Government data shows the number of passengers on buses has increased whilst rail travel declines in West Yorkshire.
Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin states that government officials have ignored her pleas for better transport.
Whilst campaigns such as ‘Leeds Clean Air Agenda’ encourage the use of public transport, an influx in rail strikes and cancellations has impacted emissions in the local area.
As the second largest regional bus operator in the UK, first bus operates more than 900,000 passenger journeys every day across 2021 and 2022.
Richard Harrison, First Bus PR manager for West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester, said “First Bus announced in 2020 that they have got an ambition to achieve a zero emission fleet nationally by 2035. That’s a challenge we’ve set ourselves and we’ve been underway with that for two years now. We expect around 20% of our fleet to be fully electric by 2025 and continue on from there.”
According to government data, the amount of passenger journeys on local services has decreased by 58.6 million since 2009. This is most significant in the post pandemic figures.
There has been an increase in younger passengers, according to First Bus PR Manager Richard Harrison. He said, “We’re certainly seeing a greater return to using the bus by the younger age group. The bus is very clearly the transport of choice by younger age groups. Overall, passenger numbers are around about 80% or a little over 80% of what they were pre-pandemic.”
Leeds railway station pre-covid use to be the second most used station outside of London, after the pandemic it has dropped down two places to the fourth most used station outside of the capital.
Whilst since the mid 2020s Leeds pushed for a Clean Air Zone in Leeds but swiftly announced in October 2020 leeds.gov announced after review they believe that Leeds does not need this.
However with a five times increase in Northern train cancellation people are slowly turning back from public transport to driving to work and leisure due to the surge in unpredictability.
Tracy Brabin the Mayor of West Yorkshire has launched the campaign #TellTracy for people who live and work in West Yorkshire to tell stories of their poor experiences due to the lack of investment in rail services.
Tracy Brabin said: “Now we know that the government promised us Northern Powerhouse Rail HS2 to Leeds and then in the integrated Rail Plan they scrapped them. They haven’t listened to me. They haven’t listened to Northern leaders, I want to make sure they listen to you the people.”
C02 emissions have decreased by 47% over the last ten years as technological improvements to the rail service has pushed a greener movement in public transport. With Leeds station footfall down by 14,715,988 dropping by a third in two years the positive impact of travelling by train is not as effective.
The positive impact of public transport is developing slowly with continuous work into new developments.
