People in the West Midlands will be able to use public transport every day except Christmas Day throughout the festive period, Centro has announced.
Bus, train and tram companies in the metropolitan area will be operating with amended timetables and there will be extra subsidised services to keep the buses running on both Boxing Day and New Years Day.
The news has been welcomed by Cllr Gary Clarke, Chairman of the watchdog Passenger Transport Authority.
“I am very pleased that operators are able to keep services running. Our survey of passengers in previous years has shown that public transport has an important role in helping to bring families and friends together during the Christmas holidays – as well as get to the shops,” he says.
Until recent years there had been no buses in the West Midlands on Boxing Day, but intervention by Centro has led to dramatic improvements for passengers. The public transport promoter funded the setting up of a service pattern and much of this has now been taken over by a bus company which runs the services commercially. Centro still subsidises some essential routes to provide the West Midlands with a more complete network on Boxing Day and pays for all the buses in Coventry on New Years Day.
Although there will be no trains, more than 120 bus routes plus the Midland Metro will be running on Boxing Day. Buses, trains and trams will run a normal or amended timetable on every other day and Cllr Clarke paid tribute to the many transport workers who will be on duty over the holiday period.
“I hope passengers will be appreciative of the service and that we can see some seasonal goodwill all round,” he says.
In the run up to Christmas, Centro staff will themselves be spreading a little festive cheer around the network. Dressed as Santa and his helpers, they will be giving out mince pies and sweets on local trains and trams to thank people for using public transport over the past year.
- A table showing Christmas and New Year services for publication can be downloaded below as a PDF file. It is also available in JPEG format - follow the image links lower down this page.
