Yorkshire needs a fairer bus system, not just the Mayor's Fares - Matthew Topham

It has been reported in the local press for months, with flashy graphics appearing on social media too.

The ‘M62 Mayors’ are capping single bus tickets at £2 across the region, while the West Yorkshire scheme also cuts the DaySaver ticket, for unlimited bus travel, to £4.50. A welcome move for sure.

Unfortunately, when you scratch the surface, the network remains a system plagued by hit and miss policies, bad communication, disintegration, and a privately controlled industry out to take as much as they can from the public purse.

Take this latest policy. Those who rely on the bus to get to work most regularly, like the 70 per cent of people in the poorest households who do not have access to a car, are likely to have a monthly ticket. No benefit there then.

Even the occasional bus users, the people most likely to benefit, might not see that much change: some operators already offered a £2 fare through their apps.

Then there is the communication confusion. The new scheme is advertised as capping the cost of a “single bus journey.” Ask most people, a journey is all the way to your destination, regardless of any changes you might have to make.

After all, in London, the £1.65 hopper fare — a gift of their regulated network — allows you to change as many times as you need in one hour to reach your destination.

Following hurried calls from journalists, West Yorkshire officials confirmed this is not a journey cap: it’s a fare cap. If your 30 minute journey from Otley to Horsforth means you need to change operator, your single journey comes to £4.

Earlier this year Manchester announced plans to roll out a London-style hopper fare, again covering changes, made possible by its quick progress towards public control.

Despite these caveats, certain bus users will see a real saving. However, passengers like Elinor Hewitt, interviewed on BBC Look North, point to the wider issues at play: "If the bus doesn't turn up, it doesn't really matter how much it costs."

New research out this week shows that just one in five buses turn up on time. Traffic can be a factor, but the bus companies still failed to meet their legal requirement of 95 per cent of buses turning up on time even during lockdown, when streets were deserted.

A report by a former UN Special Rapporteur highlights that the unrestrained profit motive is behind many of the human rights issues caused by unreliability: for instance, before private control, “more drivers were kept on standby to take over a route if necessary and guarantee reliability.”

London-style local control would mean the public could reverse the trend, prioritising punctuality over profits.

At least the new fares will make the network feel more integrated, right?

Don’t be so sure. While Tracy Brabin is furiously promoting the “Mayor’s Fares,” Transdev and First have both taken to the press to promote the reductions as “offers” from their companies.

By openly vying for credit, they are showing that attempts to coordinate Yorkshire’s wild west free market will always fail compared to London’s seamlessly integrated network, where the private operators are secondary to the publics’ needs.

And where should credit lie? According to the operators, the new reduced fares are being brought in through an Enhanced Partnership Scheme — a new attempt by councils to persuade the operators, who remain in charge, to improve services, through meetings, targets, and subsidies.

Dig a little deeper and the answer changes. A council report in May points out that the Mayor is spending over £11m a year on creating “clear and simple fares” across the region.

So the public once again are paying through the nose to get operators to reduce fares. If the reductions boost ticket sales, it is those private companies, not the public, who will control the bounty.

And right now, that’s the mayor’s only choice because, under our privatised system, our buses are legally accountable to operators’ shareholders (including the French and German governments), not the communities they serve.

Like with the rest of Britain's crumbling public services, from energy and water to rail, this is a case of nationalising the costs and privatising the profits — operators paid out an average of £15m a year to shareholders before the pandemic.

But public control would mean all the money from fares would be available to reinvest in the network: adding routes, lowering prices, and increasing reliability.

The Mayor’s flagship pledge was to make buses work “for people not profit.” The current Enhanced Partnership is the exact opposite, with private operators still in charge. Manchester and Liverpool have both managed to lower fares without propping up privatisation through partnerships.

Why have the illusion of public control, through occasional changes, when we could win the real, big ticket change West Yorkshire desperately deserves.

Matthew Topham, Better Buses for West Yorkshire campaigner at We Own It.