Bus Reform Toolkit for Local Authorities — But Where Is Safety?

A recently circulated toolkit designed to help local transport authorities decide the future structure of bus services raises a fundamental concern: safety appears to be missing.

The document — Models for delivery of local bus networks: Handbook for Local Transport Authorities — has been produced by Frontier Economics for the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) and promoted via the Bus Centre of Excellence. It is intended to support authorities in choosing between regulatory approaches including franchising, enhanced partnerships and hybrid delivery models.

These are not minor technical decisions. The framework is intended to guide authorities on how to redesign bus networks, structure contracts, allocate risk and determine governance arrangements. In practice, this influences:

• Network design and service levels
• Contract incentives and performance measures
• Governance and oversight arrangements
• Allocation of operational and financial risk
• Operator responsibilities
• Monitoring and evaluation frameworks

All of these factors directly influence operational safety outcomes.

However, within the decision-making framework itself, there appears to be no explicit reference to safety, collisions, incident monitoring or safety performance indicators. The toolkit focuses heavily on delivery models, cost considerations, governance structures and implementation pathways — but does not appear to embed safety as a core decision-making criterion.

This is particularly significant given the scale of change currently taking place across England. Local authorities are being encouraged to consider franchising, hybrid models and strengthened partnerships under the Bus Services Act reforms. These structural changes will shape how services are planned, delivered and monitored for years to come.

If safety is not embedded within those frameworks, there is a risk that:

• Network changes are introduced without safety impact assessment
• Service frequencies are altered without workload consideration
• Contract incentives prioritise performance over safety
• Governance frameworks lack safety oversight mechanisms
• Operational risk is not systematically monitored
• Collision trends are not analysed following structural reform

This concern aligns with wider findings from Freedom of Information work across the UK. Responses from transport authorities, combined authorities and government bodies repeatedly show fragmented safety data, inconsistent governance and limited publication of safety performance indicators.

In some cases, authorities have confirmed they do not hold centralised bus safety incident data. In others, safety information is held by operators but not routinely analysed at authority level. This creates a system where structural reform can proceed without a consistent safety evidence base.

Toolkits such as this are influential. They shape how authorities approach decision-making, what factors are considered important and how options are evaluated. If safety is not explicitly included, it risks being treated as an operational matter rather than a governance priority.

Bus reform presents a major opportunity to strengthen safety oversight. Franchising and enhanced partnerships both create mechanisms for clearer accountability, structured performance monitoring and transparent reporting. But these benefits will only be realised if safety is built into the framework from the outset.

The absence of explicit safety considerations within a toolkit designed to guide local transport authorities therefore raises an important question:

As we redesign bus networks across England, are we embedding safety into governance — or assuming it will follow automatically?

Real reform should place safety at the centre of decision-making. That means:

• Clear safety performance indicators
• Published safety data
• Governance structures with defined safety oversight
• Contractual safety requirements
• Collision monitoring and trend analysis
• Transparent reporting frameworks

Structural reform without safety governance risks changing delivery models without improving outcomes.

As authorities consider the future of bus services, safety should not be missing from the toolkit.

Bus safety, Bus franchising, Bus governance, Public transport policy, Bus Centre of Excellence, CPT, Frontier Economics, Bus Services Act, Transport governance, Vision Zero, UK bus policy

About the Author
Lee Odams is Branch Secretary of the RMT Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Bus Branch and a long-standing campaigner for improved bus safety governance and transparency. Through extensive Freedom of Information work across the UK, he has examined how transport authorities monitor bus safety and embed safety within franchising and partnership models.