Skip to main content

New Buses Bill gives councils more power

Reforms are set to make bus travel in the UK more passenger-friendly and give councils more freedom to improve services. Roads Minister Andrew Jones said reforms will help deliver better journeys across the country, as he delivered a keynote speech at the UK Bus Summit. Under the changes in the Buses Bill, councils will be given the choice to franchise services and enter into new partnerships with providers. All companies will have to share information about routes, fares and timetables, paving the
February 16, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Reforms are set to make bus travel in the UK more passenger-friendly and give councils more freedom to improve services.

Roads Minister Andrew Jones said reforms will help deliver better journeys across the country, as he delivered a keynote speech at the UK Bus Summit.

Under the changes in the Buses Bill, councils will be given the choice to franchise services and enter into new partnerships with providers.

All companies will have to share information about routes, fares and timetables, paving the way for programmers to develop new apps passengers can use to plan their journeys.

Local authorities will be given new powers to enter into stronger partnerships with bus companies and agree minimum standards for services, improving reliability and punctuality.

The new partnerships will also be given the power to set standards for local buses and introduce standard ticketing rules over wider areas, paving the way for Oyster-style schemes.

The Buses Bill is due to go before Parliament later this year.

Related Content

  • Speed limits: is 20 really plenty?
    June 16, 2020
    Speed kills – which means cutting speed should cut collisions. But is it that simple?
  • Dynamic lane closures cuts time, cost and congestion on Motorway roadworks
    March 17, 2014
    A combination of technologies is leading to major congestion and cost reductions during roadworks on the UK’s motorway network. Innovative construction programme scheduling technology and the deployment of moveable barriers has achieved substantial savings of money and time on UK motorway roadworks managed by the Highways Agency (HA). This combination has set the scene for a new generation of road usage analysis tools. The HA’s objective was to reduce the congestion caused by lane closures during roa
  • National truck tolling scheme compensates for transit traffic
    July 13, 2012
    Q-Free's Per Frederik Ecker talks about the Slovak Republic's new truck tolling system, which is intended to compensate for the large amounts of transit traffic which passes through the country. In January this year Q-Free, together with Siemens, was awarded the contract to deliver the new national truck tolling scheme in the Slovak Republic. This will be operated by Slovakia SkyToll on a 13-year concession and Q-Free is supplying the central tolling and enforcement system, together with a three-year servic
  • Cellular communications drive the way forward for tolling
    January 18, 2012
    For more than 20 years prior to joining the ITS industry, Mike Payne of Idris, part of Federal Signal Technologies, worked for Vodafone - the world's biggest mobile operator. Here, he considers how the road tolling sector can grow and learn from the cellular industry. The global cellphone has been one of the most successful collaborative technology projects in the last 30 years. Mobile phone technology developed throughout the 20th century with the first public service in the early 70s. This was followed by