Nexus is the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive and administers funds on behalf of the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Authority.
Nexus provides, procures, plans and promotes public transport in order to improve the economic prosperity and social fabric of Tyne and Wear.
Nexus looks to the future, predicting and devising the travel networks people will want to use in decades to come. Plans include a £500 million project to renew the Tyne and Wear Metro light rail system, providing a step change in comfort and service for our customers. A networke of guided bus routes have been created, speeding journey times along the most important traffic corridors into the urban centres of Newcastle, Gateshead and Sunderland.
Nexus operates the Tyne and Wear Metro system, carrying 36 million passengers every year. We secure bus services that carry 14,000 pupils to school every day, and subsidise commercial operators to operate more than 200 routes making sure local communities have access to job opportunities, shopping and health services.
Nexus has devised a series of cheaper fares, for students, jobseekers, the disabled and children, to extend opportunities and give the widest number of people access to public transport. Nexus also administers the scheme offering free off-peak bus and Metro travel to pensioners and disabled passengers.
Nexus provides door-to-door U-Call transport for more than 12,000 disabled scheme members, and operates the historic Shields Ferry, crossing the Tyne between North and South Shields.
Neuxs' task is to raise the quality and quantity of public transport to meet the needs of those who are dependent on it for their mobility as well as attracting car users for all or some of their regular journeys.
Aims and objectives of Nexus
- Connecting communities – Nexus develop and operate transport networks which connect the largest number of people with work and leisure opportunities and vital public services. We do this both alone, and in partnership with stakeholders in the public and private sectors. One of the main objectives is increasing social inclusion – ensuring the benefits of public transport reach those communities and social groups who do not have access to private vehicles;
- Changing the way people travel – Nexus plans and provides transport options that encourage people to choose public transport over their own cars, to reach work and leisure activities. This ‘modal shift’ is vital if we are to reduce congestion and pollution in our crowded urban environment;
- Supporting economic regeneration – Nexus plans the development of public transport to match economic regeneration programmes taking place in Tyne and Wear. For example, Nexus secures bus services into growing business parks. The Metro system also allows people to travel further to access more jobs. Many of the largest regeneration, retail and job creation areas planned for the future of Sunderland, South Tyneside, Gateshead and Newcastle lie along the lines of the Metro system.
Nexus' key business
The Tyne and Wear Metro
The Tyne and Wear Metro carries 36 million passengers a year, and is the backbone of the area’s public transport network. The system has 60 stations and connects the urban centres of Sunderland and Newcastle-Gateshead with suburban areas and shopping centres in South Tyneside and North Tyneside.
Nexus is now promoting a £500 million programme to renew and upgrade Metro for the next 25 years, with a new generation fleet of trains, and vastly improved stations, signalling and communications. Details can be found at www.projectorpheus.com.
The Metro provides the fastest link of its kind in the UK from Newcastle Airport to the city centre, and is one of only two major city light rail systems in Europe to run to the beach – at Tynemouth and Cullercoats. Larger interchanges at Gateshead, Four Lane Ends, Park Lane and Heworth connect with commercial bus operations and a number of suburban stations boast park and ride facilities.
The Metro opened to the public in 1980 as Britain’s first light rapid transit system. It was ahead of its time in being entirely no-smoking, and has since led the way in providing mobile phone access within tunnels.
All stations now boast real-time platform indicators, help points and high-resolution digital CCTV security through a network of 550 cameras installed in 2003.
Metro is the most cost-efficient urban rail networks in the UK, meeting 69% of its operating costs from fare revenues,but still offers value for money, with a £399 annual season ticket offering unlimited travel for little more than £1 a day.
Bus services
Bus services in Tyne and Wear are provided by commercial operators who define and operate 90% of routes without regulation or subsidy. Nexus monitors bus service performance and secures the remaining approximate 10% of routes, around 200 services or parts of services, by subsidy on behalf of the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Authority. This ensures communities retain a bus service, particularly early in the morning, at nights and at weekends, where commercial operators are otherwise unwilling to operate. These services are also important in maintaining transport links to workplaces and hospitals.
Nexus manages major bus stations, specifies high standards of accessibility and emissions on secured services, and encourages innovations such as ‘easy access’ ramps, real time information at bus stops and their surrounds, and bus priority schemes across the network. An example is the Route 19 service in the Stephenson Jobs Corridor in North Tyneside – Britain’s fastest growing bus service.
The Shields Ferry
There has been a ferry across the mouth of the Tyne since the 14th century. Nexus runs the only remaining cross-Tyne ferry, the Shields Ferry service, which carries around 500,000 passengers per year.
The service operates between 6.45am and 10.50pm from Monday to Saturday and between 10.15am and 6pm on Sunday. The ferry operates afternoon and evening river cruises and private hire trips giving people the chance to view the changing face of life and industry along the banks of the Tyne between Shields and Newcastle. It operates at the lowest subsidy per passenger of any ferry in the UK.
Care Services and Disabled Passengers
One of Nexus' key objectives is to provide greater personal accessibility and mobility to the people of Tyne and Wear. Ten per cent of Tyne and Wear's population are housebound or have great difficulty using ordinary public transport. The Care Scheme offers a virtually door-to-door service, which enables many people to get out and about.
The Care Scheme has 18,000 members who make 270,000 journeys every year, with the lowest operating cost per mile of all such schemes in the country. Cheap taxi fares are also funded so members of the Care Scheme can make unplanned journeys at a reduced rate.
Nexus promoted the introduction and use of low floor, easy access buses as well as subsidising ten per cent of the work. By 2001, a third of the local bus fleet met high accessibility standards. This figure is rising as the bus fleet increasingly complies with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (under which all buses must comply by 2015).
By continually reviewing and improving conventional public transport Nexus hopes to encourage more disabled passengers to use it, thereby lessening their reliance on special transport.
