Buses, trams and trains - what Greater Manchester’s transport future looks like

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has laid out plans for the future of transport and growth across our region.

It includes a major new expansion to the Bee Network by bringing railway lines under local control, moving towards a fully integrated London-style transport system, and future plans for underground travel.

The Mayor said the region is in the middle of a transport “revolution” which everyone around Greater Manchester will be part of.

He added that Greater Manchester has been growing “faster than the UK economy” and that the new announcements are a plan to support growth.

All buses in the region are due to fall into the Bee Network by January 5, including services in Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, and the remaining parts of Manchester and Salford – with some new lower fares being introduced for commuters.

The Bee Network launched in Wigan, Bolton and parts of Bury, Salford and Manchester in September last year, as Greater Manchester became the first area to bring buses under local control following deregulation in 1986.

Commuters will see small reductions in prices, with unlimited travel on Bee Network bus services £20 for seven-days for an adult and £10 for a child – compared with £21 and £10.50 currently.

28-day travel will be more than £5 cheaper for adults – coming down from £85.40 (£42.70 child) to £80 (£40 for a child).

New ‘hopper’ tickets are part of the bus franchising plans from January 5, which will see people able to use the same ticket on as many Bee Network buses as they like for one hour, at the existing price of £2 for adults and £1 for children and concessions.

Half price monthly bus passes for 18 to 21-year-olds are also due to be announced, supporting a drive towards technical education through the Greater Manchester Baccalaureate qualifications.

A transition to a fully contactless tap in tap out payment system on buses has been pushed back to mid-March, with Mr Burnham delaying the “big bang” day when all the Bee Network will be in place.

The Mayor said it would be “too much of a risk” to launch everything on the same day, shortly after Christmas.

The Bee Network will be expanded to Greater Manchester’s railways, with eight lines coming under local control by 2028 with pay-as-you-go contactless payments, and ‘full roll out’ by 2030.

The eight initial lines are Wigan via Bolton; Wigan via Atherton; Wigan via Golborne; the Airport; Alderley Edge and Buxton via Stockport; Glossop; Hadfield and Rose Hill Marple via Guide Bridge; Ashton-under-Lyne and Stalybridge; and Rochdale.

This will bring improvements to railway services, according to Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM), with a minimum of two trains per hour at every train station, integrated fares, and new trains.

The Mayor said he has written to new Prime Minister Keir Starmer stating that he believes this is how the region can “deliver more for less” by using devolved powers.

He added that the eight railway lines being brought under local control are currently being subsidised by around £100 million per year, with some lines “carrying a good degree of fresh air”, partly due to the cost of travelling by train.

It will give travellers “more for their money” if they can tap in at their train station and be able to take the tram and bus built into their ticket fare, which the Mayor believes will increase passenger numbers and help reduce the required subsidy.

Plans for a new train station in Golborne are still on the cards, with the Mayor pledging to ask the new Transport Secretary for the green light to begin work.

A new station in Cheadle is set to be delivered by 2026-27.

Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) has also outlined a ‘Rapid Transit’ system to create new bus, tram-train, and Metrolink routes around the region.

This is part of 15 emerging priorities identified for new, extended and converted lines, including introducing tram-train services to join up the light and heavy rail networks, and the potential for major new tunnelled capacity.

Plans are being put together to take the Metrolink to Stockport, Heywood, Middleton, and Bolton, although business cases for these are still being prepared with updates expected by the end of 2024.

Other options for future Metrolink expansions include taking the tram to Port Salford, and connecting Bury, Oldham, and Rochdale around the Atom Valley business site.

Among the announcements was that Vernon Everitt and Dame Sarah Storey have been re-appointed as Greater Manchester’s transport and active travel commissioners to oversee the next phase of delivery of the Bee Network.

The announcement comes as latest figures show that the Bee Network is delivering a more reliable bus service than before they came under local control, with growing numbers of people using them.

Over the past six months, the number of people using buses in Bee Network areas has increased by 5 percent according to TfGM, with the week ending May 18 recording the highest weekly patronage to date since franchising started, with over 849,000 passenger journeys.

The punctuality of services is also improving according to the stats, with more than 80pc of services running on time between April 28 and 23 June 23 this year, compared with 68.7pc over the same period 12 months ago.

Mr Everitt said bringing railway lines under local control by 2028 will make it feel “fundamentally different moving around Greater Manchester.”

He added: “That is part of this strategy of the Bee Network being a powerhouse for growth, and for productivity.
“Transport does not sit in isolation, it does not run for the purposes of itself, it is an enabler of everything else that Greater Manchester is seeking to deliver.”

Mr Everitt announced there will be a new fleet of trams to help expand Metrolink services, as well as tram-train capability.

He continued: “The next four years will see further rapid improvements to transport for the people and businesses of the region.

“This includes completion of bringing together Metrolink, buses, trains and active travel into a joined-up Bee Network, all linked by simple and affordable fares, ticketing and customer information. We will also continue to focus on the safety and security of customers and staff.”

All train stations around the region are also due to be made accessible by 2040.

Despite the plans, Mr Burnham said there is a risk that the lack of transport connectivity and capacity will eventually become a “barrier to growth” in the city-region.

He said: “I would point to the need to go underground at some point.

"Not to do everything on the surface, as a second city anywhere else in Europe has done in recent decades, going underground to support continued economic growth and not put a limit on the economic growth that a place like Greater Manchester can have.

“I am not holding back from putting those messages into the new government, because we have a government now that has got a growth mission and Greater Manchester is ready to play its full part in that.

“In fact we are ready to play more than our part, because I’ve already offered to the prime minister to build beyond Greater Manchester’s share of the 1.5 million homes which are the government’s overall target for this Parliament.

“If we are to do that, we will need much greater levels of devolution and funding support to be able to build out the infrastructure in the way that we have described.”

He added: “I do believe by the middle of this century Greater Manchester will have to go underground if we are to continue building the economic power of this great city region which is growing fast, there’s no point in me holding back from saying that.

“It’s not about making unrealistic bids for funding now, but it is about saying [we need] an underground station at Piccadilly and tunnelling, and starting to think about more underground rapid transit across the city region.

“With the phase that we have outlined today, we can increase capacity cleverly without having to go to that level, but there comes a point and we’re now thinking beyond this phase of the Bee Network and where it will go, and we’ll increasingly be building those conversations over the coming years.”

A Greater Manchester Combined Authority report about the plans stated that the cost of tunnelled travel options ‘would be multi-billion’ but that it could be ‘lower in cost than the longer tunnel required for the Elizabeth line.’

It added: ‘There is much work to do on the business case for any such investment.’

Luke Bramwell, head of rapid transit development at TfGM, said plans for an underground network are in their “early days”, but the proposal “needs to be kept open.”

He added: “From south-west to north-east, that’s very much where there’s pressure on Metrolink, so the starting point there is looking at the trams, but clearly we also have plans to bring in tram-train services in some of those routes, and there are options to bring in rail lines, so it needs to be kept open and flexible.

“On the north-west to south-east axis, the key pressure is around the Castlefield corridor so I think that the early emerging work that we’ve got leans much more towards a regional-metro type service – that’s trains – but both of them need to be kept open.

“It’s early days on it, but we need to react to the fact that in the middle of this century the capacity pressure and the growth constraint needs to be addressed.”

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