Ghost Buses, Franchising and the Question Nobody Wants to Ask About Bus Safety

Recent coverage in the West Midlands around “ghost buses” and proposed bus franchising reforms should matter to everyone involved in the bus industry — passengers, drivers, operators, regulators and politicians alike.

The public frustration is understandable.

Passengers are tired of:

- buses disappearing from apps,

- live tracking showing services that never arrive,

- unreliable timetables,

- inconsistent frequencies,

- and poor accountability when things go wrong.

And politically, franchising is increasingly being presented as the solution.

Public control.

Integrated networks.

Performance standards.

Reliability enforcement.

Central oversight.

Better accountability.

On paper, many of those objectives are sensible.

But there is another side to this discussion that almost nobody seems willing to openly confront.

If bus franchising increasingly relies on:

- performance metrics,

- punctuality targets,

- financial incentives,

- timetable compliance,

- excess waiting time penalties,

- live telematics,

- AI scheduling systems,

- and real-time operational monitoring,

then one serious question follows:

What operational pressure is being transferred onto drivers?

Because this is where the discussion often becomes uncomfortable.

For years, many frontline drivers across the industry have quietly raised concerns around:

- unrealistic running times,

- insufficient recovery time,

- lack of toilet access,

- fatigue,

- excessive monitoring,

- pressure around timing points,

- fear-based management cultures,

- and operational decision-making increasingly driven by data dashboards rather than human operational reality.

And yet these concerns rarely make it into mainstream transport policy discussions.

Instead, the conversation often remains narrowly focused on:

- reliability,

- punctuality,

- passenger growth,

- and commercial performance.

But buses do not operate on closed railway lines.

They operate:

- on congested roads,

- around vulnerable road users,

- in unpredictable traffic,

- through roadworks,

- poor weather,

- school traffic,

- emergency incidents,

- pedestrian conflict,

- cyclist interactions,

- and constantly changing urban environments.

Which means there is a limit to how aggressively “on-time performance” can be pursued before operational pressure begins affecting safety culture.

That is not an anti-passenger argument.

It is not an anti-franchising argument either.

It is a systems reality argument.

The London Question

A lot of these issues have already been debated for years in London.

Transport for London’s contracted bus model has frequently been praised for:

- network integration,

- service frequency,

- branding,

- passenger information,

- and operational control.

But critics have also long questioned whether contractual incentive structures can unintentionally create pressure throughout the operational chain.

Particularly where contracts heavily reward:

- reliability,

- mileage delivery,

- excess waiting time reduction,

- and timetable adherence.

The concern is not necessarily that anybody deliberately wants unsafe operations.

The concern is whether systems can gradually evolve where:

- safety culture,

- driver welfare,

- fatigue management,

- and operational discretion

become secondary to performance outputs.

And once operational culture becomes heavily target-driven, the pressure often travels downhill.

Usually toward the driver.

“When Everyone Owns Safety, Nobody Does”

One of the biggest structural concerns emerging from wider discussions around bus safety governance is fragmentation of responsibility.

Because when incidents happen:

- operators point toward highways,

- highways point toward operators,

- local authorities point toward contractors,

- regulators point toward compliance frameworks,

- and accountability becomes blurred across multiple organisations.

Meanwhile, the frontline driver often becomes the most visible individual in the entire chain.

That broader systems issue was openly acknowledged during discussions involving TfGM representatives, where comparisons were made between the maturity of safety systems in rail versus bus operations.

Rail has:

- the RAIB,

- deeply embedded safety culture,

- independent investigation structures,

- and institutional learning systems.

Bus operations largely do not.

And that gap matters.

Because organisational learning only works when systems are willing to interrogate themselves honestly.

The Risk Going Forward

The danger is not franchising itself.

The danger is creating highly performance-driven operational systems without equally mature safety governance systems alongside them.

Because if franchising only focuses on:

- punctuality,

- reliability,

- cost efficiency,

- passenger growth,

- and network performance,

without equally addressing:

- fatigue,

- welfare,

- scheduling realism,

- reporting culture,

- driver facilities,

- recovery time,

- and operational pressures,

then the industry risks simply centralising pressure rather than solving underlying problems.

And that is the debate the industry now needs to have honestly.

Not after another tragedy.

Not after another inquiry.

Not after another driver loses their career.

Not after another family loses someone.

Now.

Because passengers deserve reliable bus services.

But drivers also deserve systems that allow them to operate safely, professionally and with dignity.

And increasingly, those two conversations cannot be separated anymore.

---

Sources & Further Reading

- Birmingham Mail — Bus franchising proposals in the West Midlands

- Birmingham Mail — “Ghost buses” investigation

- Parliamentary evidence submissions on the Bus Services Bill:

  - Tom Kearney

  - Lorraine Robertson

  - Kevin Mustafa

  - Lee Odams

- Croydon Tram Inquiry and sentencing remarks

- TfL fatigue and operational culture discussions

- Traffic Commissioner annual reports

- Vision Zero and wider bus safety governance material

---

About the Author

Lee Odams is a bus driver based in Nottinghamshire and Branch Secretary of the Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Bus Branch of the RMT. He writes independently on bus safety governance, operational culture, franchising, transparency and frontline transport policy issues affecting bus workers and passengers across the UK.

---

Tags

#BusSafety

#BusDrivers

#BusFranchising

#GhostBuses

#PublicTransport

#TransportPolicy

#RoadSafety

#VisionZero

#TfL

#TransportForGreaterManchester

#WestMidlands

#OperationalPressure

#Fatigue

#DriverWelfare

#BusIndustry

#Governance

#Accountability

#RMT

#PassengerTransport

#TransportWorkers

#IntegratedTransport

#LocalGovernment

#TrafficCommissioner

#SafetyCulture

#UKTransport