TRANSPORT bosses have launched a bid to take back control of buses in the North East.
After 25 years of bus operators controlling which services go where, and at what cost, transport group Nexus is to ask the five Tyne and Wear councils to back a move to see it take charge of all services.
Councillors on the Tyne and Wear Integrated Transport Authority are to be told bus firms have soaked up taxpayer funds in exchange for rising costs and unreliable services, and that the time for change has finally come. Between them the five finance departments in Newcastle, Gateshead, North and South Tyneside and Sunderland spend more than £59m a year of taxpayers’ money on bus subsidies and concessionary fares.
Under the proposals, known as Quality Contracts, Nexus would use this money alongside all the money collected in tickets to contract-out a set network of bus routes, with fares reviewed once-a-year by the five councils.
Government spending cuts mean Nexus has very little spare cash available, and is unlikely to be able to subsidise any more bus routes.
At tomorrow’s meeting, Nexus is expected to be given the go-ahead to spend six months outlining what it would do if it took control of buses.
The major firms would be asked to come up with an alternative version of this and in May next year the two will be judged.
If councillors sitting on the transport authority then decided to go for the Nexus option, the Government will be asked to use for the first time powers to set up a panel of experts to have the final say. Bernard Garner, director general of Nexus, said: “If we are going to save essential bus services from years of cuts, rising costs and falling passenger numbers we need to think in a totally new way about how they are delivered.
“Commercial bus companies rely heavily on taxpayer income, but there is no single body planning public transport to meet local needs and making sure it is delivered cost-effectively.
“The result is a complicated, confusing and wasteful mess with dozens of brands, more than 100 ticket choices, and some of our communities poorly served. The time is right to explore change, and this paper begins that process.”
Under Nexus’s plans Tyne and Wear would be divided into five zones for ticket purposes, with passengers selecting either a single or day ticket between these zones which can then be used on any bus.
Earlier this month a high-level look into how Arriva and Go North East operate in Tyneside and Northumberland found, Nexus say, evidence that there was “little or no competition” between bus operators and as a result passengers lost out.
Peter Huntley, managing director of Go North East, said: “Bernard Garner suggests that bus companies rely ‘heavily on taxpayer income’ but fails to explain that this is because we are being required to carry concessionary passengers free of charge. If the ITA does not want to spend its money all it needs to do is stop funding free travel.”
Arriva regional managing director Nigel Featham said: “Arriva shares Nexus’s commitment to providing the best possible bus services for passengers in Tyne and Wear.
“But the Quality Contract approach is untested and could involve considerable cost to the community and take a long time to deliver any results.”
The result is a complicated, confusing and wasteful mess
