Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander hailed the completion of bus franchising in Greater Manchester on Monday as an “historic” moment which will result in more reliable services.
Since the process first began in 2022, passenger numbers have increased by 5 per cent while punctuality has risen from 69 per cent of buses on time in 2019 to 80 per cent.
Greater Manchester is now advising other city-regions such as Liverpool, West Yorkshire and the North East who want to follow the same process.
From 1 January, Labour increased the national bus fare cap from £2 to £3, although some regions – including Greater Manchester – have used further funding to keep it.
Burnham said he has some “sympathy” with the Government over the costs of capping bus fares and said low fares will only continue in Greater Manchester if passenger numbers continue to grow.
“It’s more on us now to use the system, because we control the fare box we get the benefit.
Bus-fare cap farce will see some passengers paying more for same route
Read MoreOther city-regions, including Liverpool, West Yorkshire and the North East, have also invested more of their own funding to keep the bus fares below the Government’s £3 cap.
Alexander denied the policy had been mishandled and that fare cap complexity might put off passengers from using buses.
“They set up a system after Covid where they put a bus fare cap in that didn’t provide any funding for it to continue beyond the end of last month. So it was entirely right that the Government stepped in to stop that explosion in bus fares.
“If they think that keeping fares at £2 or £2.50 is the right thing to do for their areas, given the pressure that they might know that their local population is under in terms of cost of living. I think that people using the buses in their home areas tend to know exactly what the setup is.
“I think it was the right thing for government to cap it at £3 because we’ve got to find a balance – we had a £22bn black hole in government spending in this year alone the way that the Conservative government handled public finances was disastrous and we’ve had to take some difficult decisions to put that right.”
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