service improvements will come in under franchising/public control.