Weekly tickets for all buses in Greater Manchester are set to be capped at £21 for adults and £10.50 for children in the new year – higher than the fare is now. If bus operators agree to it, the new cap will come into force from January.
This cap, which is 40p higher than the current cost of a 7 Day AnyBus ticket, would prevent the price of the multi-operator weekly fares increasing further. It comes after caps on single fares and all-day tickets were introduced across the city-region in September, but the price of some weekly passes increased.
At the time, mayor Andy Burnham said that slashing single fares to £2 and day tickets to £5 - with children's tickets costing half the price - would offer drivers a cheaper alternative than the car and benefit passengers already using buses. Nevertheless, he promised to look at introducing caps on weekly fares too.
Next week, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) will be asked to back a cap on weekly tickets which will cost £10.5m over a two-year period. Bus operators would be reimbursed for any losses they incur from the cap, with the difference covered by spending cash reserves held by the GMCA.
Like the other caps, the new weekly fare would be reviewed in summer 2023. But three months on from the first fare caps being introduced, the number of passengers using buses is now at its highest level since before the pandemic.
Capping single fares and daily tickets is estimated to cost £68m which will be covered by the government's Bus Services Improvement Plan (BSIP) grant. However, introducing a cap on day tickets actually brought the price down meaning that more money had to be spent initially to subsidise these fares.
System One currently sells a 7-day AnyBus adult ticket for £20.60, while a young person under 21 pays £15 and a junior weekly ticket costing £10.30. The Local Democracy Reporting Service understands that these prices were due to increase and the cap prevents that cost being passed onto passengers.
The move is expected to cost the GMCA half a million pounds in this financial year and a further £2m and £8m in each of the following years respectively. This would be funded through a combination of GMCA reserves that are specifically allocated for buses including the Concessionary Fares Reserve.
A Transport for Greater Manchester spokesperson said: "While this is a small increase on existing prices, given current rate of inflation, it is lower than expected increases to the any bus 7 day ticket and will ensure customers aren’t impacted as much as they would otherwise have been."
The Bee Network - Greater Manchester's new London-style integrated public transport system - is set to launch in Bolton and Wigan in September 2023. By 2025, all buses in the city-region will be under public control with a franchising system allowing local leaders to select routes and set prices.
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