Mayor Dan Norris: ‘I’m making bus travel free for the month of your birthday’

As Labour’s Metro Mayor in the West of England, there are two key things in my thoughts.

The first is the worrying cost-of-living crisis. Sky-high bills. Parents and carers going without to feed children. Soaring mortgage and rental costs scything down hope and aspiration.

This economic meltdown after 13 years of the Conservatives – initially aided and abetted by the Lib Dems don’t forget, and more recently Liz Truss in particular – has frightened the majority of the one million people I proudly represent.

The second is the climate and biodiversity emergency. Goodness me, something has gone very wrong with the West of England’s weather and the world’s. Research suggests things are even worse than feared.

Such is the urgency on so many fronts, and such are the financial constraints after Tory economic mismanagement and recklessness, policies can’t be single issue; they need to tackle more than one challenge. ‘Policy multitasking’ is behind an innovative scheme I’ve introduced that aims to change people’s travelling behaviour but also help address the climate emergency, health challenges, the cost of living crisis, and support struggling businesses. Welcome to Birthday Buses.

From today (1 August) residents in the West of England can ride the buses right across this fantastic region completely free of charge throughout the whole month of their birthday.

That’s bus travel across 515 square miles, with almost no restrictions. It’s open to everyone – any age, any time, and as many journeys as they want.

So why am I introducing this? Because I need more people to make more journeys by bus and fewer by car. If you delve into bus statistics you find fewer journeys being made than before covid struck – but actually the vast majority of pre-pandemic passengers are back but they are now travelling less often. This is a UK wide problem.

This makes sense – for today people are working from home more; doing more online shopping and having more virtual appointments for things like seeing a GP. But fewer passenger journeys mean less fare income coming in. This is deeply worrying for without many more passengers, buses in the medium and long term will simply not be sustainable.

So we have got to start attracting more new first-time passengers onto buses now. That means big, bold, and smart measures that also rise to meet the other policy challenges of our age like traffic jams, air pollution, and the economic inefficiency that poor transport burdens upon local business.

Birthday Buses mean passengers literally have nothing to lose. It’s a month of free travel to attract brand new passengers.

Then crucially I hope that during their birthday month West of England residents come to like (and I hope, even love) bus travel and so continue to use buses into the future.

Other places have tried free bus travel for a day, or a weekend, including in Labour-run Wales, but Birthday Buses is different. The duration of a whole month of free bus travel creates the potential for real behaviour change that sticks. It could mean the travelling public never looks back!

Very importantly Birthday Buses will also help existing bus users during this awful cost-of-living crisis. With inflation still stubbornly at a 40-year high, that matters. Locals can all be better off by one twelfth of the bus costs they shell out annually.

Bus Users UK has described the scheme as “absolutely brilliant”, and Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said it is “exactly the kind of initiative we need to encourage people on to buses.”

Birthday Buses is also designed to cut congestion, pollution and carbon. 44% of carbon emissions come from travel. The economic impact of congestion costs my area £300 million annually and sadly there are 300 premature deaths due to air pollution a year.

I’ve also worked closely with the bus companies. The phased nature of the scheme means buses shouldn’t get too overcrowded as we try and attract new passengers.

Fixing bus services is not something I’m doing alone. Across the country, Labour leaders are showing the difference our great party makes when in power. Think the £2 cap on bus journeys I introduced last year – alongside our brilliant Labour metro mayors . This practical and popular policy shaped by compassion – forced a wayward and out-of-touch Downing Street to follow suit quickly.

Louise Haigh is right on the money when she says handing more power and more control to local leaders is key to fixing the bus system.  Birthday Buses is a step on the journey to better buses, not the destination. But I also need a reforming Labour government, through its plans for a radical Take Back Control Act, to take action like transfer powers on the ‘key route network’ to me and let me control bus stops and lanes.

Birthday Buses demonstrates devolution in action, and allows my outstanding region to show the rest of the country how we are taking on some of the big, big challenges of our time.  It demonstrates yet again the difference our party in office makes to working people.

It is why we got into politics; and why we chose Labour. To make the truly transformative changes.

I’m proud to be building a fairer, greener West of England region for the people who call this wonderful part of the country home. And to wish them all very many happy returns – and singles!