Bus journeys in the North East now cost just £1 for all passengers aged 21 and under – but transport chiefs have admitted that services must become more reliable to make the offer a success.
Young people across Tyne and Wear, Northumberland and County Durham can now get the reduced fare rate on almost all bus services across the region, as well as on the Tyne and Wear Metro and Shields Ferry, in the latest step in a drive to make public transport more affordable. Cheaper prices and multi-modal tickets for adults to allow for seamless travel around the North East are also due to launch later this year.
But after a torrid time for passengers since the onset of the Covid pandemic, since when the bus network has struggled amid delays, cancellations, and cuts to timetables, Gateshead Council leader Martin Gannon says that services must get better to ensure they are a “reasonable alternative” to cars. He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “It is fantastic news, of course it is brilliant to have young people under 22 being able to travel for £1.
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"It is exactly what we need – people travelling by public transport, reducing congestion, and making it easy and affordable. The issue is reliability – it is great having a £1 bus fare, as long as there is a bus there.”
There had been fears that private bus operators in the North East were about to slash their services by up to 20% earlier this year, before a Government relief fund was extended to the end of June – continuing to prop up routes while ridership numbers remain below pre-Covid levels. The region’s bus operators had already slashed their mileage by 15% in 2022.
Coun Gannon, who chairs the Joint Transport Committee, said the network remains under “enormous strain” and that the business model for running buses had been “destroyed” – as he called for Government support to become a permanent fixture in order to guarantee services’ future. He added: “At the moment there are certain bus services that are commercially viable, the main arterial routes.
"You can travel from Durham to Chester-le-Street, Low Fell, Gateshead, Newcastle on the 21. But if you want to go a mile east or west of that, the bus services just don’t exist. That is in the central conurbation and it is even worse in rural areas.”
Ben Maxfield, chair of local operators association NEBus, agreed that companies “can’t effectively run a business and do better for our customers when we are facing a cliff edge every three months”. He added: “We have been working really hard over the course of the Covid years and the subsequent recovery from that, to really improve reliability, and we have seen those results start to come through now.
“We have seen the mileage that we are failing to operate due to driver shortages come down to close to pre-Covid levels. Although the punctuality of our services takes a bit longer to get right, that is going in the right direction as well. In order to support operators being able to deliver a more reliable and more punctual service, we need people using the bus. The more it gets used, the more we can invest into services to improve them for the wider public.”
The new £1 fare initiative has been funded via the Department for Transport, following the awarding of £168m for a North East Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIP). Roads minister Richard Holden told the LDRS that he hoped that the North East would act as a pilot area for the cheaper fare to be rolled out across the UK.
The North West Durham MP added: “Particularly for people in rural areas like mine, or Hexham, or Bishop Auckland, often those journeys can be quite expensive at the moment. It used to be a fiver to go from Hexham to Newcastle, so to reduce a £10 return journey down to £2 is absolutely transformational.”
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