Bus Fare Cap will be £2 from January

[YorkRailFan]

Not all taxpayers are farepayers, because a considerable proportion of them will never travel in a bus.

Of course, each £1 of tax collected from taxpayers to pay for the subsidy, if not collected would also likely have been spent somewhere else by the taxpayer.

You can use that argument for anything that is funded by the taxpayer. Healthcare, education, benefits, etc.

High quality, appropriate use of buses appeals to me. That is, fully integrated with rail, with rail doing the high capacity trunking, both in fare and timetable terms, and with high quality vehicles and appropriate enforcement against antisocial behaviour.

These things exist in other European countries, but you're probably right that British buses are unlikely to ever appeal because we simply don't do buses properly, with just the odd exception, not even really in London. The money isn't there and neither is the will and attitude.

I suppose one thing you can say for the £2 scheme is that if they're rubbish, they are at least also cheap to go with it, so not poor value as they might be at full price.

That's because you have a choice, the people that will benefit the most from the cap don't have the choice of not using the bus. If they want to go to work or education, the shops or access healthcare, their only option will be the bus. That is the purpose of the cap.

The merits of the £2 cap. For those who are currently paying out £3 per journey, they could be saving £10/week so I think we get that.
However, are we going to see major upticks in patronage? I'm less inclined to suggest so. Those paying £3 now and will get the most benefit are likely to "pocket" the saving, and that might be spent elsewhere in the economy but I don't think it will end up leading to more patronage in the round. Will there be people taking advantage of it to head to the seaside or elsewhere. Doubtless there will be some. However, the person who travels from Shirebrook to Mansfield a couple of times a week isn't likely to go a third time because it's cheaper, or head to Chesterfield for a jolly.

Is the purpose of the cap to encourage a modal shift onto public transport or to help those most affected by the cost of living? I think the latter is the primary purpose and any modal shift that happens is an added bonus.

I disagree as those who are currently already travelling most days are probably already getting weekly passes / day passes etc. What it will encourage is people who don't usually use the bus to go up town at the weekend because it's now cheap to do so to go meet friends / go shopping etc. I'm fairly sure there was a study done on the £2 cap that shows that it actually encouraged more leisure travel.

Depends on the local area and what the price is for a season pass. A £30 weekly ticket might be great for someone making 5 return trips a week using 1 operator a week. If someone needs to use 3 buses for a trip 5 days a week across 2 operators, then a weekly ticket might not be the best option so they could be using singles. They would benefit from a lower capped single.

 

[Bishops]

Milton Keynes though is probably a place where buses will never be anything other than for preventing social exclusion - it's impossible to compete effectively with the car in that sort of space.

You should probably stop trying to compare everywhere with Milton Keynes

 

[Bletchleyite]

You should probably stop trying to compare everywhere with Milton Keynes

What's true of MK in bus terms is probably true of most medium towns/small cities too. These don't have the high speed roads but do have similar populations and similar journey times due to being smaller. MK really acts like a much smaller place than it is.

Bus use somewhere like Manchester (where driving is grim) is likely to be higher than this sort of place.

 

[GordonT]

Which is why the fare cap needs to be made compulsory, there’s really no excuse not to now

The UK bus industry has been deregulated for the last 40 years so I don't follow how this could be "made compulsory" for commercial non-tendered services any more than Sainsbury's could be compelled to have a cap of £1 on all tins of soup.

 

[Gareth1990]

The UK bus industry has been deregulated for the last 40 years so I don't follow how this could be "made compulsory" for commercial non-tendered services any more than Sainsbury's could be compelled to have a cap of £1 on all tins of soup.

Seeing as there has been serious consideration given to capping food prices I can see Bus companies being compelled to offer the £2 cap. Burnham has plenty of goodwill, he can force through legislation tomorrow if he wished…

 

[RT4038]

I agree, a more quality bus should tempt people out of their cars and to try the bus - which is why I was a keen fan of Stagecoach Gold and Arriva Sapphire when they launched but they ended up being watered down and ultimately discontinued. I would guess because of the logistics, the fact standard specs of buses had moved on (most buses now have USB etc.) But ultimately this is separate to the cap.

Did Stagecoach and Arriva see large increases in patronage with Gold and Sapphire? I don't think so. I think other disadvantages of bus travel vs. private car travel outweighs any slight gains of a better appointed bus.

I disagree as those who are currently already travelling most days are probably already getting weekly passes / day passes etc. What it will encourage is people who don't usually use the bus to go up town at the weekend because it's now cheap to do so to go meet friends / go shopping etc. I'm fairly sure there was a study done on the £2 cap that shows that it actually encouraged more leisure travel.

My observation is that because weekly and monthly tickets have not reduced in price (because reimbursement of the £2/£3 fare is linked to the Single fares, not weekly and monthly tickets) is that more people buy fare cap tickets now, especially longer distance passengers where 10 times the capped fare is less than the weekly ticket. If you get a lift home (or have a work from home day), you save the fare.

The UK bus industry has been deregulated for the last 40 years so I don't follow how this could be "made compulsory" for commercial non-tendered services any more than Sainsbury's could be compelled to have a cap of £1 on all tins of soup.

I think technically it could be through the Concessionary Fares legislation, but the procedure for doing this is complex and time consuming - expect bus operators to take every opportunity to appeal the re-imbursement calculations etc. The Sainsbury's example doesn't work because there is no legislation for such a compulsory cap.

 

[AlastairFraser]

I'm sure as an established operator, they will have done their sums and worked out what is best for their business. Most passengers are not going to be paying £3.50 for a single ticket, because they offer all-day tickets for £5 and further discounts for weekly tickets or group travel, making them cheaper to use than most operators with capped fares if you're making even a simple return journey.

The £5 was a reduction as a response to Stagecoach competition gutting passenger numbers on the routes that they have extended over.
First, Preston Bus extended their 23 over part of the Stagecoach 125 route, as far as Bamber Bridge.
Stagecoach then extended their 111 over part of the 23 and 35 routes, including a section of road that doesn't have a direct bus route into town (apart from the circular 48 that takes the best part of an hour to reach the city centre via ASDA and Longsands).
Preston Bus panicked about Stagecoach taking them on seriously and introduced the £4.20 return on the 35, in addition to the existing £4.20 return on the 23/19 Preston city centre - hospital combo.

IMHO Rotala miscalculated here and pushed locals too far with £3.50 singles, even with a day ticket Stagecoach (or even an Uber in the non-Stagecoach areas) can be cheaper than most Preston bus tickets bar seasons, so they lose a lot of discretionary travel.
Their network is primarily city-based too and doesn't have the reach outside into suburban areas e.g. Transdev or Stagecoach do.

A Stagecoach return is often a bit cheaper than the £5 day ticket if you want to make a comparison with singles (closest day ticket equivalent with Stagecoach is the £5.20 Preston Citi DayRider) - for example, it's £2.20 single from Preston station to Lytham Road on the upper Plungington/Fulwood border.
80p cheaper than Preston Bus, and for only £1, you get a ticket that covers the suburbs as far south as Longton.
For £6.50, you get a Central Lancs day ticket that offers you travel the entire way to Bolton.
Preston Bus just don't have that reach or provide such good value.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Did Stagecoach and Arriva see large increases in patronage with Gold and Sapphire? I don't think so. I think other disadvantages of bus travel vs. private car travel outweighs any slight gains of a better appointed bus.

It's perhaps more that some of the features (a better looking interior scheme and high back seats) have become the default. 2+1 seating was largely binned as the cost of larger vehicles for the same number of seats is hard to justify and people don't like standing on buses.

 

[RT4038]

Seeing as there has been serious consideration given to capping food prices I can see Bus companies being compelled to offer the £2 cap. Burnham has plenty of goodwill, he can force through legislation tomorrow if he wished…

Serious consideration and actually going down that road compulsorily are two different things - investment in the UK will very quickly dry up with such economic interventions......

 

[Bletchleyite]

Serious consideration and actually going down that road compulsorily are two different things - investment in the UK will very quickly dry up with such economic interventions......

I think that's scaremongering. The whole bus industry hasn't upped and left because of re-regulation in Manchester (far harsher than a fare cap in terms of impact on profits) despite some claiming it would.

 

[RT4038]

It's perhaps more that some of the features (a better looking interior scheme and high back seats) have become the default. 2+1 seating was largely binned as the cost of larger vehicles for the same number of seats is hard to justify and people don't like standing on buses.

You are right, but has that tempted people out of their cars....? I don't think so. 2+1 seating is an economic nonsense. In off peak times people generally have two seats to themselves, and as you say, people don't like standing, or having their children standing, in buses at peak (usually school) times.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 23 Jul 2026 ==

I think that's scaremongering. The whole bus industry hasn't upped and left because of re-regulation in Manchester (far harsher than a fare cap in terms of impact on profits) despite some claiming it would.

That depends on the reimbursement rates. Whilst the scheme is voluntary, companies have some leverage. If it was compulsory, with the DfT determining the reimbursement, I would suggest a different scenario would play out. Re-regulation through franchising is a different kettle of fish.

 

[Man of Kent]

The cost of operating a bus service is a known figure. The only question is how much of that cost should be met from the public purse and how much of that cost should be met from the private purse.

But in the most basic terms this is a zero sum calculation. Farepayers are taxpayers. Taxpayers are farepayers. Ultimately the same person is paying for it.

Reducing the price cap from £3 to £2 costs the public purse an extra £1 but puts an extra £1 back into the private purse. That £1 can (indeed, given the demographics of bus users, probably will) then be spent elsewhere within the economy. Most of that £1 will likely end up back with the public purse as a result of that additional economic activity anyway.

It is interesting that it is only this type of expenditure that is classed as "subsidy." Filling potholes on a main road is not seen as "subsidy." Building a new road is not seen as "subsidy." Entirely correctly, that expenditure is seen as stimulating economic growth. New roads are always sold on how much extra money it will generate for the local economy by cutting congestion, speeding up journey times, etc etc. It is a constant source of annoyance to me that similar types of investment in public transport is never described in the same terms.

This is why I consider the idea of "subsidy" being "unaffordable" to be a complete red herring.

It might not be the case on the Isle of Man, but certainly in most of the UK, potholes are on the up, while the speed of repair is on the way down. If there was more public funding available, that wouldn't be the case, but choices have been made - it is not an unlimited purse, and as you have described subsequently, most of the funding for the Bus Fare Cap has seen another planned budget cut.

The evidence from the interim analysis of v1 of the £2 bus cap was that these people actually did travel more because it was cheaper, and that the additional travel was primarily leisure-focused (at pp.100-103).

That same study attributes about 5% of a patronage uplift to the fare cap, and also concludes it was low Value for Money, generating preliminary benefits lower than it cost.

The scheme contributed approximately a 5% increase in bus patronage, out of a
total 13% patronage increase outside of London from January to October 2023
compared to the same period in the previous year. The overall patronage increase will
reflect a mix of factors including continued post-pandemic recovery and the impact of
other local transport-related investments and interventions delivered during this period.

And also

The value for money of the £2BFC is challenging to assess, though can reasonably
be considered ‘low’ VfM2 (i.e. BCR above 1) after accounting for the additional
benefits that are not possible to quantify. The preliminary benefit–cost ratio (BCR) is
estimated to be 0.71–0.9, although this does not include all the benefits of the scheme.
Fieldwork suggests these include the savings to people who switch modes to buses and
the wellbeing benefits of reducing the cost of bus travel for all passengers who would
have used the bus even without the fare cap. There are also distributional impacts.
Preliminary analysis of the potential scale of the wellbeing effects alone suggests it is
reasonable to believe the BCR is at least above 1 (categorised as low VfM)

 

[em81]

As long as the quality of service is there, which far too often it isn't. I refer again to the Oxford-Bedford X5, which could be free and I still wouldn't use it. Similarly Arriva Milton Keynes - if my local service was free I'd stilll choose to drive, cycle or walk (as appropriate) instead, because the service is just utterly awful, from low frequency, to poor coverage of the day, to poor quality vehicles, to antisocial behaviour on board and so on.

Money spent on quality would bring greater dividends than it being 2 quid. "High quality" type operations should be the absolute bare minimum, and even these are often lacking in fairly obvious ways. To quote the X5 again (and many similar services like Trawscymru's longer routes), just putting high backed fake leather seats in a non-air-conditioned, rough-riding, noisy, toiletless city bus does not create a vehicle suitable for journeys in excess of half an hour. It only seems to be Scotland where suitable vehicles are used on this sort of route now, Flixbus and NatEx aside. That costs money, but if you provide something that is objectively inferior to driving nobody in their right mind is going to even entertain the idea of switching from their car. Certainly not just to save two quid.

Milton Keynes has an unusual quirk, in that both Stagecoach and Arriva run services to Luton where the fare cap applies. Normally with that kind of competition the price would be low due to the competition.

It's a couple of years since I was in Milton Keynes. Do Arriva still use battered coaches on the Luton service?

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's a couple of years since I was in Milton Keynes. Do Arriva still use battered coaches on the Luton service?

No, appears it's now Busway branded MCV low floor buses. Quite a quality drop there!

 

[danbarjon]

Exactly, that's why firms that don't opt into the cap like Preston Bus are putting themselves out of business.
Even with it being £3, Preston Bus left that scheme and charge £3.50 for their predominantly urban short distance routes passing through areas of quite high population density.
That is too much to swallow for most fare paying passengers, and will kill the operation eventually.

Personally it's debatable whether they have long left - Stagecoach might take over, or franchising might cap fares at a lower rate anyway (and force Preston Bus to join the multimodal scheme they've been dodging for years).
I hope they rejoin both the daytime and evenings/Sundays cap though, at £2 it's reasonable to make discretionary journeys during the day and it induces a lot of demand to fill their buses to the brim, especially on off-peak journeys with low ridership at current fare levels.

Here is West Lancashire it feels insane to think that Preston Bus opt out of the cap due to “cost measures” however they send multiple buses down to Skelmersdale to run services from there and they have to come down from Deepdale to Skelmersdale (via M6). Then the audacity they have to complain that they don’t get enough money to have the cap… I can see wasted money and it’s in all them miles of up and down the motorways

 

[AlastairFraser]

Here is West Lancashire it feels insane to think that Preston Bus opt out of the cap due to “cost measures” however they send multiple buses down to Skelmersdale to run services from there and they have to come down from Deepdale to Skelmersdale (via M6). Then the audacity they have to complain that they don’t get enough money to have the cap… I can see wasted money and it’s in all them miles of up and down the motorways

Yep, the Skem contracts are a peculiarity. I suspect the 319 especially has generous enough subsidy provisions to make it work for them financially, but it doesn't mean that it's entirely fair for them to claim they're struggling. It's all about profit.

 

[danbarjon]

Yep, the Skem contracts are a peculiarity. I suspect the 319 especially has generous enough subsidy provisions to make it work for them financially, but it doesn't mean that it's entirely fair for them to claim they're struggling. It's all about profit.

Precisely, having regularly commuted on the 319 and chatted to the drivers they didn’t sound too pleased either as one expressed he would rather not drive the bus from Deepdale to Skem at 4:30am but here he is…

 

[Dwarfer1979]

Did Stagecoach and Arriva see large increases in patronage with Gold and Sapphire? I don't think so. I think other disadvantages of bus travel vs. private car travel outweighs any slight gains of a better appointed bus.

Depends on what you define as large I guess. Stagecoach certainly seems to have reported notable growth and the investment in many cases achieved what was intended which was to provide that extra kick to the existing growth curve to lift the route to the next step up in frequency/capacity. Arriva Sapphire wasn't always as clearly implemented and marketed so may not have had such an impact as they didn't always seem to understand the concept or aims.

The big issue is that price cuts alone aren't commercial, it is well established that the revenue lost by reducing fares won't increase passengers by an equivalent rate and the calculation works the same way with price increases so you gain more extra income from the price rise than you lose in passengers leaving (it is fairly consistently accepted that a 10% change in price affects demand by 3% for the bus industry - even free bus travel seemed to conform to this ratio). This is not to say that you can't produce a more significant change with a price reduction but that tends to happen when you combine it with quality improvements (either just by an operator getting its act together, new buses or more clearly quality investment) as you can build one on the other and it can make a real impact.

My observation is that because weekly and monthly tickets have not reduced in price (because reimbursement of the £2/£3 fare is linked to the Single fares, not weekly and monthly tickets) is that more people buy fare cap tickets now, especially longer distance passengers where 10 times the capped fare is less than the weekly ticket. If you get a lift home (or have a work from home day), you save the fare.

This is the big issue with how this scheme is worked that it only calculates against single ticket sales it costs operators significant income if they reduce multi-travel options to reflect the lower price of a single fare so everyone is inconvenienced by having to buy a ticket per trip.

I think technically it could be through the Concessionary Fares legislation, but the procedure for doing this is complex and time consuming - expect bus operators to take every opportunity to appeal the re-imbursement calculations etc. The Sainsbury's example doesn't work because there is no legislation for such a compulsory cap.

Operators aren't taking every opportunity to appeal concessionary travel re-imbursement. If it was made compulsory then as long as the reimbursement was fair and consistent with "no-better, no-worse" principles then it wouldn't be an issue but that would probably require higher reimbursement rates than the voluntary scheme and certainly would end up being open ended budget that would increase as demand grew.

I think that's scaremongering. The whole bus industry hasn't upped and left because of re-regulation in Manchester (far harsher than a fare cap in terms of impact on profits) despite some claiming it would.

Though most of the big groups have passed into the hands of foreign investment outfits more comfortable with franchising than the more commercially focussed domestic ownership and there is a lot of disquiet amongst smaller operators (Merseyside saw a couple sell out and a number of the Manchester ones did so years ago as they have been threatening franchising for a decade) but there will be a sense of community responsibility in those smaller locally owned businesses plus the need to work out how to recover value from assets currently owned. Also the difference is that for a fare discount scheme if it is unfunded but compulsory it could create loss making operations which would put the business and owners finances at risk (and there is a legal duty on the directors of a business, after a certain point, not to knowingly trade and incur debts they know they know they will not be able to repay).

In some, maybe many, areas the concessionary fares scheme is already effectively loss making for the operators and they are propped up by adults paying normal cash fares. If you take that away by effectively making all passenger income reliant on government funding you need to make sure that operators are properly reimbursed to avoid long term investment drying up and operators collapsing due to not being able to control or adjust income as costs change (particularly unexpected jumps such as those caused by the war in the middle east).

 

[Djgr]

The UK bus industry has been deregulated for the last 40 years so I don't follow how this could be "made compulsory" for commercial non-tendered services any more than Sainsbury's could be compelled to have a cap of £1 on all tins of soup.

I would have thought that bus companies stropping off and not participating will not be a good look for them when it comes to having to apply for bus franchises.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I would have thought that bus companies stropping off and not participating will not be a good look for them when it comes to having to apply for bus franchises.

There is no provision in legislation to incorporate subjective opinions on how something looks. Procurement Act is black and white.

 

[em81]

It's perhaps more that some of the features (a better looking interior scheme and high back seats) have become the default. 2+1 seating was largely binned as the cost of larger vehicles for the same number of seats is hard to justify and people don't like standing on buses.

I've boarded Stagecoach Gold Enviros a few times, sat down on a very comfy seat, and then when the bus starts going along a road that's not in great condition, it's obvious I'm on a bus with coach style seating, not a coach.

I think for Rawtenstall to Manchester (not Stagecoach) it's a reasonable compromise. Ideally you'd hope there's a train to do that journey, but in the absence of one a high quality express bus is the next best thing. I do think high quality interiors should be standard for routes like TransPeak and Scarborough to Whitby. I'm not sure for a route like Altrincham to Manchester Airport via Hale Barns it would attract some of the more affluent people out of their cars and taxis.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Jul 2026 ==

No, appears it's now Busway branded MCV low floor buses. Quite a quality drop there!

I've only been on the D&G ones on the 38 route out of Macclesfield. Everything in my area is Enviro 200s these days! My observation was they've crammed in a lot of seats and compromised comfort. Maybe Arriva selected a different internal option, but if they haven't it will be significantly inferior to a coach. Even if the coaches weren't given TLC by either passengers or Arriva.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I've boarded Stagecoach Gold Enviros a few times, sat down on a very comfy seat, and then when the bus starts going along a road that's not in great condition, it's obvious I'm on a bus with coach style seating, not a coach.

I think for Rawtenstall to Manchester (not Stagecoach) it's a reasonable compromise. Ideally you'd hope there's a train to do that journey, but in the absence of one a high quality express bus is the next best thing. I do think high quality interiors should be standard for routes like TransPeak and Scarborough to Whitby. I'm not sure for a route like Altrincham to Manchester Airport via Hale Barns it would attract some of the more affluent people out of their cars and taxis.

...

I've only been on the D&G ones on the 38 route out of Macclesfield. Everything in my area is Enviro 200s these days! My observation was they've crammed in a lot of seats and compromised comfort. Maybe Arriva selected a different internal option, but if they haven't it will be significantly inferior to a coach. Even if the coaches weren't given TLC by either passengers or Arriva.

Replied to these in another thread as they are more about vehicles than the fare cap: https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...ehicle-for-long-distance-bus-services.305024/

 

[GordonT]

I would have thought that bus companies stropping off and not participating will not be a good look for them when it comes to having to apply for bus franchises.

Not a case of "stropping off" but one of determining which course of action will result in the better financial outcome for their business.
Numerous examples exist demonstrating that not being "flavour of the month" has not been a factor in the award of tendered services or franchised operations as the process has to be conducted on a transparent level playing field.

 

[Djgr]

There is no provision in legislation to incorporate subjective opinions on how something looks. Procurement Act is black and white.

Does bus franchising follow standard procurement?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Jul 2026 ==

Not a case of "stropping off" but one of determining which course of action will result in the better financial outcome for their business.
Numerous examples exist demonstrating that not being "flavour of the month" has not been a factor in the award of tendered services or franchised operations as the process has to be conducted on a transparent level playing field.

Does bus franchising not consider corporate social responsibilty/wider social engagement?

 

[Dwarfer1979]

Does bus franchising follow standard procurement?

Yes at its heart.

Does bus franchising not consider corporate social responsibilty/wider social engagement?

Yes but not in a manner that would pick up deciding not to participate in a voluntary scheme, it is write so many words to explain your corporate responsibility strategy and highlight specific programs. It is the sort of thing that causes SMEs problems in these types of bids as they don't have in house people who have experience writing these things in just the right way to maximise your scoring with the correct jargon or key words.

The key point to remember is that the reimbursement will vary widely from operator to operator under the current scheme so it is entirely possible for it to be viable for one operator and not for another based on the make up of their route network so it would be difficult in a procurement situation to be able to say that an operator wasn't acting correctly to not participate.

 

[GordonT]

Yes at its heart.

Yes but not in a manner that would pick up deciding not to participate in a voluntary scheme.......

The key point to remember is that the reimbursement will vary widely from operator to operator under the current scheme.....

A good analysis. Also only a minority of operators, at least for the foreseeable future, will be involved in franchised operations.

 

[EYFanatic]

Ryedale Community Transport (the primary operator of Community transport in the Pickering & Malton area) is also part of the current £3 for their local services (Dial-a-Ride not included) and like Little White Bus, it will come down to reimbursement rates as to whether or not they join the £2 scheme.

How strange... Last time I used it, I was charged 4.50

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

A tiered fare structure would increase complication and suddenly you make bus travel just as confusing as it once was, you also increase the dwell time at stops as people have to say where they're going and then argue with the driver that they're sure x to y is under 10 miles and not over. This way, whilst not perfect, is much simpler and simple encourages people to use.

Granted easily solved with tap on/off of course but I guess that then potentially excludes the group your trying to help.

 

[Djgr]

Yes at its heart.

Yes at its heart.

Yes but not in a manner that would pick up deciding not to participate in a voluntary scheme, it is write so many words to explain your corporate responsibility strategy and highlight specific programs. It is the sort of thing that causes SMEs problems in these types of bids as they don't have in house people who have experience writing these things in just the right way to maximise your scoring with the correct jargon or key words.

The key point to remember is that the reimbursement will vary widely from operator to operator under the current scheme so it is entirely possible for it to be viable for one operator and not for another based on the make up of their route network so it would be difficult in a procurement situation to be able to say that an operator wasn't acting correctly to not participate.

I get the points that you make but arguing that your finances couldn't stand it would make me wonder whether this operator is sufficiently financially sound to be my franchisee.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 24 Jul 2026 ==

A good analysis. Also only a minority of operators, at least for the foreseeable future, will be involved in franchised operations.

Understood. Nevertheless, sometimes it is important to read the room and apply some political intelligence.

 

[RT4038]

I get the points that you make but arguing that your finances couldn't stand it would make me wonder whether this operator is sufficiently financially sound to be my franchisee.

If you try to bankrupt the companies with an under reimbursed £2 fare scheme they definitely won't be financially sound to be a franchisee!

Understood. Nevertheless, sometimes it is important to read the room and apply some political intelligence.

Blackmailing companies into participating in loss making activities doesn't usually end well either.