£2 Price Cap on fares in England - Now extended beyond October 2023

[Typhoon]

So Shapps announces the £2 bus fare but little or no details. He must know he's out of a job on Tuesday!

 

[Geordie driver]

'Long services' are not the same as open top and sightseeing services. The latter are often within single towns and cities. The services under discussion are ones where people travel 20-50 miles to get between key towns. It is depressing to see how many DfT officials, and too many Londoners generally, are ignorant of that.

You are right there, they assume everyone lives in areas like theirs.

60 million won't go far.

As for splitting services to repeatedly charge people for the same journey, it's pie in the sky, it's hard enough to get some people to pay in the first place, unenforceable and against the whole spirit of the 2 quid cap.

 

[PeterC]

So Shapps announces the £2 bus fare but little or no details. He must know he's out of a job on Tuesday!

Deliberate poison pill for his successor?

 

[RT4038]

it's hard enough to get some people to pay in the first place,

This is a tiny, tiny, proportion of passengers. Certainly not sufficient to have any bearing on decision making.

As for splitting services to repeatedly charge people for the same journey,

This proposal is only for three months, and the three months of lowest passenger numbers usually. It is highly unlikely that an operator is going to make any changes to routes for such a short length of time. It is only a voluntary scheme, and operators could exclude very long distance routes if they so wish. I expect that the nature of the re-imbursement arrangements will determine whether this is likely or not.

I would expect this scheme to have an adverse effect on rail revenues, as (in those areas where they exist side by side, which is by no means everywhere) some passengers will opt for the longer, cheaper, bus ride.

 

[WatcherZero]

'Long services' are not the same as open top and sightseeing services. The latter are often within single towns and cities. The services under discussion are ones where people travel 20-50 miles to get between key towns. It is depressing to see how many DfT officials, and too many Londoners generally, are ignorant of that.

You mean like the open top Kendal-Bowness-Ambleside-Grasmere 599 service?
Thats why 'open top' has been used in the past as a method of differentiating long distance from hybrid sightseeing/commuter services.

 

[820KDV]

I've just logged into my work email account and although its the weekend all of us involved in buses at a strategic level in our council have been discussing this. There is no detail of how the scheme will work, just a copy of the Press Release which was sent to the Association of Transport Coordinating Officers for dissemination after it had been sent to the press, and a letter from Baroness Vere yesterday basically repeating the Press Release.

The letter says that 90% of operators have joined the scheme, but that shows they don't recognise that on some tendered services the revenue is returned to the local authority, so in terms of agreeing to this or not the Local Transport Authority (LTA) is effectively the operator. I'm sure LTAs would agree, in most cases, but they haven't asked us yet, so how can they say 90%.

We have also discussed internally what sort of data the DfT will require of us for reimbursement. With the various Covid support and recover schemes they have wanted lots of data at very short notice, so its not just the revenue shortage which will need to be covered, but the extra admin (LTA and operator) too.

With regard to the long routes registered in parts, if they were to charge £2 per registered section over, say, two sections, and the same back, £8 doesn't sound very good compared to the £2 headline. And £8 is, perhaps, pretty close to the day rover ticket price which would allow the long distance trip and might cover local buses when you get there (I know, all depending on where you are travelling) so it is a bit "smoke and mirrors".

All that said, we're already working on ideas for a "where would you go for £2?" type campaign, and the working week is still a day away!

 

[WatcherZero]

Yeah, the £60m price tag seems awful low as well, even if your only talking it covering none-met counties thats around 40% of bus mileage and 30% of passengers.

 

[Mojo]

With regard to the long routes registered in parts, if they were to charge £2 per registered section over, say, two sections, and the same back, £8 doesn't sound very good compared to the £2 headline. And £8 is, perhaps, pretty close to the day rover ticket price which would allow the long distance trip and might cover local buses when you get there (I know, all depending on where you are travelling) so it is a bit "smoke and mirrors".

You’ve also got a few bus companies that allow people to buy a through single or return that is valid on more than one route.

 

[TUC]

The right time of the year in my view. The last thing that you want is to swamp services to coastal resorts like Whitby and Scarborough in high season.

Why? That would be meeting customer demand. That's what public transport exists for isn't it?

 

[ChrisC]

There will be people who will take advantage of a day out on very long routes for £2, but will there really be huge numbers of people doing that in January? The £2 bus fares will especially help people wanting to make normal day to day journeys, on routes outside of the large urban areas, where fares can be very high even for a short journey.

The single fare for the journey from the village where I live into the nearest town, only just over 2 miles away, is currently £3.20. This can make a return journey just to the shops very expensive at £6.40. A big difference from the £1.65 charged in London or day tickets priced around £4 in many large cities. This will really help people who are struggling to pay these very high fares and may even tempt people like me to go into town by bus instead of using my car. Incidentally I do often walk the 2.3 miles into town if the weather is ok and I haven’t got anything heavy to carry. All that’s needed now is for the hourly buses to actually turn up and a few buses after 6pm would also help.

 

[PeterC]

Why? That would be meeting customer demand. That's what public transport exists for isn't it?

Please explain where all your extra drivers are coming from and how they will be paid

 

[Typhoon]

As for splitting services to repeatedly charge people for the same journey, it's pie in the sky, it's hard enough to get some people to pay in the first place, unenforceable and against the whole spirit of the 2 quid cap.

Spot on. If there was a split service, presumably a passenger could elect to pay the full through fare. So when the bus reaches the splitting point, the driver calls out that all those with the two pound tickets need to pay again - is he going to check, ticket by ticket, check passes again? Is he heck. Then 'not you, madam, you are good for the next couple of stops', half the passengers just sit there, a few pay again, a few more produce passes, the bus sets off 5 to 10 minutes late with most passengers getting a free ride.

There will be people who will take advantage of a day out on very long routes for £2, but will there really be huge numbers of people doing that in January? The £2 bus fares will especially help people wanting to make normal day to day journeys, on routes outside of the large urban areas, where fares can be very high even for a short journey.

The single fare for the journey from the village where I live into the nearest town, only just over 2 miles away, is currently £3.20. This can make a return journey just to the shops very expensive at £6.40. A big difference from the £1.65 charged in London or day tickets priced around £4 in many large cities. This will really help people who are struggling to pay these very high fares and may even tempt people like me to go into town by bus instead of using my car. Incidentally I do often walk the 2.3 miles into town if the weather is ok and I haven’t got anything heavy to carry. All that’s needed now is for the hourly buses to actually turn up and a few buses after 6pm would also help.

It may even encourage people to shop in town rather than buy on-line.
I can get to Brighton (and return) in a day. Three long bus journeys each way. Would I? No chance, as you say, in January (and February). I would want somewhere I can return early from if the weather turns bad.

 

[RT4038]

The single fare for the journey from the village where I live into the nearest town, only just over 2 miles away, is currently £3.20. This can make a return journey just to the shops very expensive at £6.40. A big difference from the £1.65 charged in London or day tickets priced around £4 in many large cities.

When your village generates the same number of passengers per bus as in London and in many large cities, then your fares can be like theirs!

 

[Dai Corner]

When your village generates the same number of passengers per bus as in London and in many large cities, then your fares can be like theirs!

If the village fares were the same as London ones maybe they would have as many passengers?!

 

[johncrossley]

There's a lot of discussion here about long routes that are registered in sections as a loophole, but the more significant issue is that single trips involving a change of vehicle will presumably involve two fares, as that is British tradition. Even relatively short trips within a single town will likely cost £4. It was mentioned recently that Metrobus do a 60 minute ticket on the app, but the great majority of operators still treat a change of bus as a new journey.

A lot of passengers might switch from app based or smartcard based tickets to driver issued tickets, making boarding times even slower.

Both the above problems are avoided in London.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A lot of passengers might switch from app based or smartcard based tickets to driver issued tickets, making boarding times even slower.

An opportunity here is switching to London style tapping in if it's a flat adult fare.

 

[johncrossley]

An opportunity here is switching to London style tapping in if it's a flat adult fare.

A lot of operators still have single fares under £2. Some operators do tap in tap out and you pay to the end of the route if you only tap in. So the majority of people will only need to tap in when the £2 offer is on. But how many operators have that system set up? Only a minority. From what I've read elsewhere, they are already issuing lots of £2 paper tickets in Manchester.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A lot of operators still have single fares under £2. Some operators do tap in tap out and you pay to the end of the route if you only tap in. So the majority of people will only need to tap in when the £2 offer is on. But how many operators have that system set up? Only a minority. From what I've read elsewhere, they are already issuing lots of £2 paper tickets in Manchester.

<insert standard post on bus operator conservatism and unwillingness to do something that saves them running time, which means money>...

 

[ChrisC]

When your village generates the same number of passengers per bus as in London and in many large cities, then your fares can be like theirs!

If our buses through the village were subsidised at the same level as they are in London then perhaps we could have could have lower fares. It’s a route run commercially by the bus company and we lost our evening and Sunday services years ago because they were losing money. The whole route is currently in danger of being withdrawn. This is not a route through a sparsely populated remote area which would never generate more than a handful of passengers. It’s a route which links a number of large villages to the nearby towns and then into the city. The £2 bus fares may encourage more people to use the buses. So many people I know don’t use them because they feel the fares are unreasonably high.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If our buses through the village were subsidised at the same level as they are in London then perhaps we could have could have lower fares. It’s a route run commercially by the bus company and we lost our evening and Sunday services years ago because they were losing money. The whole route is currently in danger of being withdrawn. The £2 bus fares may encourage more people to use the buses. So many people I know don’t use them because they feel the fares are unreasonably high.

The real answer here is to stop thinking about buses so much as individual routes and start thinking of them as a system. Unfortunately, this scheme doesn't provide for that, being £2 per vehicle journey. It should have been £2 to board unlimited buses within 60 minutes of the first.

 

[ChrisC]

The real answer here is to stop thinking about buses so much as individual routes and start thinking of them as a system. Unfortunately, this scheme doesn't provide for that, being £2 per vehicle journey. It should have been £2 to board unlimited buses within 60 minutes of the first.

Completely agree. Certainly here in Nottinghamshire, outside of the city, there are no multi-operator tickets. Therefore a journey using more than one operator can be extortionate. Many return journeys from where I live require a Trent Barton and Stagecoach Day Tickets to complete, and can cost in excess of £14 just to do a return journey to a destination under 20 miles away. Never mind the £2 fares, I’d be quite happy with a multi-operator ticket costing below £10 as there are in many areas.

 

[RT4038]

The real answer here is to stop thinking about buses so much as individual routes and start thinking of them as a system. Unfortunately, this scheme doesn't provide for that, being £2 per vehicle journey. It should have been £2 to board unlimited buses within 60 minutes of the first.

In towns and cities that might work, but it is not really sensible for travelling 55 minutes and then changing to a trip for 4 hours.

If our buses through the village were subsidised at the same level as they are in London then perhaps we could have could have lower fares.

On the basis that the level of subsidy is per head of resident population, then probably not much lower, especially if

and we lost our evening and Sunday services years ago because they were losing money.

you were planning to do something about this too.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In towns and cities that might work, but it is not really sensible for travelling 55 minutes and then changing to a trip for 4 hours.

The £2 cap isn't really sensible for journeys of 4 hours whether you connect onto them from a short journey or not. That's more of a coach service. Though if bus operators are operating 4 hour stage carriage services so they can claim BSOG then they have to take the rough with the smooth; coaches aren't really intended to be able to clam BSOG, it's just a bit of a loophole that you can register partial routes, but the £2 would only be applicable to a journey entirely within one of the registered sections.

What 4 hour wholly stage carriage services are there in England (there are some long ones in Scotland but this is an English scheme)? The Oxford-Cambridge X5 was the only long one I could think of, and now that's been split it's 2 hours and 15 minutes. £2 is a bit cheap for it I'd agree, but that being the case doesn't really have anything to do with whether you first took an Oxford Bus Company bus a few stops to connect with it or not.

 

[Deerfold]

The £2 cap isn't really sensible for journeys of 4 hours whether you connect onto them from a short journey or not. That's more of a coach service. Though if bus operators are operating 4 hour stage carriage services so they can claim BSOG then they have to take the rough with the smooth; coaches aren't really intended to be able to clam BSOG, it's just a bit of a loophole that you can register partial routes, but the £2 would only be applicable to a journey entirely within one of the registered sections.

What 4 hour wholly stage carriage services are there in England (there are some long ones in Scotland but this is an English scheme)? The Oxford-Cambridge X5 was the only long one I could think of, and now that's been split it's 2 hours and 15 minutes. £2 is a bit cheap for it I'd agree, but that being the case doesn't really have anything to do with whether you first took an Oxford Bus Company bus a few stops to connect with it or not.

Many services have been chopped in the last few years - I know loads of 2+ hour services, quite a few around 3 hours, but very few 4 hours plus ones.

There is the single Sunday journey on the 830 Preston to Richmond at exactly 4 hours.

There's also the 831 Middlesbrough to Kirby Londsdale - at 4h 3m though only because it waits for 25 minutes in Hawes - you get 2 hours in Kirby Lonsdale!

A return / day ticket for either is currently £10.

 

[Falcon1200]

The real answer here is to stop thinking about buses so much as individual routes and start thinking of them as a system. Unfortunately, this scheme doesn't provide for that, being £2 per vehicle journey. It should have been £2 to board unlimited buses within 60 minutes of the first.

I also agree.

Talking of the Oxford Bus Company, they have just, as of yesterday, diverted a route I used to get to Oxford rail station away from the station, therefore requiring two fares instead of one, or a walk from the city centre (alternatively, use of a less frequent Stagecoach route, meaning OBC won't get any fare at all!). London's system is eminently sensible.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Many services have been chopped in the last few years - I know loads of 2+ hour services, quite a few around 3 hours, but very few 4 hours plus ones.

There is the single Sunday journey on the 830 Preston to Richmond at exactly 4 hours.

There's also the 831 Middlesbrough to Kirby Londsdale - at 4h 3m though only because it waits for 25 minutes in Hawes - you get 2 hours in Kirby Lonsdale!

A return / day ticket for either is currently £10.

Those two are really coach tours, though, but ones that operate on a walk up basis and claim BSOG because "why wouldn't you"?

I'm sure I read that the £2 thing is to an extent optional, so such services could opt out. Such specifically tourist-oriented services often don't accept free passes either (and don't have to) - do these ones?

The full stopping 555 from Lancaster is just short of three hours, anyone know any longer ones that are actually regular bus services operating multiple times a day? Doubt many people bar passholders use its full length though, and many of them probably stop off along the way.

 

[miklcct]

Unfortunately, this scheme doesn't provide for that, being £2 per vehicle journey. It should have been £2 to board unlimited buses within 60 minutes of the first.

A lot of cities with successful public transport systems, like Hong Kong and Istanbul, also don't do free transfers as well.

However, the fares in both places are low enough that the "price tag" does not affect the ridership much.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A lot of cities with successful public transport systems, like Hong Kong and Istanbul, also don't do free transfers as well.

However, the fares in both places are low enough that the "price tag" does not affect the ridership much.

Realistically the £5 day ticket that will largely go with these £2 fares in urban area will probably pick most of these cases up given that most people make return journeys, though even charging an extra 50p because the bus company won't provide you a direct bus feels raw. I think a £4 urban day ticket would be better and would leave only those making a genuine single journey affected, who are going to be few in number and probably mind less, while it avoids the passback issue that is the reason bus companies don't like doing paper transfer tickets.

Milton Keynes' day ticket was traditionally priced at about two normal singles, so dealt with the issue that way; that approach is quite common.

Indeed, here's another thought - should the offer actually have been £4/5 all-England day tickets rather than £2 singles? Yes, some enthusiasts would have played "see how far you can get" with an offer like that*, but most people would just have used it for a return trip to town.

* I find far, far too much effort seems to be put into stopping enthusiasts abusing this sort of offer than is really justified by the number of people who will actually do it. Similarly with ENCTS passes the number of people who will actually do something like Berwick to Penzance is just tiny.

 

[RT4038]

Realistically the £5 day ticket that will largely go with these £2 fares in urban area will probably pick most of these cases up given that most people make return journeys, though even charging an extra 50p because the bus company won't provide you a direct bus feels raw. I think a £4 urban day ticket would be better and would leave only those making a genuine single journey affected, who are going to be few in number and probably mind less, while it avoids the passback issue that is the reason bus companies don't like doing paper transfer tickets.

Milton Keynes' day ticket was traditionally priced at about two normal singles, so dealt with the issue that way; that approach is quite common.

Indeed, here's another thought - should the offer actually have been £4/5 all-England day tickets rather than £2 singles? Yes, some enthusiasts would have played "see how far you can get" with an offer like that*, but most people would just have used it for a return trip to town.

* I find far, far too much effort seems to be put into stopping enthusiasts abusing this sort of offer than is really justified by the number of people who will actually do it. Similarly with ENCTS passes the number of people who will actually do something like Berwick to Penzance is just tiny.

I think we just have to be careful in not inadvertently encouraging people to ride long distances on bargain fares, which is not really what this scheme is about. It could endanger those longer distance services (by creating capacity issues without sufficient revenue to support a solution, encouraging companies to split them into shorter routes and getting passengers to change buses) and take an amount of traffic away from rail on those kinds of trips ( Carlisle-Newcastle for instance, but could be shorter services too). Surely the £2 fare will particularly assist outside of the largest metropolitan areas, where buses don't usually stop and open the doors for less than upwards of £3, often much more (thinking of my home shire county)? The other concern is surely the damage this may well do to the revenue base from 'non-entitled' schoolchildren going to out of area schools, particularly in the more affluent areas , where this £2 fare is going to give (mainly middle class) parents a fares reduction, without generating much in the way of additional traffic. However, if it is only for three months then probably no long term harm done.

 

[Llandudno]

I wonder if some people will look for the longest route, buy 2 X £2 singles (£4 return) as this maybe cheaper than heating the house for 5-6 hours in the middle of winter…?