The Welsh government has announced franchising plans to launch buses as a public service in Wales.
In future, this plan could see decisions about bus services in Wales made in collaboration with the Welsh Government and Transport for Wales (TfW) rather than solely by commercial bus operators. This includes factors relating to routes, timetables, fares, hours of operation and service quality standards.
Bus operators would then bid for contracts to run services to these specifications.
A document entitled One Network, One Timetable, One Ticket: Planning Buses as a Public Service for Wales has been published to outline the roadmap for this initiative.
This document provides the industry, local authorities and the public with an insight into how franchising will work in practice.
The roadmap includes the government’s intention to transition to the new system over several years. To do so, it will follow a geographical approach across franchise zones.
Lee Waters MS, Deputy Minister for Climate Change said:Bus reform is central to creating an integrated public transport network and tackling transport poverty across Wales. This, in turn, is essential to drive modal shift, without which we cannot contribute to the achievement of our statutory net zero targets. We look forward to working with our partners to discuss these proposals and developing the next level of detail to build a bus network capable of meeting those goals.
The Roadmap to Bus Reform Towards One Network, One Timetable, One Ticket is available here.
