Buses in Manchester

Origins

Buses in Manchester had their origins in 1824, when John Greenwood, the keeper of a toll-gate in Pendleton purchased a horse and a cart with several seats and began an omnibus service.^[6] Horse buses continued to operate in the city throughout the 1830s.^[6]

By 1850 records showed that 64 omnibuses were serving the centre of Manchester from outlying suburbs, many by rival concerns. In 1865, Greenwood and the other principal operators merged to form the Manchester Carriage Company with a fleet of over 90 horse-drawn vehicles. In 1877, the company acquired the concession to operate the newly constructed tramway in Manchester and Salford, under the title Manchester & Salford Tramways.^[7]

Between 1906 and 1921, 18 new Daimler buses were introduced into the vehicle fleet.^[8] The first purpose built bus depot was opened at Parrs Wood, East Didsbury in 1923 and the bus fleet, which operated out of various tram depots was moved there.^[8] By 1930, Manchester had a fleet of a 100 motorbuses.^[9]

Post-war

Chorlton Street bus station was opened in 1958, together with a revamped Manchester Piccadilly bus station opening on 4 December of the same year.^[8]

Until 1969, the conurbation surrounding Manchester was divided between the two administrative counties of Lancashire and Cheshire and a number of county boroughs, such as Manchester, Salford, Stockport or Bolton. To comply with the Transport Act 1968, on 1 April 1969, the SELNEC Passenger Transport Executive was formed. SELNEC stood for South East Lancashire North East Cheshire, a joint authority of the various local councils.

In 1974, Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive public body was established, and became responsible for public transport in Manchester.

Modern era

On 11 December 1993, GM Buses was split for sale as two separate companies,^[10][11] as the Government felt that they had a monopoly of bus services in the Greater Manchester area and wanted to increase competition. GM Buses was split into GM Buses North^[12] and GM Buses South.^[13][14] In February 1996, GM South Buses was bought by Stagecoach and rebranded as Stagecoach Manchester.^[15]

In April 2011, GMPTE became Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM).^[16]

Bee Network's bus service rollout began from December 2022, with the awarding of two large franchises and seven small franchises to Go North West and Diamond North West respectively in Bolton, Wigan and parts of Bury and Salford.^[17]

Following the enactment of the Bus Services Act 2017, mayoral combined authorities like the Greater Manchester Combined Authority have had the power to bring buses back under the control of local government by means of a franchising scheme. The GMCA was the first combined authority to use the powers under the Act,^[18] and re-regulated its system in three tranches, starting on 24 September 2023 and completing on 5 January 2025.

Major landmarks and corridors

The first of Manchester City Centre's two main bus stations is in Piccadilly Gardens; a major transport interchange between Metrolink and local buses to the south. Shudehill Interchange serves both Metrolink and local buses to the north. Megabus use Shudehill for their national coach services. Coaches operated by National Express serve the Manchester Chorlton Street coach station.

The major route with high passenger volumes includes the Wilmslow Road corridor, often claimed to be one of the busiest bus corridors in Europe.^[19][20]

Further major bus corridors include Stockport Road between Manchester and Stockport, Oldham Road between Manchester and Failsworth, Hyde Road between Manchester and Hyde, Princess Road towards Wythenshawe and the A6 corridor in Salford.

History

First Greater Manchester previously operated a number of 'overground' services; high frequency colour-coded services connecting Manchester with many large towns around the conurbation including Bolton, Bury, Oldham and Rochdale. The colour-coded branding has largely been dropped since the start of the 2010s and the colours are only used to advertise specific routes.

First operated the 'Night Bus' on many of the most busy routes but these services, namely the 8 service from Bolton-Manchester, but this has been dropped, and the last services on most routes is on or around 12am. At their height, First Greater Manchester operated on high frequency route between Bury-Manchester, the 135 service, which operates every six to ten minutes is the competing bus route with Metrolink's Bury Line. This service was operated using only articulated buses, but this has ceased in recent years and the buses moved on to other services such as the 471 on its route from Bolton-Rochdale via Bury, they have since been withdrawn entirely.^{[citation needed]}

Greater Manchester bus stops were replaced over a five-year period. The older bus stop flags were based on a nationally adopted design featuring a single-decker bus and were used over the entire country with the exception of London.^{[citation needed]}

Following bus deregulation there was no compulsion to use the national symbol, and several passenger transport executives like West Yorkshire Metro's Metro and Merseyside adopted a new bus stop flag design featuring their capital M logo. GMPTE inherited their own M-shaped logo and also began to use it on the glass back of bus shelters from the late 1990s. They have subsequently introduced this to a new design for bus stop flags – firstly used in 2002 on high-priority routes – and now being erected across the entire GMPTE area.^{[citation needed]}

In 2011, with a change of name and remit of the transport authority, these were replaced by a modified "M" design.^{[citation needed]}

In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, several hundred bus drivers in Manchester working for Go North West went on strike for two months.^[21]

Services

Some notable bus routes in Manchester include routes 17, 42, 52, 53, 135, 192, X41 Red Express and X43 Witch Way, as well as rapid transit routes V1, V2 and V4. Free bus services are also available. From 28 October 2018, due to declining passenger numbers,^[22] the free bus service was reduced to two routes and rebranded as free bus.^[23] Route 192 is the busiest in Britain, with around 9 million passengers carried annually.^[24]

As of June 2022, the night bus network includes routes 43, 86, 103, 112, 142, 143, 192, 201, 203, 216 and 219.^[25] Most depart from the central point of Manchester Piccadilly.

Ticketing

Following an agreement between transport officials and credit unions in November 2024, a new annual bus ticket was introduced, with effect from 5 January 2025, upon the full implementation of Bee Network bus franchising, along with a £2 "hopper fee";^[26] this was followed by contactless fare caps in March 2025.