History
Deregulation
Upon the creation of the metropolitan county of West Yorkshire on 1 April 1974, West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (WYPTE) was formed to run the bus and rail services of the new county. [3] [4] Urban bus services provided by municipally-owned operators in Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield were brought under the PTE's control, which branded its services as 'Metro' (later rebranded 'MetroBus') and painted buses in a unified 'verona green and buttermilk' livery. [5] From 1977, some regional services operated in co-operation with state-owned National Bus Company subsidiaries West Riding, West Yorkshire and Yorkshire Woollen were branded 'MetroNational' until the scheme's abolition by the PTE in 1984. [6] [7]
The Transport Act 1985 ordered the deregulation of bus services across Great Britain, as well as the break-up of the six passenger transport executives and the National Bus Company, all of which began taking effect from 26 October 1986. WYPTE's bus operations were spun off into an 'arm's length' company named Yorkshire Rider, [8] [9] originally ran by the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Authority but sold into privatisation two years later to Yorkshire Rider employees and management in a £20 million (equivalent to £74,021,000in 2023) management buyout in October 1988. [10] [11] The newly-privatised Yorkshire Rider later absorbed the operations of the AJS Group's West Yorkshire Road Car Company upon the latter's closure in 1989. [12]
As of May 2025, nineteen different bus operators run public bus services in West Yorkshire, [2] with the three largest bus operators in the county being First West Yorkshire, who purchased Yorkshire Rider in 1995, Arriva Yorkshire, who purchased West Riding Buses and Yorkshire Woollen in 1996, and Transdev Blazefield's Keighley Bus Company. A small number of services are run directly by or on contract to West Yorkshire Metro, the direct successor to West Yorkshire PTE.
Public consultations
The Bus Services Act 2017 granted combined authorities such as the West Yorkshire Combined Authority the ability to partially re-regulate their local bus services, permitting them to franchise services to commercial bus operators in a similar system to those operated by Transport for London. A public consultation was held by the Combined Authority between October 2023 and January 2024 into either franchising West Yorkshire's bus services or working with existing operators in an Enhanced Partnership, [13] resulting in 82% of respondents either approving or approving in part of franchising buses. [1]
On 14 March 2024, Tracey Brabin announced that buses within the West Yorkshire Combined Authority would be franchised starting in 2027, [1] with the announcement of a unified Weaver Network brand additionally taking place in May 2025. [2]
