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

[Haywain]

If they can afford to do this, fine, but at some point we'll see the money run out to fund it

I agree, but my comment only applied to the unworkable suggestion of a daily cap. I realise that this probably can't last forever the money isn't really going to run out, it will be the government's wilingness to pay that will expire. They could just use the £30 billion saved on HS2 - that should last a good while.

This may be so, but London tap-on is very, very fast, much faster than faffing about scanning barcodes on Ticketer. If this is long term, and if the reimbursement could be reworked to be based on surveys instead of needing to know the length of every journey, then this is clearly the way forward.

We could do it through a national PAYG scheme. Perhaps something like an ITSO smartcard...

 

[jon0844]

If you only have to tap in, then you need a flat rate fare. If you want people to tap off, that's going to be a lot harder and I expect there will be many people who forget - as well as the time taken to do so when alighting.

Some bus companies already offer this (Brighton) so how does it work in practice? What happens if you forget to tap off? Can you get it corrected online akin to phoning the Oyster helpline?

It's all about making things quick and easy, so a daily cap is probably the most simple way to do things - although you have to consider those who still want to pay with cash (although I think cash is dying out on buses here, as people have gladly adopted payment by contactless).

 

[markymark2000]

If you only have to tap in, then you need a flat rate fare. If you want people to tap off, that's going to be a lot harder and I expect there will be many people who forget - as well as the time taken to do so when alighting.

Some bus companies already offer this (Brighton) so how does it work in practice? What happens if you forget to tap off? Can you get it corrected online akin to phoning the Oyster helpline?

It's easy once you're on the platform. The issue is finding the platform. Because Littlepay (the company who sort tap on tap off) demand you join their site from the operators site so you have to find the link from the bus operator.

Put in card details and your address and it shows all of your trips. From there, you can just click 'make correction'. Say how much your fare should be and then add a comment (such as slighting stop). Submit it for review with the operator.

See below for a photo of how it looks.

 

[jon0844]

Great, thanks for that.

I wonder how many times you can make a correction (so as to stop people deliberately forgetting and always correcting to give a shorter journey)?

 

[Mikey C]

On a Thames Travel (Go Ahead) bus a couple of weeks ago, it was noticeable how most paying passengers were now tapping in and out, rather than buying a £2 ticket.

 

[northwichcat]

£2 can't really be permanent, as there's inflation to deal with.

Flat costs tend to be frozen despite inflation and then see a big jump. For example, some barbers charged £10 for clipper cuts for years. Then after COVID they pointed out they hadn't increased them for years and the price jumped to £12.

It's already been the case that many operators kept day tickets at £5 for years and then the price jumped significantly.

 

[Bletchleyite]

We could do it through a national PAYG scheme. Perhaps something like an ITSO smartcard...

Why, when I have a debit card and mobile phone that can do it perfectly well? ITSO as an electronic purse is out of date.

If you only have to tap in, then you need a flat rate fare

I wonder what that could cost. £2 perhaps?

The only issue is that I think the reimbursement depends on the journey (anyone know for sure?) - you could for now remove the tap out if it was possible to supply more abstract boarding and alighting data for it.

 

[Haywain]

Why, when I have a debit card and mobile phone that can do it perfectly well? ITSO as an electronic purse is out of date.

Because if you want capping across companies you'll have to either have a centralised record somewhere, or give access to your bank/card account.

 

[markymark2000]

Because if you want capping across companies you'll have to either have a centralised record somewhere, or hice access to your bank/card account.

Leicester Flexi and North Wales 1Bws do it (tap on, tap off, multi operator capping). It is centralised somewhere but I am not sure if it's through Littlepay or through the ticket machines being set up to work together.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Because if you want capping across companies you'll have to either have a centralised record somewhere

Apart from Stagecoach that wouldn't exactly be hard, as every bus company apart from them appears to use Ticketer, whose back end is cloud based.

There are GDPR issues to resolve to do that but they aren't massive.

 

[jon0844]

I wonder what that could cost. £2 perhaps?

That was only part of what I wrote though! If we can keep (and afford) a flat rate for any distance, all good - but if not, we need to look at the tap in, tap out method and I'm not sure how well that will work (but it is in operation in some places already).

If the scheme is axed, then the tap in, tap out method could allow for price capping - but the bus industry isn't as joined up as the railway and might never be. We need to make it possible for price capping to work as you travel beyond counties, and on different operators.

An ITSO card could work better, and if you could only use a smartcard to get the discounts then I guess you'd have a higher uptake. Realistically, it should be the same card you have for rail travel nationally.

 

[Megafuss]

That was only part of what I wrote though! If we can keep (and afford) a flat rate for any distance, all good - but if not, we need to look at the tap in, tap out method and I'm not sure how well that will work (but it is in operation in some places already).

If the scheme is axed, then the tap in, tap out method could allow for price capping - but the bus industry isn't as joined up as the railway and might never be. We need to make it possible for price capping to work as you travel beyond counties, and on different operators.

An ITSO card could work better, and if you could only use a smartcard to get the discounts then I guess you'd have a higher uptake. Realistically, it should be the same card you have for rail travel nationally.

ITSO is old hat though.

Before Yellow Buses went under, they and Morebus had a working Multi-operator contactless Tap On Tap off scheme working in the Bournemouth area. It's not beyond the wit of human endeavour to introduce it elsewhere where there is a will.

 

[AM9]

ITSO is old hat though.

So what?

 

[James H]

I just came back from two weeks travelling in Spain and I now have four smartcards for different cities' bus services.

It really feels it ought to be possible to move most of this to being phone-based.

 

[GusB]

Other than the fact that the £2 fare cap has been extended, there isn't really much more that can be said on the matter. As the thread is drifting onto other matters, we'll bring it to a close.

If there are any further developments regarding the fare cap, let us know via the report function and we'll consider reopening the thread.

Other ticketing issues can be discussed in a separate thread.

 

[GusB]

@Edvid has been kind enough to provide an update regarding the funding mechanism, in light of the scrapping of the increase of the fare cap to £2.50.

DfT clarifies next Bus Fare Cap Grant allocation process

Operators taking part in the Bus Fare Cap Grant scheme will receive allocations for November and December based on existing data due to time constraints.

www.route-one.net

Operators taking part in the Bus Fare Cap Grant (BFCG) scheme will receive allocations for November and December based on existing data due to time constraints and will be reimbursed later if underfunded, the Department for Transport (DfT) has said.

That confirmation follows the announcement on 4 October that the fare cap for single participatory bus journeys will remain at £2 until the end of 2024, having previously been due to rise to £2.50 on 1 November.

DfT tells routeone: “Due to time constraints, we will initially provide operators allocations for November and December 2023 based on the existing data available, while we run a new data collection exercise to calculate operators’ allocations for the remaining 12 months of the scheme from 1 January to 31 December 2024.

“If the new data collection exercise demonstrates that operators have been underfunded for November and December, we will adjust their January to December 2024 allocation to reflect this.”