Local buses are the most used form of public transport across the nation and are important for individuals, communities, local economies and the environment. The Bus Services Act 2025 provides Local Transport Authorities with greater powers to choose the model for delivering local bus services that works best in their areas. This choice is important and must be made by making best use of evidence, data and relevant stakeholder views and expertise.
The independent Handbook and Toolkit that Frontier Economics has had the pleasure of developing on behalf of CPT provides a practical step-by-step framework to support local areas with these decisions. It identifies the range of options available and how the relevant benefits, risks and costs can be transparently assessed and compared. Every area is different, so choosing the right local model is a crucial part of enabling bus services to support thriving local communities.
This webinar will present the step-by-step framework and say more about the approach local transport authorities can use to assess and compare different models so that they can choose the one right for them.
Speakers
Kat Deyes
Director at Frontier Economics
Kat has focused her 26-year career on the design, appraisal and evaluation of transport policy. By bringing together an economics lens with a deep understanding of the policy context, she develops and applies robust best practice approaches to develop business cases, design policy and transport initiatives, and undertake ex-post evaluations to learn what works. Throughout her work for 12 years as a senior economist in the Government Economics Service and 14 years as an economic consultant, she has advised Ministers, local authorities, charities and Board Executives with high profile policy and investment decisions. She is currently leading several major multi-year programme evaluations for the Department for Transport including the evaluation of the Bus Service Improvement Plans; the £3 bus fare cap policy; the City Region Sustainable Transport schemes, among others. She led the development of the “Models for delivery of local bus networks” Handbook for the CPT and accompanying toolkit.
Nick Fitzpatrick
Senior Principal at Frontier Economics
Nick specialises in using advanced quantitative and qualitative approaches to develop business cases, design policy and initiatives and lead ex post evaluations of interventions to generate evidence on what works. He applies best practice approaches to quantify the impacts and value for money of interventions to inform decisions by his clients including local authorities, central government departments, charities and the private sector. He has supported clients on high profile policy and analyses, including the assessment of public transport accessibility, the costs and benefits of investment in major rail and road infrastructure investments, skills in the transport sector and the evaluation of bus fare caps. Nick was lead author of the “Models for delivery of local bus networks” Handbook for the CPT and accompanying toolkit.