Franchising provides both major opportunity and multifaceted challenge. From aligning operators to meeting passenger expectations, it requires strategic oversight, close partnership and most importantly – advanced technology to power it all.
We empower authorities and operators with an intuitive, connected platform to run franchised networks – designed around the distinct roles, responsibilities and real-world demands of bus franchising.
The Ticketer Franchise Model
We provide the strategic oversight, real-time insights, and powerful technology you need to define and deliver franchised services with ease.
You and each participating operator benefit from a dedicated Ticketer Portal – tailored with unique data views and role-specific capabilities – hosted within a unified ecosystem for smooth collaboration and smoother service delivery.
Define your network and feed critical operational instruction into operators’ portals.
Part-publish services to specific operators.
Oversee frontline delivery and day-to-day management.
Add, review, and approve annotations, with full auditability and accountability.
Franchise Owners access a real-time view of all participating operators’ data and performance.
Manage shared routes and services collaboratively, avoiding bottlenecks and improving timeliness.
View all operators' performance against set metrics.
Franchise Operator portals mirror current commercial Ticketer Portal, minimising disruption and training.
The Ticketer franchise model enables you to work closely with participating operators, driving towards a shared goal of consistent, high-quality services.
It defines clear, distinct roles for Franchise Owners and participating operators, each supported by dedicated portals that seamlessly share data within a unified ecosystem.
Area | Franchise Owner | Franchise Operator |
|---|---|---|
Role Focus | Strategic oversight of the network | Day-to-day service delivery |
Network Definition | Define network structure and service parameters | Operate services within defined parameters |
Performance Management | Set and monitor KPIs; oversee overall delivery | Meet KPIs and report on service performance |
Data & Analytics | View all multi-operator data and insights; analyse trends; optimise services | View unique operational data and insights only, both shared with the Franchise Owner |
The Ticketer franchise solution acts as your network control centre, seamlessly connecting with our ticketing hardware for integrated, real-time delivery.
Working in sync, they share live operational data that gives franchise owners and participating operators the visibility and control required for seamless network delivery.
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FAQs
Yes, the software behind our franchising solution works in tandem with our on-bus hardware. The Ticketer Portal feeds critical operational information regarding ticket prices, capping, fare zones, stops and routes to the ticket machines, which in turn feeds essential data regarding live vehicle location, ticket sales, passenger levels and travel trends directly into the franchise owner and operator portals.
Without the hardware, the critical data that underpins the franchising solution would not be available.
Our solution has become the blueprint for other franchising regions outside of Greater Manchester, and was designed specifically with future-use and speedy rollout that doesn’t require lengthy bespoke development in mind.
However, we appreciate no two regions are the same and requirements will inevitably differ. We will therefore work closely with you throughout to configure our existing framework to your local franchise model and requirements, ensuring you get the benefits of both speed and adaptability.
We want every one of our customers to feel fully supported – both during implementation and on an ongoing basis.
That’s why we’ve established a number of UK-based, specialist teams who know our solutions inside and out. From our Implementation Team, to Customer Support, to Technical Support, you’ll have a range of in-house experts to lean on depending on the type of query.
Additionally, everyone of our customers has a designated “Customer Success Director” – a key point of contact to for day-to-day support, and to ensure you’re winning operationally and getting the best possible value from your solutions with us.
Minimising change for existing customers has been a core design principle of our franchising solution. The underlying infrastructure remains very similar to the Ticketer Portal our commercial operator customers already use, so the look, feel, and day-to-day processes will be familiar.
Certain responsibilities such as defining services or tickets will be owned by the authority under the franchising model. Beyond this, changes to the interface – and ultimately disruption and additional training – has been kept to a minimum.
No – whilst the franchising authority is given a “Franchise Owner” access level and can view all participating operators’ data, “Franchise Operators” only see their data within their Ticketer Portal views.