Stagecoach hopes quality will stave off franchising

The entry of Stagecoach into two new metropolitan areas to turn around previously poor-performing independent bus operators into a higher quality offering is either music to PTE ears, or will merely frustrate their plans for Quality Contracts. In Liverpool and Sheffield, passengers are benefiting from better buses and lower fares.

If the future of the UK?bus industry lies with Quality Contract franchises, the first shots are undoubtedly going to be called in the metropolitan areas. The PTEs have long argued that deregulation has not given them the thriving bus networks they were led to expect, with much of the competition in the early days dying away, and that which has remained often being of decidedly low quality and adding little benefit to network coverage or the perception of the bus.

But over the past year, Go...