West Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority votes to develop Quality Bus Contracts

Nov 23 2009 by Henryk Zientek, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

“Quality Contracts are the best way to take control of the situation and provide the level of transport people need,” he said.

Under such contracts bus companies would be told which routes to run, how often and what fares to charge.

Metro – which oversees local bus and rail services – said developing such a scheme would pave the way for a “franchised bus network” in West Yorkshire that people in London have enjoyed for years.

Metro said the scheme would respond to complaints from local bus users and tackle any anti-competitive practices where operators had local monopolies.

A Metro spokesman said: “Through a Bus Quality Contract Metro would be able to specify local bus routes, frequencies and fares – so removing the current confusion over different operators’ tickets and reducing the number of service changes.

“Operators would bid to run services which would be managed though contracts designed to provide consistent high standards across the county.”