The issue in Pembs is an unsupportive council, the majority of bus stops unmarked, combined with it being low density and very seasonal with very low demand off season. Combine that with low quality operators who are just there to rinse council tenders, you have a recipe for disaster.
Admittedly I've not been out on the buses much for a few years now for a number of reasons (COVID restrictions being one of them for a good chunk of that time) so have very little recent experience, but back when I was using them fairly often I would
not have described Richards Bros as a "low quality operator". Quite the contrary; I think they're great...
The best network for Pembrokeshire would be to do faster touristy buses to Carmarthen (given the shambolic train service) and try to focus on the attractions. 400,000 people visit Oakwood theme Park, no bus. Adjacent Bluestone Resort gets 2 buses per day (which are just placement trips to/from the depot) but they take 150,000 visitors per year. Between the two adjacent attractions, 550,000 visitors per year and basically no usable bus service.
Again, back when I was more familar with it, I wouldn't have described the train service between Carmarthen and Haverfordwest as shambolic (I understand it has gone downhill recently). Yes it was only every two hours but the class 175s tended to be a good choice rolling stock once you got west of Llanelli (further east they needed more carriages to cope with demand out of Cardiff and Swansea, particularly at peak times, and travel via Swansea is not competitive with the M4). Fishguard and Pembroke Dock though have been rather poorly served for some time now, with frequent use of class 150s and a 5 hour afternoon gap in Fishguard services.
To top it off, the 349 Haverfordwest - Tenby service which links many towns is now being cut from hourly to every 90 minutes from October 29th.
Ouch. Guessing the 348 (Haverfordwest-Monkton) has already gone in which case the 349 would be the main/only bus service linking Pembroke and Pembroke Dock with Haverfordwest.
They could use Pembrokeshire as a test bed as it is an area without big group operator
There is a First Cymru depot in Haverfordwest, so Pembs. isn't entirely without a 'big group operator'.
The issue is that a lot of Pembrokeshire routes aren't immediately profitable requiring investment and a advertising campaign. In addition, you'd need to take over routes from several operators if it was one single operator. To name the main 3 within the county (not counting Fflecsi) you have First Cymru, Traws Cymru and Taff Valley.
TrawsCymru (and TrawsCymru Connect) is
not a bus operator - it is a brand like Fflecsi with operation contracted out to bus operators (the T1 to First Cymru, the T5 and T11 to Richards Bros etc.).
First only has 2 routes and they are both partly funded in some way.
That's quite a fall - if I recall correctly they used to have 4 (302, 348, 349 and one I cannot remember the name of (maybe 356?) between Pembroke/Monkton and Milford Haven) and I thought most of those ran without council support though I could be wrong.
Richard Bros is just a contractor. You can very easily make the contract finish or issue a short enough contract
If I recall correctly, Richards Bros always used to run the 410 (Fishguard-Goodwick Town Service) themselves without council support and the 412 (now T5 South) and possibly 411 (now part of the T11) had something like 'service run on behalf of Pembrokeshire County Council' notes at the top of individual timetable columns (as opposed to a single note coving the whole timetable) becuase there were one or two trips that ran without council support. The T5 andT11 are fully-contracted now I expect, but I'm not sure if the 410 survived COVID as a commercial service.
I'm afraid being from Haverfordwest all their routes are now branded as T routes ie traws cymru for the most part.
In terms of 'T' services Haverfordwest only has the T5 (TrawsCymru) and T11 (TrawsCymru Connect) isn't it?