The York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority has been awarded £564,000 to deliver one of the country’s first pilot programmes exploring how bus franchising could help rural and coastal communities.
Bus franchising gives an authority full control over routes, fares and service standards, enabling services to be determined by what communities need, not just commercial viability.
The combined authority says that were it to introduce bus franchising, passengers could benefit from "more reliable, joined-up services, coordinated timetables and routes, simpler, clearer fares available across multiple operators, and one accessible, easy to understand network".
Until now, bus franchising has been focused on urban areas, such as Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire. This pilot will explore for the first time how franchising could work for people living in rural areas, with the challenges of sparse networks, long travel distances, and high dependence on subsidised travel. In some areas of York and North Yorkshire, villages are served by just one bus a week.
David Skaith, Mayor of York and North Yorkshire, said:
“We know bus services just aren’t working for our rural and coastal communities. This pilot puts York and North Yorkshire at the forefront of national work to fix that, not just in our region but across the country.
“In areas like ours, buses often run less frequently and over longer distances, and many depend on public funding to keep going. There’s very little evidence about how franchising could support rural communities, and these studies will help fill that gap.
“Our findings will feed directly into future Government policy on rural transport, while also giving us a much clearer picture of what could work locally, what it might cost and how it could benefit our communities before we make any decisions about the future of bus services here.”
The funding will support studies looking at local community needs, and the challenges and opportunities of implementing franchised bus, focused on five predominantly rural areas:
- The York – Selby corridor (including parts of South Yorkshire)
- Scarborough coastal communities
- The North York Moors National Park
- The Yorkshire Dales National Park
- Richmondshire and Northallerton (including links to Darlington and the Tees Valley)
The Combined Authority says it will explore how bus franchising could improve access to essential services for rural residents, including young people, older people and people with mobility needs, benefit the environment by encouraging more people to travel by bus, and ultimately deliver more efficient and better-connected services across the region.
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