Mayor to restore public trust in the buses

The Mayor has vowed to improve public transport across the North East and wants to bring buses back into public control, so the region can set its own routes and fares, and drastically improve reliability to restore trust in public transport.

Immediately after being elected, the Mayor asked for options to be looked at for bus reform – a key manifesto priority. This set the wheels in motion to look at how the region’s bus network could operate in the future.

Options for bus reform will be discussed at Cabinet in July and a report will recommend that the Mayor and Cabinet progress with the next step of the formal process – preparing a Franchising Scheme Assessment (FSA).

An FSA is a complex statutory legal process and is currently expected to take 2 years and 8 months. This is reflective of lessons learnt from other regions which have undertaken the process as well as the unique urban, rural and coastal geography of the North East CA. Acceleration opportunities will also be sought whenever possible. The Government has announced in the King’s Speech that it will bring forward legislative changes to accelerate bus franchising which may potentially be of relevance.

In the short-term, improvements are already being rolled-out across the region’s public transport network using the region’s Bus Service Improvement Plan funding – with the North East Combined Authority Cabinet due in July to formally allocate £101.2m on a wide range of schemes which include affordable fare schemes and improvements to local bus services.

North East Mayor, Kim McGuinness, said: “Our bus system needs to work better for local people. I said I would greatly improve public transport in my manifesto and I will make this a reality.

“Bus travel is incredibly important to residents – it's by far the largest form of public transport in our region, responsible for 106 million journeys in 2022/23 but passenger levels have been in a steady decline for decades and are still much lower than pre-covid levels.

“We need to recognise that the existing system is broken and things need to change if we are to grow bus use and improve things for passengers. Local people need our bus system to be more reliable - to trust buses will turn up on time - and affordable, so that cheap tickets help people reach new opportunities for work or education.

“I hear from residents about the issues they face every day and it’s not good enough - the bus system is simply not working for the vast majority of passengers.

“I'm determined to deliver a high quality, integrated network so that once again public transport is something we can put our trust in, and something we can all be proud of.”

The region’s bus network was ‘deregulated’ in the 1980s, meaning that in the current system private bus operators compete for passengers and are ultimately responsible for setting commercial bus routes, timetables, fares and overall standards. This can lead to some less commercially viable routes being cut by private bus operators, leaving residents cut off from the network. In the North East, around 28% of households don’t own a car and without buses, many people are completely cut off from opportunities, local services and friends and family.

Speaking about Bus Service Improvement Plan funding, the Mayor added: “We are already delivering major improvements for North East passengers – helping make millions of bus journeys more affordable with our £1 21 and under fare and multi-modal day tickets.

“Alongside this, a substantial amount of public funding is being used to save local bus services from proposed cuts by operators alongside other investments in safer and accessible stops and stations, bus priority measures to speed up buses and more.”

This formal allocation of £101.2m is from the region’s Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) funding award which is £163.5m in total.