{"id":89074,"date":"2025-05-10T03:42:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T03:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/89074\/"},"modified":"2025-05-10T03:42:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T03:42:10","slug":"mayor-promises-cheaper-more-reliable-service-after-taking-buses-under-public-control-for-first-time-in-nearly-40-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/89074\/","title":{"rendered":"Mayor promises cheaper, more reliable service after taking buses under public control for first time in nearly 40 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mr Parker formally signed off plans for a rail-style <a href=\"https:\/\/www.expressandstar.com\/news\/transport\/2025\/05\/08\/shake-up-of-bus-services-due-to-be-given-final-approval-tomorrow-despite-dudley-council-objection\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">franchise system for bus services<\/a> following a board meeting of the West Midlands Combined Authority in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.expressandstar.com\/news\/local-hubs\/wolverhampton\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wolverhampton<\/a> this afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a really momentous day today for the West Midlands,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I committed during my campaign once I was elected to bring the bus network in this region back under public control, and today I&#8217;ve made that decision,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Today we now start the real hard work of that transition from a privatised bus service in the West Midlands, to taking it back under public control.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The first service to operate under the new system will be an express service from Walsall to Solihull via Birmingham, which will be launched at the end of 2027.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Parker said the shake-up will be fully complete by the end of 2029.<\/p>\n<p>He said the scheme will give the West Midlands Combined Authority &#8211; a consortium of seven metropolitan authorities, including Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton &#8211; the power to control the routes, timetables and fares of bus services for the first time since deregulation in 1986.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mr Parker formally signed off plans for a rail-style franchise system for bus services following a board meeting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,748,1354,393,4884,379,12,285,12608,1263,16,15,10847,4349],"class_list":{"0":"post-89074","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-dudley","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-local-hubs","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-sandwell","17":"tag-transport","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-walsall","21":"tag-wolverhampton"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114481473035578053","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}