The voice of passengers is important for better bus services across Yorkshire - Matthew Topham

But will these new systems actually ask people where they want to go? Will it give us the tools to weave a transport network that actually serves our interests?

The new name, announced without any significant dialogue with the public, suggests not.

No one wants a public vote to give us ‘Bussy McBusface’ but surely we could have had some conversation about a brand that will shape the daily lives of millions?

And branding is the least of our worries. By October this year, the first contracts for West Yorkshire’s newly franchised bus network will be on the market.

Private bus firms will be bidding in to run services in Huddersfield, the Heavy Woollen District (the area around Cleakheaton, Batley, and Dewsbury), and East and West Leeds from March 2028.

The contracts they are bidding for will set the fares, routes and standards the winner must meet. They could be used to tackle some of the day-to-day issues facing commuters.

The Better Buses for West Yorkshire campaign recently asked the public what they would want to see addressed.

Many suggested new routes - for instance linking towns up to their nearest hospitals - but the Mayor’s team told us this won’t be possible straight away.

Others are simpler. The new contracts could specify that certain peak services are double deckers, to tackle the problems of dangerous overcrowding passengers experience on the ground.

Beyond the contracts, the Mayors team are also set to commission new vehicles. Passengers are sure to have a wealth of relevant ideas on the design of the buses we rely on.

The Combined Authority’s officers and data will be able to deliver many improvements, but without actually asking the drivers, passengers and businesses impacted by our bus services, we lose valuable expertise.

Asking for a say over local public services isn’t a pie-in-the-sky request.

In London, where Marageret Thatcher exempted the local services from being handed over to a Wild West market, they have a different way of making decisions about services.

Rather than sitting solely under the party political control of the Mayoral Authority, Sadiq Khan chairs a Transport for London Board made up of a range of experts, including on consumer rights. Together, they shape the publicly controlled bus network and the world’s most iconic mass transit system, the London Underground.

Similar powers over franchised buses and tram networks are coming to Yorkshire’s leaders. Unlike Khan at the London Assembly, our Mayors do not face a range of cross-party scrutiny from a directly elected regional body.

Earlier this month, the IPPR North think tank identified this problem, calling for Northern Mayors to face a “watchdog with bite”. A regulator might be better than nothing, but what the public really want is to take back a degree of control from unaccountable politicians, not just the unaccountable private bus companies who currently shape our journeys.

Just over a year ago, a Survation poll of 2,000 residents taken during the consultation on bus franchising, found that 76 per cent supported having representatives from local businesses, community groups and drivers on a transport board.

Here, we can also learn lessons from our European neighbours. When the city of Paris came to end its dire experiment with water privatisation in 2010, they did not just hand over the keys to the local authority.

Instead, while the company board has the usual roster of Mayoral and councillor representatives, it also sees workers represented through their trade unions and ordinary citizens through the non-party political Paris Water Observatory.

In their hustings for last year's West Yorkshire Mayor election, Leeds Citizens called for an Accountability Board, much in the style of the Paris Water Observatory, focusing particularly on the transport decisions the region is taking.

Pushing this idea further, we could see a Weaver Network Committee set up with elected councillors from each of the five authorities in the region, representatives from the Mayor’s office and representatives from workers, passenger groups and our local businesses.

After playing a role in the push for public control to return to West and South Yorkshire, the regions Better Buses campaigns are clear: franchising must not just be a change of name and branding, but a root-and-branch transfer of power to workers and passengers, safeguarded, not hoarded, by our Mayoral Authorities.

Matthew Topham is Better Buses for West Yorkshire campaigner at We Own It.