The £2 scheme is a good thing. Also, where I am ,children can travel for free if they travel with someone using an adult ticket. Up to four children can travel free.
Even children can travel free with concessionary passes, who don’t even pay for their travel.
The scheme is undoubtedly costing lots of money, but I think it would be very hard to remove it.
Imagine telling people they now have to pay £5 for a ticket and pay for their children.
Had occasion to travel on a couple of Arriva buses in Greater Manchester today, paying the £2 flat fare. Despite telling the drivers where I was wanting to travel to, the bus tickets were both issued only to the very next stop(s) after where I had boarded. Any reason for that?
The driver simply didn’t change the destination on the ticket machine.
However, if an inspector got on they’d understand what had happened and wouldn’t say anything. I don’t worry about fare stages too much now, as it’s a flat fare.
However some fares are lower than £2,so if a passenger is only going a short distance, i check to see if it’s cheaper.
The trouble with a flat fare for all journeys like that, is on the rural journeys the number of gained passengers won't compensate for the lost revenue from the fare cuts. The end result will be services not being sustainable unless the government properly make up the difference and probably they are not going to do so.
This isn't going to be a problem with the urban routes, but the rural routes that only make a decent amount of money in morning peak and evening peak but carry mostly concessionary pass holders in between, the loss of valuable revenue from those could make the whole operation unviable of the route.
Yes that’s correct. I can’t see this being sustainable forever.