Franchising gives your authority control of bus fares for the first time. The instinct is to plan one big system that does everything. The smarter move may be to start with the app passengers already open every day, deliver a unified fare offer in weeks, and add capability in stages - on one platform, at your own pace.
In a hurry? The short version.
Under franchising, you own the fares, the brand and the passenger experience. But the technology to deliver them is fragmented and expensive to build from scratch. A mobile-first, phased approach lets you put a single, region-wide travel and fare offer in passengers' hands quickly, prove it, and then layer on validation, account-based ticketing, contactless payments, smartcards, rail and retail - without a multi-year build, a big capital bill, or being locked to one supplier. 
Franchising hands you the fares - and the problem
The Bus Services Act 2025 opened franchising to every local transport authority in England. For the first time, you can set the fares, own the brand on the ticket, and hold the relationship with the passenger.
That's a genuine prize. It's also a delivery challenge that lands on your desk on day one, because fares are the first thing passengers notice and the first thing that has to actually work.
Here's what most authorities inherit when they look under the bonnet:
- A patchwork, not a network. Every operator has its own app, its own tickets and its own fares. There's no single, regional offer a passenger can rely on.
- No line of sight. The data about who travels, when and how, and the customer relationship itself, sits with operators, not with you.
- Real constraints. Franchising teams are small and budgets are tight. Taking on a large system build, and then running a payments operation, is a heavy lift.
So the question isn't really "which fare system should we buy?" It's "how do we give passengers a simple, fair, unified offer quickly, without betting the budget on a system we then have to run for the next 20 years?"
Why "build it all at once" is sometimes the wrong instinct
When a big responsibility lands, the natural response is to plan a big solution: one comprehensive system, procured up front, that does mobile, smartcards and contactless from launch.
It's an understandable instinct. It's also where a lot of time and money disappears. A full, build-everything programme means procuring hardware for every vehicle, integrating multiple systems, and running the whole thing before a single passenger sees anything different. Value arrives last, if it arrives on schedule at all.
The goal isn't always to do everything at once. It's to deliver something real quickly, then keep improving, without ever having to start again.
The mobile-first idea: start with software
The one part of the passenger experience that doesn't depend on new hardware is the app. Nothing has to be fitted to a bus for someone to plan a journey, get a service update, or buy a ticket on their phone. That single fact changes the sequencing entirely.
Start there, and you can put a single, authority-branded travel app and website live across every operator in the region, in weeks, not years. One brand. One place to plan, pay and travel. One set of fares. Because it's software, your up-front cost is a predictable subscription rather than a large capital build.
Crucially, you're not painting yourself into a corner. Done well, that first launch runs on a platform that can grow, so every later capability is an addition, not a rebuild.
The Mobile-First stages, in plain English
Think of it as a journey on one platform. You move at the pace that suits your region, your operators and your budget, and each stage builds on the last. We have set out the path we believe is the easiest to move across, but that does not mean the stages can't be adapted to your region's needs or some steps missed out entirely.
1. Journey planning and messaging. A region-branded app and website that unifies timetables, live running times, disruptions and travel options across every operator. Passengers get one place to plan any journey and proactive messaging when things change, which gives them a reason to open the app every day, before a single ticket is ever sold. You get an authority-branded audience and a direct channel to every passenger from day one.
2. Mobile ticketing. A single, authority-branded way to buy and use tickets across every operator, delivered as software with no new on-vehicle hardware. You get a unified regional product live in weeks, and every passenger becomes a known passenger whose data you own. Also, a mobile app does not need to be the only channel. Authorities can also integrate mobile tickets into popular 3rd-party apps such as Citymapper, Transit, Moovit etc and deliver the same experience through multiple app channels - all connected to a single platform and back-office.
3. On-vehicle validation. Now bring the ticket validators (often integrated into the ETMs) already on your buses into the platform. By selecting a provider integrated into the devices in your region, and their barcode schemes, the tickets are able to be read by existing infrastructure (Masabi is integrated into all major ETMs, such as Ticketer and TransMach). Passengers scan to board; you get validation and inspection without ripping out kit, and the bridge to the stages that follow.
4. Digital Pay-as-you-Go. By utilising an Account-Based Ticketing SaaS platform the fare logic lives in a secure account in the cloud, not on the ticket itself, giving authorities the ability to launch a region-wide digital pay-as-you-go experience by enabling the functionality inside the mobile app and allowing passengers to use their stored value accounts to scan when boarding, or on boarding and exit, to pay their fare. The existing mobile app with a secure and rotating barcode applies best-fare capping rules automatically across the whole network quickly and easily. The passenger just travels; the system works out the fairest price.
5. Contactless payments (EMV). Tap a bank card and go, on the same platform, with the same capping. The key is doing it openly, so multiple operators can interoperate without routing every tap through a single central broker or paying a per-tap charge. By unifying EMV payments through a central SaaS platform local authorities can create a unified regional experience where passengers simply tap (or tap on and off) to pay their fare. Importantly there is no need for a separate middle office, saving time and money while optimising operational efficiency.
6. Concessions and smartcards. Full ITSO smartcard and virtual smartcard support, can be enabled through an integration with partners such as Unicard. Concessionary passes (older, disabled and young person) and season tickets live on a physical or virtual smartcard and tap on the same validators, with no separate system to run.
7. Regional rail. An integration into a rail Ticket Issuing System (TIS) brings regional rail alongside buses on the same platform and the same account. Passengers plan, buy and travel across bus and rail in one place, or simply tap/scan to travel for genuine end-to-end journeys, without you running two ticketing systems.
8. Connect all retail options. An integration into existing retail channels - ticket vending machines (TVMs), ticket offices and third-party retail - so every sales channel shares one back office and one set of fares. This is the step that reaches passengers who don't use an app, and connects everything together.
The important thing isn't the individual stages. It's that they sit on one platform, with one passenger record and one back office, so nothing you build in stage one has to be thrown away to reach stage eight, and the modular stages can be added in whatever order serves your region.
Why this approach fits an authority, specifically
We believe a phased, mobile-first model maps neatly onto what franchising teams actually need:
- Value in weeks. Passengers feel the benefit of a unified offer almost immediately, long before a bigger system would even be out to tender.
- Predictable cost. A subscription, not a capital programme. Nothing enormous to fund up front, and nothing to refresh every few years.
- You keep control. Your brand, your fares, your rules, and one passenger record and dataset that belongs to the authority..
- Everyone is included. A unified offer only works if it reaches everyone. That means cash and retail options for unbanked or cash-preferring passengers, and digital verification for concessions, not just an app for the smartphone-and-bank-card majority.
- No lock-in. Open standards and open interfaces mean you can re-specify at each contract cycle instead of being trapped in a 15-to-20-year build.
- It grows with you. Add validation, ABT, contactless, smartcards, rail and retail as you're ready, never starting over.
A short checklist: questions to ask any supplier
Whatever route you take, these questions will quickly separate a flexible, authority-friendly approach from an expensive trap. Worth having in your back pocket for any procurement conversation:
- How fast can passengers see something? If the honest answer is measured in years, ask why value can't come sooner.
- What do we own? Specifically: the brand, the fare rules, and, critically, the passenger data and relationship.
- Is it one platform, or several bolted together? Every additional back office is another thing to integrate, pay for and manage.
- Can we add mobile, contactless, smartcards and rail without a second system or a per-tap toll? Openness here protects you from a single point of dependency.
- How does it reach people without a smartphone or bank card? If there's no clear answer, it isn't really a regional offer.
- What happens at the end of the contract? Open standards mean you can change your mind. Proprietary lock-in means you can't.
Getting started is smaller than you think
The reassuring part of a mobile-first approach is that the first step is genuinely small. There's no fleet-wide hardware rollout to sequence and no payments operation to stand up before anyone benefits.
A sensible starting point is a short discovery conversation: which operators you have, what your franchising timeline looks like, and what you want passengers to feel first. From there, the stages can be mapped to your budget and your dates, so you can see exactly what lands and when. And you can prove the whole approach with a fast, low-risk launch before committing to anything larger.
Franchising is a rare chance to make bus travel in your region simpler, fairer and more joined-up. You don't have to build everything to begin. You just have to begin well, on foundations you can build on.
Masabi provides fare payments as a service to more than 400 transport authorities and operators worldwide, and powers ticketing for some of the UK's largest bus operators. If your authority is weighing up how to deliver fares under franchising, we're always happy to talk it through, with no commitment, just a conversation about your region.
