More getting on board as bus service gets in gear
MORE people have got on board buses in Greater Manchester since the franchised Bee Network launched, mayor Andy Burnham has revealed in an update a month on.
For many, however, it’s been far from a smooth journey so far, although it’s only the start of the road for the new system.
There have been reports of delays to a number of services operating on the franchised network - and reports of frustrations with the new app.
But transport bosses revealed at a meeting of the Bee Network Committee held on Thursday that journey route planning functionality on the Bee Network app was due to come into force early in the new year.
Mr Burnham, reporting an eight per cent growth in passenger numbers patronage - since the launch, paid tribute to ‘heroic efforts’ that have been made by teams involved to ‘move overnight from one way of providing a bus service to another way’.
Punctuality of buses, Mr Burnham said, fluctuated between levels lower than those seen pre-franchising and higher levels.
Overall, punctuality he said continued to improve and increased from 71 per cent to 74 per cent in the last few weeks, comparable to this time last year.
Mr Burnham said: “We started off some way below from a reliability and punctuality point of view however, from around the first week of October onwards, we have developed some headroom above the performance of the old, nonfranchised system.
“I think the figures are pretty encouraging one month in, but of course these are cumulative figures.
“You could quite reasonably say ‘this doesn’t reflect my experience as a passenger’.
“We would acknowledge there have been issued on particular routes.”
Mr Burnham said the first month had revealed how much roadworks can hit bus services. But he said: “Overall, we are above the old system by and large now and I expect us to remain there.
“It will only improve once we get into the running of the system.”
Mr Burnham urged the public and passengers to ‘look at the broader picture’ in terms of performance and reliability, saying only 20 per cent of Greater Manchester has been franchised so far.
The performance of the V1 guided bus service was highlighted in his presentation.
Performance was said to be ‘consistently outperforming pre-franchise service levels’ compared to the same period last year.
Mr Burnham said: “In terms of the V1 and V2, there is more service in both directions.
“There are eight buses eastbound into Manchester every hour, four from Leigh and four from Atherton, and there are eight buses coming the other way, westbound. Later running as well. This service is much improved.”
Patronage - the number of people using buses - is said to have grown steadily since the start of franchising, with an average of almost 100,000 a day, sometimes getting as high as more than 120,000.
Mr Burnham said it equated to an eight per cent increase.
Increased patronage, he said, also equated to more money being raised in terms of fares.
Transport for Greater Manchester said the socalled ‘fare box’ was healthier than what had been planned for in advance, as data from private operators wasn’t available under the old system.
The £2 cap on single fares will remain in force.
Under franchising, private operators now have no say over routes, fares, frequencies, timetables and overall standards, giving power back to the paying public and paving the way for the Bee Network a vision of integrated bus, tram and eventually train travel in the city region.
The first publicly-controlled electric buses were rolled out in Bolton, Wigan and parts of Bury and Salford in September, with the whole network to be franchised by 2025.