NORTH-EAST leaders have officially backed an £800m bid to 'revolutionise' the region’s bus network – though there are significant worries over whether the upgrades can be delivered.

Plans were unveiled last week for a raft of radical improvements that would include cheaper fares, more low-emission buses, and seamless London-style travel across bus, Metro, rail, and ferry with a single ticket.

It will now be down to the Government to decide how much of the Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) to fund – though the £804m bid seems unlikely to be paid for in full, given that only £3bn has been earmarked for the whole of England.

If ministers’ funding offer ultimately falls short, then transport bosses would be forced to pick and choose which upgrades to go ahead with.

North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll told a meeting of the North East Joint Transport Committee (JTC) the plan was “magnificent”, giving passengers the ability to get from the tip of Northumberland to the southernmost reaches of County Durham for a capped fare of just £6.80.

He added: “We need to be ambitious. Shy bairns get nowt. It is important to put a price tag on it, but it is [asking for] £804m out of a £3bn fund and if we don’t get it in there will be compromises made.”

The ambitious proposals include:

A single ticket that would allow unlimited travel across all bus, Metro, and ferry services in Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and County Durham plus rail services between Sunderland, Newcastle, the Metrocentre and Blaydon. The multi-modal ticket could be capped at between £4 and £6.80 daily depending how far across the region you travel. It would be available to either pre-purchase or could be automatically calculated as passengers travel using a contactless bank card, pay as you go smartcard, or mobile app;

Cheaper tickets for under-19s, with a target £1.20 fare for single tickets and a £2.50 region-wide multi-modal fare cap; 

A trial of free bus travel for under-12s during summer 2022;

A pledge for all buses in the region to be either zero-emission or the highest emission standard for conventional buses by March 2025, plus a trial of hydrogen-powered buses;

More early morning, evening, and overnight services, and improved access to  the most rural areas of Northumberland and County Durham;

New “Superbus” corridors giving maximum priority to buses on the busiest routes in and out of city centres and to five new “major” out-of-town Park and Ride sites.

Transport North East managing director Tobyn Hughes said the improvements would cut car usage and “put the bus system on a more sustainable financial footing”, with hopes of passenger numbers returning to pre-pandemic levels by March 2023 and then growing by 10 per cent each year.

He admitted that the £804m price tag was a “large figure, but we believe that it is clearly justified and backed by the evidence we have set out”.

The BSIP was developed as part of a new ‘enhanced partnership’ between local councils and bus operators, which was mandated by the Government in order to access a share of the £3bn upgrade funding. It is not the same as a London-style franchised bus network, a system being pursued by Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, in which services are entirely under public control and contracted out to providers.