West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive
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| Abbreviation | WMPTE |
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| Predecessor |
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| Successor | Transport for West Midlands |
| Formation | 1 October 1969 |
| Extinction | 17 June 2016 |
| Type | Passenger transport executive |
| Legal status | Dissolved |
| Purpose | Public transport |
| Headquarters | Birmingham, England |
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Region served
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West Midlands (county) parts of Staffordshire |
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Parent organisation
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The West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE) was the public body responsible for public transport in the West Midlands from 1969 until 2016. The organisation operated under the name Centro from 1990, and was publicly branded as Network West Midlands from 2005.
Initially, WMPTE was also responsible for the operation of bus services within the West Midlands. However, following deregulation in 1986 it ceased operating services directly and assumed a purely coordinating role.
WMPTE was dissolved in 2016 following the establishment of the West Midlands Combined Authority and its transport arm, Transport for West Midlands (TfWM).
When first established, WMPTE was governed by the West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority (WMPTA). Initially, this consisted of members from the local government authorities then existing within WMPTE's operating area. The 1972 Local Government Act led to the abolition of these local authorities and the creation of the West Midlands metropolitan county and its seven metropolitan boroughs (Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall, and Wolverhampton), which came into being on 1 April, 1974. From that date, the original WMPTA was disbanded. In its place, the new West Midlands County Council (WMCC) became the PTA for the West Midlands.
However, this new arrangement ultimately proved to be short lived, as the 1985 Local Government Act abolished the metropolitan county councils, the WMCC among them, with effect from 1 April 1986. On that date, a new WMPTA was formed, comprising members from the West Midland's seven metropolitan borough councils. The 2008 Local Transport Act subsequently saw the WMPTA reconstituted as the West Midlands Integrated Transport Authority (WMITA).
In its final form, the WMITA functioned as a committee formed of the leaders of the seven metropolitan boroughs, and a non-voting representatives from each of the region's three Local Enterprise Partnerships, that set the strategic agenda for the WMPTE. These agenda were broken down into six groups, with a set of councillors responsible for each:
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