Almost three quarters of a million Greater Manchester residents are to benefit from improvements to their local bus service with every borough having a night bus and five new round-the-clock services also launched. New bus routes and more regular services will better connect towns and villages, while also supporting workers and shoppers to get to key employment and leisure destinations.
More improvements – all shaped by feedback provided by residents and businesses – will be introduced in the New Year. Extra night buses, new routes and more frequent bus services have been rolled out across the Bee Network, benefiting passengers in every borough of Greater Manchester.
Almost two thirds of the extensive service changes were recently launched, representing the most significant upgrades to the Bee Network since bus franchising was completed last year.
Oldham, Stockport, Tameside and Trafford will get a 24-hour bus service, meaning every part of Greater Manchester will now have a night bus operating Thursday through to Sunday. This will help 625,400 people working in the night-time economy across Greater Manchester, and those out enjoying the region’s nightlife.
Bev Craig, Mayor of Greater Manchester, said: “The Bee Network belongs to the people of Greater Manchester and it needs to work for every community. As we build it, we’re listening and responding to what residents want with the biggest set of improvements we’ve ever made in one go.
“We’re bringing night buses to every borough, launching new routes and ensuring buses run more often in the mornings, evenings and weekends. In doing so, we’re making it easier than ever for people to get around the city region by bus. But we’re also supporting our businesses, whose staff and customers need a reliable and safe way to reach them.
“Almost three quarters of a million people live within walking distance of a bus route we’re improving over the next few months. And we’ll continue improving connections for even more communities based on the feedback we get.”
Further improvements are planned to be delivered from January 2027. A full breakdown by borough can be found on the Bee Network website.
Overall, the latest package of changes will benefit up to 740,000 people living within walking or wheeling distance from the improved routes, more than half of whom (408,000) live in more deprived areas – where residents are less likely to have access to a car.
Every service change has been shaped by feedback from people living in Greater Manchester, as well as those who use public transport to get around the region, and build on more than 80 improvements to the Bee Network already delivered through franchising.
The Bee Network has overseen a 24% increase in bus patronage since 2023, with punctuality regularly exceeding 80% – up from below 70% before buses came back under public control.
These new improvements will help deliver on the pledge made through the Greater Manchester Strategy to continue developing the Bee Network as a transport system for a global city-region, so that by 2030, 90% of the population lives within a five-minute walk or wheel of a bus or tram that comes at least every 30 minutes.