Andy Street has unveiled a plan to revolutionise how people in the region use public transport by ‘capping’ fares across all modes of transport - saving millions of passengers money every week.
Andy revealed that the exciting plans would allow passengers to travel seamlessly across all transport modes with their existing Swift cards, confident that they would not overpay for their journey.
The Mayor was speaking on Monday, April 15th at the recently-opened University Station, on the day that West Midlands Trains’ new Class 730 trains came into use on the Cross City line.
Thanks to progress under Andy’s leadership, passengers on the Metro and NX buses are already able to ‘tap and go’ using their existing Swift card – which is the most widely used card of its type outside London.
Now Andy has won Government funding for the region to be the first to roll out Swift card ‘tap and go’ access to include trains and all buses - and extend money-saving fare capping across the region’s entire network.
He said the move forms a crucial part of his 2040 Transport Plan to build a world-class network in the West Midlands, and shared an updated version of his Tube-style map showing the real progress made since the Plan was first launched in 2020.
Under the fare-capping scheme:
- Passengers will be able to travel by Bus, Rail and Metro seamlessly through simply tapping in and out with their existing Swift card.
- Fares will be capped on a daily and weekly basis, so passengers will be safe in the knowledge they will never overpay and can continue to travel at no charge once a cap is reached.
- Users no longer have to grapple with the often-complicated process of buying train tickets, with the process now being simplified and saving rail users time and money each day.
- Passengers will have greater flexibility in planning their journey, without having to worry about the different cost of trains, trams and buses and can move freely from one mode of travel to another.
- All seven local authorities across the West Midlands will be covered, ensuring our region is much better connected, and making longer commutes much more viable.
Andy said: “Introducing fare-capping across the whole network will make a huge difference to the travel costs of millions of people and make our transport network here even more flexible and accessible than in London.
“This is all possible because of the real progress we have made in the West Midlands. We have already seen the Swift card take off, with people able to ‘tap and go’ on the Metro and NX buses.
“Now, it’s time for real ambition, to roll-out fare capping to the whole region, on buses, trains and the Metro. Fare capping on all journeys will be a game-changer for millions of people.
“We have the funding in place to do this, and we have done much of the groundwork by growing use of Swift, so we don’t need to spend millions launching a new card – everything is in place thanks to the considerable work that we have already done.
“So, I’m pledging that, if I am re-elected, I will introduce fare-capping across all modes of transport, across the whole of the region, creating a seamless network that makes travel easy and convenient while keeping fares low.
“We already have the lowest bus fares in the country – that’s a fact – but fare capping will have the effect of ensuring that passengers who have to use more than one mode of transport save money every day.”