Held in partnership with the Bus Centre of Excellence and supported by CIHT and the Department for Transport (DfT), the Rural Bus 2026 conference provided a great opportunity for the transport sector to unlock the potential of bus travel all over the UK.

For Steve Hunter, lead for bus regulatory reform at Steer, the event left him with a positive feeling and the renewed realisation that buses were an important part of the future. “There were various stories about how buses can make a real difference to situations such as getting a job or simply breaking the isolation,” he says. “That’s relevant whether you are a teenager or an older person who could be completely stuck if you don’t have access to a bus.”

Hunter also highlighted the diversity of attendees at Rural Bus 2026. “This mix of attendees shows that local authorities are looking positively at what they can do with buses in the future,” he explained. “There were people from a lot of different backgrounds, as well as professionals at different stages of their careers, which was really encouraging to see.”

Pilot projects

One session of particular interest to Hunter was the one he chaired, on the subject of bus franchising pilots. Announced by the government in 2025, these pilots took place in five regions – Cheshire West and Chester, York and North Yorkshire, Cornwall, Cumberland Council, Westmorland and Furness Council and Hertfordshire – with the aim of exploring how local authorities can take control of bus networks in rural areas.

“The DfT gave each region about six months for the pilot, which took them up to March this year,” he says. “However, one of the learnings that came out of the pilots was that it’s not as easy as saying ‘You have six months to start and finish’, because there’s a lot of preparatory work that's needed to get started.”

Hunter goes on to say: “When a local authority is changing to a position where it’s potentially going to take more direct risk on bus service delivery, internally you need to make sure you have the legal procurement, contract management and project management resources ready to go. And that’s before you look at external support, governance and engagement with political representatives and other stakeholders.”

Shared benefit

There were a number of interesting comments that came out of the pilot projects, which wererun for very different reasons in very different locations.

“While the reasons why these regions are examining whether franchising might be useful for them were not the same, they all felt the benefit from looking at the same problems and learning from each other,” says Hunter. “There were discussions between the big metropolitan authorities, but each one was ploughing its own furrow, doing things their own way.”

As a measure of the project’s success, the DfT has now extended its support package and invited more regions to take part, with the original locations continuing their bus franchising journey outside of the pilot.

“These regions are looking at their options for whether bus franchising might be a useful solution in their area, ranging from completing the pilot tasks through to committing to the next stage of investigation,” confirms Hunter.

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