Launching a franchised bus network isn’t the end of the journey, it’s the start of a continuous improvement cycle. Once contracts are live, performance data becomes your most powerful tool for keeping services on track, holding operators accountable, and making evidence-based decisions. Used well, it ensures the franchised network evolves with passenger needs, rather than drifting away from them.
Using performance data to manage and optimise your franchising network
When your franchised network is up and running, performance data becomes the foundation for ongoing improvement. It enables both the authority and operators to monitor how the network is performing, tracking strategic metrics like punctuality, reliability, and operated trips.
More importantly, it helps identify issues early, informs interventions, and supports collaborative decision-making. Whether it's adjusting schedules, targeting investment, or responding to passenger feedback, data ensures the network continues to meet expectations.
When the franchised network is on-the-road, performance data facilitates:
- Proactive network management and collaboration: Use historical and current data to identify trends, like delays, congestion, punctuality, EWT, and passenger levels, and work with operators to proactively adapt the network to evolving passenger needs and external conditions.
- Accurate performance monitoring: Track punctuality, schedule adherence, operated trips, and EWT to ensure operators are meeting contractual service levels and aligning with actual demand.
- Informed responses to operator requests: Evaluate operator proposals for additional resource or schedule changes using data to verify need, understand the root cause, and determine the best course of action.
- Evidence-based planning and investment: Identify areas where service is under or over-supplied, highlight high-demand corridors, and support decisions on infrastructure investments such as stop upgrades or bus priority measures.
What happens if you don’t use performance data when your franchised network is live?
- Poor network performance: Network issues continue unchecked due to a lack of data-informed planning and oversight.
- Unmeasurable targets: No reliable way to measure performance against the KPIs agreed during the planning stage leading to a lack of accountability for both the authority and operators.
- Missed opportunity to actively manage network: Collaboration between authority and operator becomes reactive rather than strategic.
- Lack of evidence to justify further investment: Operator requests for additional resources can’t be validated, making it harder to identify root causes or decide on appropriate action.
Building a continuous improvement loop
When the franchised network goes live, it’s time to double down on data. That’s when performance insights become even more critical. Reviewing, refining, and responding to what the data is telling you shouldn’t be a one-off—it’s an ongoing process.
By feeding insights from in-life operations back into future planning and tendering franchising cycles, you create a loop of continuous improvement. Performance data gathered during live operations can inform the next tranche of tenders, schedule adjustments, infrastructure upgrades, and KPI refinements. This cyclical approach ensures each phase of franchising, from planning to tendering to live on-the-road, starts from a stronger evidence base than the last.
