The mayor of Greater Manchester has announced a ‘major’ overhaul of the city’s transport network in order to make it more integrated.
In a speech to the Urban Transport Group in Leeds, Andy Burnham outlined his plans to establish a Strategic Transport Board to ensure decisions about the city’s transport network are made in a joined-up way.
In his speech, Mr Burnham described Manchester’s trains as ‘packed-out and clapped-out’ and the buses as ‘confusing and over-priced’.
He also emphasised the importance of integrating the different transport systems to ensure they work together efficiently.
‘Our road, rail and bus services are not only poor individually, they can’t be properly integrated due to an inconsistent national policy framework in which they operate,’ said Mr Burnham.
‘We cannot have a transport system where different modes of transport operate completely independently from each other or, worse, actively competing and undermining each other as we have seen with bus operators and Metrolink.
‘It lacks coherence, it’s confusing for passengers, and it doesn’t deliver for a growing 21st century city-region. It is time to bring some order to this chaos.’
As well as the new Transport Board, Mr Burnham announced that Greater Manchester will be the first city region to use new powers to improve bus services.
A new contactless bank card payment on Metrolink will also be introduced in 2018 and the city region will do more to ensure train operators compensate commuters for poor service.
