Bus Services Improvement Plan sets out ambitions for reforming services in the city-region

Greater Manchester’s political leaders have published their Bus Services Improvement Plan, which is to be submitted to the national government as part of progress towards bus franchising and a London-style transport network for the city-region.

Plans have been based on customer research to improve the entire journey experience on Greater Manchester buses, from pre-trip information, through to integration with other modes of transport and deliver quicker, greener, cheaper and more reliable services across the network. Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) voted to move forward with plans for reforming bus services earlier this year following an extensive consultation process; a public conversation on ideas for bringing wider Bee Network plans for the entire transport ecosystem is currently underway.

Greater Manchester’s Mayor, Andy Burnham, said:

We’re on with delivering the Bee Network – our plan for a London-style transport network with London-level fares. This submission marks huge progress towards our vision for a modern, affordable, fully integrated and accessible bus service for the city region. We are well on with developing plans locally – now we need national government to support us in what is a shared ambition for better buses, on a par with what Londoners currently enjoy.

“Here we have expensive fares, longer wait times, and basic audio-visual announcements on only a tiny percentage of our buses. Decisions about which services are run are made by individual operators. The capital enjoys an integrated network, capped fares of £1.55, more modern buses and shorter waiting times. This is all intrinsically linked to levelling up – we cannot realise Greater Manchester’s full economic potential and equality of opportunity without better buses.

“As the only place outside London bringing buses back under public control, we are also uniquely placed to guarantee tangible returns for government’s investment and can do so quickly, within the period of the spending review.”

Transport Commissioner, Chris Boardman, added:

Travelling by bus is a much more confusing and frustrating experience here than in the capital and this needs to be urgently put right. Only when we have a fully-integrated, seamless Bee Network will we really be able to make the change we need here to achieve our net zero carbon targets.  Buses need to be affordable, easy to use, frequent and modern to enable millions of residents here to use them to get from A to B, leaving their cars at home for every day trips.”

Greater Manchester is asking national government for approximately £630 million of combined capital and revenue funding to deliver its Bus Service Improvement Plan up to the end of 2024/25.  The city region is also asking for £322 million of capital funding for bus infrastructure as part of its City Region Sustainable Transport bid, published last month. Chancellor Rishi Sunak is expected to announce a £6.9 billion package of funding for transport projects in city-regions across the North and Midlands.

Greater Manchester’s ambitions are based around seven themes and match national government’s National Bus Strategy and Bus Service Improvement Plan objectives. They are:

• Customer Experience: Providing customers with a safe and seamless travel experience. A Customer Charter will set out the standards that customers can expect when using bus services in Greater Manchester;
• More frequent services: A  ‘turn up and go’ frequency (at least every 10 minutes per hour on Monday to Saturday daytimes) on major routes to form a ‘London-style network’ to ensure that all of Greater Manchester’s diverse populations and geographies are able to access our bus network;
• Infrastructure: Significant increase in bus priority including Quality Bus Transit on main corridors, and the removal of congestion ‘hotspots’ for buses, plus investment in bus passenger facilities and mobility hubs. All of these measures are included within Greater Manchester’s City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement bid submitted to Government in September 2021.
• Information: Readily available; live and up-to-date journey information that is integrated with the purchase of travel and is provided in a variety of ways to reflect the needs of all customers ensuring its use is captured and used to inform service design.
• Fares and Ticketing: Attractively priced, more affordable and simply structured fares for ‘hoppers’, travelcards, daily and weekly capping for all bus travel, and for trips interchanging between bus, Metrolink and other modes including Bee Network Bikes.
• Fleet – Greener buses: Introducing a full fleet of zero emission high quality buses alongside associated support infrastructure by 2032, with 50% of the fleet to be zero emission by 2027 and a further 330 zero emission vehicles to meet the passenger demand generated from the service enhancements (270) and fares reduction initiatives (60).
• Better Network Management: Prioritising journey times and reliability.

Publicly controlled bus services are expected to be delivered first in Wigan and Bolton by 2023, with services then rolled out to Greater Manchester’s other eight boroughs including Stockport by 2025.