Greater Manchester Liberal Democrats are demanding that secret information on how taxpayer-funded bus companies are performing is made public.

Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money goes to bus companies each year to run buses on less popular routes, school bus services and Ring-and-Ride.

Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) collects a whole range of data on how well all the bus companies – more than 15 in total – perform. It includes information on reliability, punctuality and vehicle maintenance. This is kept strictly secret – no-one outside TfGM is allowed to see it.

The Liberal Democrats are demanding bus users be allowed to see the data.

“This is our money and these are our bus services.” said Liberal Democrat Cllr Iain Roberts. “Passengers using a bus service should be able to find out whether the company running their buses is a top performer or whether they’re letting people down, running a shoddy service and pocketing the cash. There’s no legal reason to keep it secret.”

Following pressure from the Liberal Democrats, TfGM have promised to look at publishing this information in future.

“Not only should future data be published, but all the information that’s been kep secret up to now should be released to the public as well.” said Iain. “We will be holding TfGM to account on this.”

Here’s more information, including the response from TfGM, in Mancunian Matters.

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