Tim O’Toole, FirstGroup’s Chief Executive said:
“The private business model, in bus and in rail, is better by any important measure. Private sector bus operators have delivered results for passengers and local authorities - for instance, the five major operators have invested more than £1.4bn over the last five years in commercial bus services across the UK.
“The most effective way to deliver the best bus services for passengers is through operators and local authorities working together in partnership, and FirstGroup is doing just that with our partnerships in cities such as Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester and Bristol delivering lower fares, increasing use of smart and mobile ticketing and meeting local authority aspirations to get more passengers on buses.
“In Manchester, we are at the forefront of moves towards smart ticketing. We already work very closely with the directly elected Mayor of Bristol to help meet his ambitions of an increasingly integrated transport system and we will watch developments towards a similar system in Manchester with interest.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
- FirstGroup is one of Britain’s largest bus operators with around a fifth of bus services outside London. Our fleet of some 6,400 buses carries approximately 1.6 million passengers a day in a huge number of communities including 40 of the UK's largest towns and cities.
- First Bus in Manchester serve more than 76m customer journeys a year with a fleet of more than 700 buses and a team of 2,000 people.
- First TransPennine Express is a dedicated intercity rail service linking key cities and major towns in the North of England and Scotland. Our trains operate on the principal routes across the Pennines, linking the major urban areas of Newcastle, York, Leeds, Doncaster, Hull, Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool. First TransPennine Express operates around 300 services daily and serve 105 stations, carrying on average 70,000 customers every day with 60% of these being leisure travellers.
- Weekly bus travel is cheaper in metropolitan cities (£14 average) than in London (£20.70 average). In Greater Manchester we have reduced fares by up to 28%; on some routes this has led to passenger growth of up to 50%.
- We are a leading partner in three of the five Better Bus Areas in the country (in South Yorkshire, York and the West of England) and work in close partnership with local authorities to deliver solutions to congestion and stimulate economic activity. In Sheffield partnership has delivered lower fares for 60% of fare-paying adults and growth of 10% in fare-paying passengers.
- We have invested £310m in 2,000 new buses since 2012, with free Wi-Fi as standard on many new and refurbished buses.
- In 2013/14, people made 5.2bn bus journeys in the UK, 60% of all public transport journeys. There are 2.5m bus commuters nationwide, with more people using buses to get to work than all other forms of public transport combined.