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descriptive
Transport for Greater Manchester sets routes and fares, and private operators run the buses under contract
Permanent project revision
Revision 2026-10-16-baseline · effective 2026-10-16
Current revision. This is the snapshot used by the live entity page.
Created the first structured Evidence Passport with 20 claims and 11 source dossiers.
sha256:44a0844c59dc8f4838a515b167a384c435ef0572a6fb55ac98496aa60766c688
add /evidencePassport — Added claim-level evidence mapping and source dossiers.add /revisionHistory — Established a permanent, hash-addressed baseline revision.The text below is copied verbatim from the published record. Each claim names the source dossiers that carry it; caveats stay attached to the claim they qualify.
clm-01657a522890a177
descriptive
Transport for Greater Manchester sets routes and fares, and private operators run the buses under contract
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quantitative
Franchised services began on 24 September 2023 in Bolton, Wigan and parts of Salford, Bury and Manchester; north Manchester followed on 24 March 2024 and the rest of the city on 5 January 2025
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when all 577 routes and 1,600 buses came under local control
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TfGM calls it the first area in the country to do this in 40 years
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descriptive
The data layer is Ticketer's integrated ticketing and automatic vehicle location system
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descriptive
which feeds live tracking in the Bee Network app and TfGM's punctuality reports
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quantitative
Since 23 March 2025 a contactless card tapped on bus or tram is charged the best fare
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quantitative
capped at £5 a day and £20 a week on buses alone
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quantitative
In the first franchising area it reports punctuality regularly above its 80% target
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quantitative
75.8% of buses ran on time in March 2025 against 71.6% a year earlier and about 67% in the year before franchising
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descriptive
a comparison TfGM itself qualifies because the measurement source changed
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quantitative
Provisional Department for Transport statistics put Greater Manchester bus journeys at 171.0 million in the year to March 2025, up from 154.5 million but below the 189.7 million of 2018/19
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quantitative
By July 2026 growth had slowed to 3.1% over twelve months, driven primarily by concessionary pass users
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quantitative
the watchdog Transport Focus found passenger satisfaction up from 79% to 86% in 2025, the biggest improvement it recorded
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descriptive
the same vehicle-location data drives the app's live tracking and the punctuality figures
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descriptive
against a baseline measured differently
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descriptive
TfGM added peak-time buses where punctuality lagged
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descriptive
which the operators' trade body says leaves the root cause, traffic congestion, untouched
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fares are forecast to cover almost half of running costs in 2025/26
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descriptive
recurring subsidy and road space decide the result
This layer records what is known about each source, what is still missing, and the exact snapshot this page is rendering. A missing date, archive or hash stays visible as missing.
Awaiting operator and domain-expert review; publication of this revision implies neither.
sha256:44a0844c59dc8f4838a515b167a384c435ef0572a6fb55ac98496aa60766c688
src-3e27259bdbb87eceTfGM's weekly punctuality report for 30 March to 5 April 2025. Lists the tranches: Bolton, Wigan and parts of Salford, Bury and Manchester joined on 24 September 2023; Oldham, Rochdale and parts of Bury, Salford and north Manchester on 24 March 2024; Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and the remaining parts of Manchester and Salford on 5 January 2025. Reports punctuality of 82.0% (tranche 1), 76.6% (tranche 2) and 76.6% (tranche 3) for the week, with one minute early to five minutes late counted as on time.
src-e4a170d588923234TfGM's standing explanation of its bus punctuality reports: punctuality is calculated from the difference between the time a bus leaves a timing point, taken from Automatic Vehicle Location tracker information, and the timetabled departure; a bus is on time if no more than one minute early or five minutes late.
src-540fcfd17e652f77TfGM's bus reform delivery report. States that franchising ran in three tranches from September 2023 to January 2025; that 'Tap and Go' contactless, multi-modal capped payments across bus and tram began in March 2025; that the Bee Network app provides real-time tracking; that first-area services routinely exceed the 80% punctuality target and whole-network punctuality was 75.8% in March 2025 against 71.6% in March 2024 and around 67% before franchising, 'noting the measurement source has also changed'; that extra peak buses were added where reliability was an issue; that transition funding was £134.5m; and that fares are forecast to cover almost 50% of operating costs in 2025/26. Says monitoring and evaluation will follow over several years.
src-11185df5e938d02eTfGM report to GMCA's Bee Network Committee covering December 2024 to February 2025. States that on 5 January all bus services in Greater Manchester, 577 routes and 1,600 buses, came under local control, describes Greater Manchester as 'the first area in the country to do this in 40 years', puts first-area punctuality above 80% 'up from c.69%', names north Manchester in tranche 2 and south Manchester in tranche 3, and sets multi-modal 'Tap and Go' live on 23 March.
src-cdee2275a835a855TfGM report to the Bee Network Committee on July 2026 performance. Gives rolling twelve-month bus patronage (August 2025 to July 2026) of 179.0 million, 3.1% higher than twelve months before; says growth is beginning to decelerate and has been driven primarily by concessionary pass users; puts July 2026 bus on-time punctuality at 83.4%, above target for the seventh consecutive month, with specific challenges in the tranche 2 area including north Manchester.
src-1f9c99bab0341b7bSupplier announcement: Ticketer and TfGM launched the first phase of an integrated ticketing and real-time information solution for the Bee Network from 24 September 2023, with Ticketer's Next Generation ticket machine and Smart Gateway on board; TfGM's franchising programme director says it will give customers accurate real-time travel information.
src-b4dee8ca01d475b5Supplier announcement of the final delivery of the Bee Network's integrated ticketing and AVL (automatic vehicle location) solution on 5 January 2025, with 700 ticket machines going live that weekend; says the franchising solution lets TfGM manage multi-operator franchised services on one platform.
src-85daa9656fc73089Trade report of TfGM's announcement that contactless 'tap and go' would extend to Bee Network buses from 23 March 2025, building on Metrolink's existing system, with the best fare calculated up to a daily or weekly cap: £2 single, £5 daily and £20 weekly on buses alone, and zone-based bus-and-tram caps from £6 a day or £24.80 a week.
src-e2167b562eede05cDepartment for Transport official statistics workbook BUS01 (revised edition). Table BUS01e gives passenger journeys on local bus services by local authority for years ending March: Greater Manchester CA 189.7 million (2019), 143.2 million (2023), 154.5 million (2024) and 171.0 million (2025). Figures from 2022 to 2025 are marked provisional; sources include Transport for Greater Manchester.
src-916bba7be7cfb113Transport Focus, the independent watchdog, publishing its 2025 Your Bus Journey survey results: overall bus passenger satisfaction in England rose to 85%; Greater Manchester showed the biggest improvement, from 79% to 86%, and was the one English area where satisfaction with value for money rose, to 79%.
src-a3f776b505a708aaComment by the chief executive of the Confederation of Passenger Transport, the bus operators' trade body. Says TfGM specifies routes, fares and frequencies while private companies run the buses; puts the transition cost at £134 million and net bus expenditure at £227m a year; says operators report punctuality improved by adding more buses while little has been done about congestion; argues that passenger growth outstripped Manchester's in several commercially run areas.