Bus journeys across the Liverpool City Region are set to be cut to just £2 under proposals announced by Mayor Steve Rotheram today.
The Liverpool City Region Combined Authority is proposing to introduce a £2 single adult fare for all bus services in the city region. If agreed, some passengers would see a saving of up to 13% in the cost of a single journey regardless of which service they use, in a bid to do away with the hassle and confusion of the region’s complex ticketing system.
The Mayor has also said that young people should continue to benefit from all day unlimited travel on bus by freezing the MyTicket at £2.20 until 2025. Plans are also in the works to simplify the region’s wider ticketing system under a ‘tap and go system’ that would include daily fare caps to try and guarantee that passengers always pay the cheapest fare.
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The proposals for the £2 single journeys will be discussed at the Combined Authority meeting tomorrow (Friday) and are subject to agreement with the bus operators and for an initial three-year period. Subject to confirmation, the £12m Bus Services Improvement Plan (BSIP) allocation will be used to fund these measures which are designed to encourage more people to use the bus by helping them travel further for less as well as helping the environment.
Earlier this year the Liverpool City Region took an important step towards the major reform of its buses after local leaders voted to confirm franchising as the preferred model for running the network – a landmark move that would reverse the industry’s deregulation in the mid-1980s.
Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region said: “One of the reasons that I ran to be the first Mayor of the Liverpool City Region was the opportunity to revolutionise our broken, fragmented public transport system. Hundreds of thousands of people rely on buses to get about every day – yet far too many tell me that they are too expensive, too unreliable and too confusing.
“We took a major step forward on this earlier this year, when we chose franchising as our preferred model for running our region’s buses. This latest announcement will help ease the burden on people – especially during the cost of living crisis – by making it cheaper for them to get about.
“This is just a down payment on my wider ambitions, though. I’m fighting to win London-style funding that will allow us to revolutionise our buses, trains and ferries and bring them together into a transport network that is better connected, faster, and cleaner. If it’s good enough for the capital, then it’s the very least that we should expect here in our region. This is the difference that devolution, with proper local decision making, is making to our region.”
If approved, the move is seen only as a start, with more funding needed to realise the ambition set out in the BSIP and to deliver the bus services that local people have asked for including additional evening and weekend services as well as more hydrogen buses.
The latest round of investment is seen as a key part of Mayor Rotheram’s pledge to reform the region’s transport by building a London-style system that will make travelling around quicker, cheaper, greener and more reliable.
