On Thursday 19th, Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, announced “widespread improvements” to the Bee Network, set to take place throughout 2026 and early 2027.
The 36 service changes will consist of more frequent bus services on certain routes connecting the boroughs and the city centre, and better connections to key locations like Manchester Airport and MediaCity.
Additionally, three new services will be created to further connect Greater Manchester and the North West, alongside five new night buses to provide every borough with a night bus service.
Burnham described the changes as locally-driven, stating they were “a direct result of your feedback and support for the Bee Network and have been made possible by the decision we took to bring our buses back under local control.”.
The Bee Network was launched in 2023 after Greater Manchester re-took public ownership of buses, although Transport for Greater Manchester continues to award regulated contracts to private operators, such as Stagecoach.
A full list of service changes can be found here.
A few days prior on Saturday 14th, Andy Burnham visited a factory in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, where he announced the latest order for 55 additional electric Bee Network buses.
These are alongside 76 buses that had previously been ordered, and makes up part of a £66 million investment into electric buses.
The current number of electric buses in production or currently in use stands at 293. Further orders are expected later this year.
Throughout the transition to electric vehicles, Burnham has pledged to “to buy from UK-based manufacturers wherever we can to support and protect jobs, and strengthen our homegrown industries”.
Wrightbus themselves employ 2,300 people, and are linked to 7,500 jobs within their broader supply chains.
This latest order of electric buses should begin hitting the road at the end of this year, as the Beet Network aims to build a fully-electric fleet by 2030.
