"Paul Corfield" wrote:

With Net Cost contracts routes that are profitable are bid on the basis
of providing a return to the operator with any extra profit being shared
between TfL and the operator. Thus TfL gains from good performance as
does the operator. On routes which need subsidy then the bid would be on
the basis of lowest subsidy - hence incentivising lower cost operation
but balanced by a desire to grow revenue from good performance. If you
aim to minimise subsidy but still have a well funded budget you can
argue that extra routes could be funded as more budget will be leftover
if the core network is basically profitable or run at low subsidy
levels.

(snip)

Interesting, thanks for posting.

Which are the most 'profitable' routes, and which require the largest
subsidy?

Chris