| Comment | The powers have already been given to Scottish councils, through the Transport Act (Scotland) in 2019. The final necessary secondary legislation was passed within the last year, and councils do now, finally, have powers to either:
1. Set up a franchise system (like TfL) where they mandate the bus routes, branding, pricing, etc, and allow multiple private companies to bid to run those services (under a Glasgow Buses banner).
or
2. Go the whole hog and set up a municipal bus service by purchasing existing assets (buses, depot's, etc). This would be extremely costly (costed recently by a council report at c.£200m) and certainly require Scottish Government funding support.
The council is currently in the early stages of option 1, having launched a study into the business case, a first necessary step. Following the route taken by Manchester (which Westminster passed legislation for a couple of years ago), it's expected to take 7 years from business case to launch of a franchise system. |
|---|