The ability to make decisions on fares, routes and timetables were some of the driving factors in moving to bring Liverpool's buses back into public control.
Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram revealed the historic decision to revamp the city region's public transport network was led by a desire to put decision making powers back into local hands after more than three decades.
Members of Liverpool City Region Combined Authority signed off on proposals for a franchising system to be the preferred method of running bus services in the six boroughs - the biggest shake-up in Merseyside transport since the 1980s.
READ MORE: Historic move to bring Liverpool City Region buses back under public control confirmed
Mayor Rotheram, who described the decision as "momentous", said the move was well overdue.
He said: "It's taken 36 years to be able to reverse something that most of us knew, at the time, was the wrong thing which was the deregulation of bus services.
"When I was a kid we used to have a decent bus service, you could get anywhere.
"It's taken us five years to get through impenetrable legislation that the government moved, but made so difficult for us to use to do the things we wanted to do, it was almost counterproductive in parts.
"We've got through it to this gateway process and what people want to see is something different.
"It won't happen over night, it doesn't mean that because we've taken this decision, tomorrow everything's going to be in a new livery."
The move to public control is part of Mayor Rotheram's plan to introduce a London-style transport network and the former MP explained how he felt it was time the city region was able to replicate the capital's system.
He said: The control is really relevant because the way in which we'll attract more people to use it is by certainty.
"If you're getting a bus you want to know it's going to be there.
"The best way I explain this is, when you get off at Euston Station in London, nobody looks at the timetable and if they're jumping a bus they just wait and jump on.
"If it's not there, there's another one two minutes later.
"Why isn't that what we expect? Just because London is the capital and attractive to some people, why should we settle for second best? We're not second class citizens and we won't.
"We want the London style ticketing process as well, with the smart technology so we can cap the overall fares that people spend, so if you do make 10 journeys in a day, it will only charge a certain amount.
"We want the full lot."
It is expected the network's transfer over to public control will happen in eight "chunks" as Mayor Rotheram described them, with St Helens earmarked to begin the process.
The Metro Mayor said: "We'll do it systematically so all the buses change, it's no good half of them changing.
"We're looking towards potentially St Helens as the first one, then the others over an extended period it has to be said. It'll take longer than 12 months to get them all online."
Currently, private companies Arriva and Stagecoach manage the city region's road network but Mayor Rotheram did not rule out other companies coming in to operate the buses once a procurement stage has been completed.
He said: It's been painstakingly slow becasue we don't want the operators to take us to judicial review and I've got letters on my desk from the operators saying they will work with us.
"That's why we're confident the bus operating companies will want to look at what we've just gone through there and the final decision when it's taken later this year, and want to work with us.
"Why wouldn't they when they've got a lot of experience of operating buses here, somebody has to run the buses. We're not allowed to have a bus operating company, so we'll work with good bus operating companies who want to provide excellent service.
"It means that we have to go to a procurement exercise anyway and we'll do that on routes, so not an overall operator, but we'll get value for money out of this and reinvest the savings we'll make into more frequent services or cheaper fares or a new and improved zero emissions bus fleet.
"Whatever it is, they'll be our decisions, they're decisions we can take.
"At this moment in time, that's all left to bus operating companies."
Mayor Rotheram, who is in his second term as Metro Mayor, said the process would now be able to move "very quickly" with a public consultation expected within months and was confident of a positive response.
After John Fogerty, combined authority executive director of corporate service, warned there were still risks attached the project, Mayor Rotheram moved to ensure value for money would be sought by bringing services in house.
He said: "All of our policies are best value assessed and on this one, it's a no brainer in some ways.
"What we want is what London has got, and if everyone looks at London as the best model in the country and we're doing that, it can only be an improvement on what we've currently got.
"The idea is, not just to have the same livery, but that we can take control of the network.
"We'll be the ones who decide when the buses stop, the fares and the way ticketing works.
He also laid down a challenge to Westminster to meet the demands of Liverpool City Region and back the area with appropriate funding.
Mayor Rotheram said: "There's a cost to all this and what I want to do is see if the Government are as ambitious as us and we can get the same sort of subsidies as other places and we'll attract more people out of the car and hit those net zero targets."
The former Parliamentarian also said delivering on buses would prove to detractors around his role that it was providing for the people of Liverpool City Region.
He said: "Some of people will question what a Metro Mayor is, what a combined authority is for, but you're starting to see with some of the things that we're doing the benefit of having this.
"I'm not settling for what we've done, there's much more to do."
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