Authorities are defined as operating non-franchised or franchised bus networks, with frameworks and advice often being siloed based on these definitions. But that framing misses something more useful. The hard-won operational knowledge built inside franchised networks — around data infrastructure, performance management, and shared performance accountability with operators — doesn't have to stay there. The performance data processes that franchised environments have developed is relevant to any authority trying to ensure operators are delivering better services for passengers. Getting there requires treating performance data not as a reporting tool but as the operational foundation everything else is built on.
Lost mileage sits at the centre of this. It is one of the most visible and contested data points in any bus performance framework and one of the most prone to error. What franchised environments have had to learn is that accurate lost mileage measurement is not simply a matter of better monitoring. It requires a data architecture that can distinguish service loss from reporting artefacts, data gaps, and definitional differences on either side.
What franchised authorities have had to figure out
One of the least-discussed challenges in franchising is the quality of data that informs the initial tender. Bids submitted months in advance of a service launch are based on data that can already be out of date by the time a route goes live. Road speeds change, infrastructure moves, new constraints emerge - and the schedule an operator committed to ends up disconnected from the on-the-road conditions it will run in. An operator bidding conservatively can end up with an over-resourced schedule that costs too much to be competitive; one bidding aggressively risks underperformance in harder months. An authority that cannot evaluate schedule quality beyond pass/fail is poorly placed to tell the difference.
Performance regimes present a related problem. Even detailed frameworks are vulnerable to the gap between what is measured and what is actually happening on the road. Without reliable, granular data, authorities and operators are often working from different pictures of the same network, leading to discussions about data discrepancies rather than conversations about solutions. The real question is not whether a performance regime is well-designed on paper, but whether the data feeding into it is clean, consistent, and trusted by both sides. The lesson is that even sophisticated performance regimes are only as good as the data underneath them and the shared trust in that data between authority and operator.
Why this matters now for authorities
Bus reform builds on existing Enhanced Partnerships and gives local, non-franchised authorities a meaningful set of levers — setting service standards, requiring minimum frequencies, attaching consequences to underperformance. What they cannot easily replicate is the data infrastructure and local network knowledge franchised authorities have been building for years. The risk is that a well-designed performance framework sits on top of data that is not clean enough to support the decisions it’s supposed to drive. In a network environment where operators are self-reporting, lost mileage can be categorised in ways that make it difficult for authorities to understand what actually happened on the road.
The Local Transport Outcomes Framework (LTOF) reporting requirements are creating new expectations on demonstrating network performance to funders and the Department for Transport. Boards need evidence. Operators need to see the same picture the authority sees, or the performance conversation becomes an argument about whose numbers are right. What franchised environments have demonstrated is that shared, validated data does not just make performance management easier — it changes the nature of the relationship between authority and operator, for the better.
The practical transfers
The most important shift a non-franchising authority can make is to treat schedule evaluation as a data question, not just a compliance question. Running submitted schedules against real network data — current road speeds, seasonal variation, volatility at key pinch points — makes it possible to identify under-resourced proposals before they become in-life problems. On performance regimes, lost mileage thresholds need to be set against a realistic validated baseline.
Using performance data to decide when to intervene and when to wait requires understanding the root cause of fluctuations. Not every performance dip is a structural problem. The authorities that handle this well have learned to distinguish between systemic underperformance — where the schedule is fundamentally inadequate — and temporary disruption better managed through operational flexibility.
Performance data as the core connector
The questions operators and authorities ask in franchised networks are, in substance, the same ones non-franchised authorities are beginning to ask themselves: how do we know if this schedule is going to perform? How do we separate real lost mileage from data discrepancies? The most productive authority-operator relationships are built around shared data access and joint problem-solving. When an operator can see that their schedule is underperforming on a specific corridor — not because of traffic, but because runtimes have been overtaken by changes to road infrastructure — they’re better positioned to proactively bring a proposal to the authority.
The lost mileage capability sits within a broader data architecture: network performance data cleaned and validated at source, so that the conversations built on top of it are about outcomes rather than competing interpretations of the numbers.
Implement the lessons learned in your network
You don’t need to oversee a franchised network to benefit from the lessons learned by franchised authorities. The authorities getting the most from their network treat performance data as an operational tool — the foundation of every meaningful conversation with operators, funders, and boards — rather than a compliance exercise at the end of each quarter. The learnings from franchised networks can be implemented by any authority willing to take this data-led approach to continuously improving performance. The starting point is always the same: clear, validated, shared data on what the network is actually doing, including what mileage is genuinely lost and why.
