North East Mayor Kim McGuinness has said the performance of the Tyne and Wear Metro “needs” to improve
North East Mayor Kim McGuinness has said the performance of the Tyne and Wear Metro “needs” to improve after almost two months of significant disruption.
Passengers have experienced a significant impact on services since the Gateshead Flyover was forced to close due to structural concerns on December 15. The mayor has decided to postpone the annual Metro price increases until July due to the issues.
In previous years, increased prices have come into play in April. From July, the cost of a single journey paper Metro ticket will go up from £2.80 to £3.00 for one zone, from £3.80 to £4.00 for two zones, and from £4.50 to £4.70 for three zones.
Ms McGuinness said: “Metro performance needs to improve. I’ve been very clear with Nexus about that but know passengers have not seen that improvement happening, in large part due to the severe disruption caused by the closure of Gateshead Flyover and the impact that had on the tunnels below.
“With this in mind it would not be the right thing to increase fares in April as has happened in previous years. People should not be paying more when they have had less.
“I have made the decision to delay the new fares coming in until later in the year. This way I want to give something back to passengers and show how serious we are about a better service.
“I know any increase to fares is unwelcome and we have worked with Nexus to keep these to an absolute minimum. Every penny people pay to use Metro goes into running the system, and we must make sure it does not end up starved of cash.
“In the meantime I want to remind people that if they switch to Pop Pay As You Go they really can save money – with Pop prices being roughly the same as a paper ticket was five years ago in 2020. I am also determined we will make sure Nexus keep improving services and get the new trains in as fast as possible, and that we all work to make travel safer, more affordable and better integrated so that more people feel confident to choose to travel on our public transport network.”
Metro operator Nexus has also encouraged passengers to switch to the Pop Pay As You Go (PAYG) system to access cheaper travel. The company also pointed out that fares for young people have remained frozen in price.
John Fenwick, Director of Finance and Resources at Nexus, said: “Our fare proposals for 2025/26 will see discounts for PAYG customers maintained, offering a saving of up to £1.60 a day with a Pop card, or using the product via an Android smartphone.
“If customers switch to PAYG this year, they will be paying the same prices as paper ticket holders were paying between January 2020 and April 2021. We also plan to freeze fares for young people, which meets region-wide ambitions to make public transport more affordable for them.
“Some fares do need to increase in order to help us address the challenges of higher operational costs which are increasing at 5.1% heading into 2025/26. In light of this, we are putting forward a balanced set of proposals.
“In consultation with the North East Mayor, Kim McGuinness, we are proposing to implement the fare proposals from 1 July 2025 rather than the usual 1 April. Holding back the changes recognises the exceptional disruption caused to customers at the end of 2024 when the central Metro tunnels under the Gateshead flyover were closed at short notice for 10 days affecting journeys across the whole network.
“Metro is a public service and doesn’t make a profit, so we require Government support, alongside the revenue that we generate from fares, to keep the system running.”
The fare proposals will go before North East Combined Authority’s Cabinet meeting for approval on today (Tuesday 28th Jan).