Andy Burnham unveils 24-hour bus services and £1.50 fares as part of Greater Manchester’s new transport system

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and council bosses have submitted new plans that could potentially make bus travel cheaper and more reliable for millions across the region.

The £1 billion bid for cheaper fares has a long-term goal to overhaul bus travel in the region with the mayor promising to bring buses ‘back into public control’.

The five-year plan, which will be discussed by leaders tomorrow morning, features new £1.50 ‘hopper’ fares, more ten minute service routes, 2,000 more accessible bus stops and more evening and Sunday services, as well as redesigned and revamped transport interchanges across the ten boroughs. 

This will result in seventy new bus routes across Greater Manchester, with new ten minute-long services making bus travel less restrictive and more flexible (the days of loitering at a cold bus stop for half an hour could be no more).

The proposal also promises to include twenty new routes with ‘twenty-four hour services’ and ‘three or four’ express bus routes for places not served by the Metrolink, although it is not yet clear as to where specifically these will be.

Mayor Andy Burnham has long been calling for a change in the region’s bus system, with him recently pushing for ‘London-style’ bus fares to be adopted across not only Manchester but the North of England, saying they would be a ‘game changer’.

David Dixon / Wikimedia Commons

Speaking to The Yorkshire Post, Burnham said: “We could be a template for the rest of the North, particularly for combined authorities where the powers do exist to put buses under public control.

“We think what we would do would be helpful to Leeds, helpful to Liverpool and helpful to other places as they look to go down a similar path. It’s perfectly doable.”

He added that in Greater Manchester, buses could be ‘integrated with the tram system’, suggesting that commuters would have a ‘daily cap on what they could expect to pay on any given day, no matter how many buses or trams they took’.

Council bosses will discuss the plans for Greater Manchester’s new bus system tomorrow, Friday October 29th.