West Yorkshire buses: Mayor aims for public control

Ms Brabin said she wanted the bus to be people's "first choice" not just because they had no other transport options

The process of taking bus services back into public control has been started by West Yorkshire's mayor.

Tracy Brabin said she was committed to delivering a better bus service which worked for "people and not for profit".

The West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) has agreed to investigate the introduction of a franchise system.

It would mean the authority would pay companies to operate services, but retain the revenue generated to reinvest in the service.

Labour's Ms Brabin admitted taking public control could take several years and, in the meantime, she would create an enhanced partnership with private operators.

"While we investigate public control I want to make sure we improve the bus service as we go along," she said.

She said the partnership would enable improvements in frequency and reliability of services and was an opportunity to look at ticket pricing.

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Paul Matthews, managing director of First West Yorkshire, said he believed improvements could be delivered without introducing franchising.

"We do share a common agenda, we all want more people to travel by buses, we all want cleaner buses, we all want better information and more reliability," he said.

Paul Matthews, from First West Yorkshire, said the enhanced partnership would help deliver improvements

Mr Matthews said the enhanced partnership model would give the public sector greater accountability, while retaining a degree of commercial freedom for bus operators.

"We can actually deliver things that customers want much quicker than you could do through franchising," he said.

Ms Brabin said she had made a commitment during her election campaign to bring buses back under public control in a similar way to how they operate in London.

"That's been my commitment to make the bus service work for people and not for profit and shareholders.

"I really believe if it's good enough for London it's good enough for West Yorkshire," she said.

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