COURSE 01 - STRATEGIC FOUNDATION
From A to B
Shaping public transport
Bus reform hands your Authority real power over the network for the first time since deregulation. It also lands a large, unfamiliar task on your team, with a lot of attention on the route you pick. The pull is to decide quickly between franchising, an Enhanced Partnership and a BSIP-led approach. The clearer move is to work out your strategy first. Before you choose how to run services, your team needs to agree where the network stands today and where it is trying to get to for passengers.
This course is where that work starts. We spend the day with your own network, your evidence and your goals. Your team agrees the current picture, sets out the future it wants in terms a passenger would notice, then tests which route can deliver it against the budget and the capacity you have. By the end of the day, your team will have the start of a first draft of a strategy, led by your staff and owned by your Authority, ready to carry into the decisions ahead.
Enquire about Course 1How the day works.
We start with the current picture, built from your evidence. Your team separates what it knows from what it assumes, and names the challenges ahead rather than the symptoms. Everyone in the room works from the same facts before any decision is taken.
A goal like "a better network" cannot be tested. Your team turns each ambition into a change a passenger would notice, at the stop and on the bus, and agrees how the Authority would measure it. This is the B in A to B: the future you are heading towards.
Only now do we look at how to run services. Your team weighs franchising, an Enhanced Partnership and a BSIP-led approach against the future state you have just described. Each route is tested for the powers it gives you, what it costs and the risk your Authority can carry.
You cannot do everything at once. Your team ranks the outcomes that matter most to passengers, then tests each one against six readiness checks: the political mandate, the money, the evidence, the people, the governance and the capacity to deliver. Gaps are discussed, so the team knows what it still has to address before it commits.
The day ends with everything on a single page: where you are, where you are heading, the route you will take forward and test, what comes first and the individual that owns it. Your team leaves with the first draft of a strategic direction it can take into programme design and put in front of decision-makers.
What you leave with
None of it binds your Authority. It is a first draft for your team to test, refine and own.
Who should attend
This course is for Authorities at the start of bus reform, whichever route they are leaning towards. It works best with six to ten people drawn from across the Authority, because the strategy has to engage finance, customer, network and governance, not only the reform team. Bring the franchising or bus reform lead, and bring the decision-makers who will have to stand behind the direction.
If you can, bring the officer who holds your current network and performance evidence, usually your service planner or network manager. The day is far more useful when the room can test its assumptions against what your Authority already owns and runs.
BUILD THE COURSES AROUND YOUR PLAN
Course 1 is the start. It sets the direction the rest of the programme builds on. Course 2 turns that direction into a delivery programme with the governance to run it. Course 3 defines the operating model: the services your Authority will run and who delivers them. From there, the design courses on network, ticketing, customers and systems, and the delivery courses on procurement and contract management, all work to the strategy you set here. You can take Course 1 on its own to get your direction clear, or as the first step into the full programme.
Courses 1, 3, 6 and 9 can support your Authority whichever delivery route you choose. If you have not decided on a route yet, contact us and we can discuss how these courses fit your plans.