Will Labour scrap the £2 fare Cap? (now confirmed will rise to £3)

[Dent]

Labour have announced they are scrapping the £2 maximum bus fare and are replacing it with a £3 flat fare.

Where does it say that the £3 is a flat fare, and not a maximum as the £2 was?

Edit to add:
Labour haven't announced they are scrapping anything, the £2 cap is coming to an end when it was scheduled to end. The new cap of £3 will apply for a period when there wasn't previously planned to be any cap.

 

[Wolfie]

No, it's simple maths. The current maximum bus fare in the UK is £2. Labour have announced they are scrapping the £2 maximum bus fare and are replacing it with a £3 flat fare. However much you spin it, that means a Labour government are putting bus fares up by 50%.

Your logic is flawed and your post blatantly political. You don't even get basic facts right. You talk about the UK but the price cap, which operators don't even have to sign up to, applies solely to England and not the other three nations.

Where does it say that the £3 is a flat fare, and not a maximum as the £2 was?

I'd missed yet another questionable statement.

 

[PGAT]

No, it's simple maths. The current maximum bus fare in the UK is £2. Labour have announced they are scrapping the £2 maximum bus fare and are replacing it with a £3 flat fare. However much you spin it, that means a Labour government are putting bus fares up by 50%.

Are you winding us up?

 

[AM9]

Are you winding us up?

No, it's Daily Mail headline simple maths, for simple people.

 

[Howardh]

In Greater Manchester Mayor Burnham says we are keeping the £2 cap into 2025 - subject to a possible revision mid-year. So if it bothers you, come and live here!!

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I can confirm that we plan to stick with a £2 cap on single bus fares for the whole of 2025.

 

[Ghostbus]

£2 is a discounted rate. The commercial fare for most journeys is significantly more.

The commercial fare for most journeys is a day ticket. And most of those are below £6.

In my area, I get unlimited travel on ALL MODES for £6. Because I don't live out in the sticks.

I can literally go on a ferry, for the same amount it costs someone to visit the next town over in Rutland by bus.

The £3 fare is a discount most bus users can't now take advantage of.

The politics has been a complete disaster. It's a benefit for rural people, but it has hasn't sold as one. Worse, it feels like an accidental benefit for rural people.

 

[Man of Kent]

In most mainland European cities, but not British ones (except London?), it is possible to buy a bus ticket which allows 60, 90 minutes or more travel time. In other words, if your journey involves a change of buses you don't have to buy more than one ticket. Why should people be doubly penalised by not only having to change (often inevitable, but annoying and potentially complicated), but also by having to pay twice? I know the answer to that is British inability to think outside the box, as well as deregulation and the lack of co-oparation between operators. But this sort of solution could be more useful than a cap, provided the basic fare is not too high. £3 (without this flexibility) is at least double what many continental cities charge.

Just as a quick check, a basic single in Berlin is EUR3.50, a fare which applies to everyone over 14. In Munich, it is EUR3.90 (same age restriction); in Paris EUR2.15 (applies from 10 years old onwards); Brussels EUR 2.70; Barcelona EUR2.55. Of these, most do indeed offer up to 60 minutes travel, but the Barcelona one doesn't. It's only a snapshot of the first few cities that occurred to me, please feel free to search for cheaper examples, but the difference to UK fares is not as stark as first suggested.

 

[Deerfold]

The Tories' cap had a hard end date of 31/12/2024.

So if Labour have brought in a new £3 cap from 01/01/2025, they're saving me £1.60 a day compared to the 2019 fares.

The cap in West Yorkshire predates the national cap. We'll have to see if Metro follows the national cap.

 

[johncrossley]

Just as a quick check, a basic single in Berlin is EUR3.50, a fare which applies to everyone over 14. In Munich, it is EUR3.90 (same age restriction); in Paris EUR2.15 (applies from 10 years old onwards); Brussels EUR 2.70; Barcelona EUR2.55. Of these, most do indeed offer up to 60 minutes travel, but the Barcelona one doesn't. It's only a snapshot of the first few cities that occurred to me, please feel free to search for cheaper examples, but the difference to UK fares is not as stark as first suggested.

It should be pointed out that the basic fare is often not really what most passengers pay. For example, in Brussels you can get 10 tickets for EUR 18.20. The EUR 2.70 paper ticket is about 50% more expensive so only very infrequent travellers will get this. The comparable England fare is £6 (or the day ticket if cheaper) when a change of buses is involved. In addition, in Brussels and many other places, the same fare applies to trams and metros too, including changes between those modes, whereas the England fare cap applies to buses only.

 

[takno]

Just as a quick check, a basic single in Berlin is EUR3.50, a fare which applies to everyone over 14. In Munich, it is EUR3.90 (same age restriction); in Paris EUR2.15 (applies from 10 years old onwards); Brussels EUR 2.70; Barcelona EUR2.55. Of these, most do indeed offer up to 60 minutes travel, but the Barcelona one doesn't. It's only a snapshot of the first few cities that occurred to me, please feel free to search for cheaper examples, but the difference to UK fares is not as stark as first suggested.

It' about 2.40 in Malmö for the cheapest ticket, which is a 60 minute single zone transfer. 2.70 in Gothenburg for a single zone 90 minutes, 3 quid in Oslo, 2.70 in Bodø, 3.30 in Bergen, 3.20 in Finnmark.

Most of these have been rendered a lot cheaper by the collapse in the Norwegian Kroner rate, so 3-4 quid is the more typical long term rate.

The transfer aspect is really valuable, but the idea that 3 quid is a wildly expensive fare, or that fares in UK cities generally are much higher than most of Europe is a bit wide of the mark

 

[urbophile]

Just as a quick check, a basic single in Berlin is EUR3.50, a fare which applies to everyone over 14. In Munich, it is EUR3.90 (same age restriction); in Paris EUR2.15 (applies from 10 years old onwards); Brussels EUR 2.70; Barcelona EUR2.55. Of these, most do indeed offer up to 60 minutes travel, but the Barcelona one doesn't. It's only a snapshot of the first few cities that occurred to me, please feel free to search for cheaper examples, but the difference to UK fares is not as stark as first suggested.

Yes inflation happens there too. But the cities you mention are all national or regional capitals; smaller cities will have lower fares. I think Genova is now €2 for example. I was thinking of not too long ago when the average (including Paris) was not much more than €1.

 

[Qwerty133]

In Greater Manchester Mayor Burnham says we are keeping the £2 cap into 2025 - subject to a possible revision mid-year. So if it bothers you, come and live here!!

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So basically this is Labour’s way of punishing those who (live in areas that) voted for other parties. If Andy and Sadiq’s failing transport systems that have to be subsidised by taxpayers from elsewhere can afford a lower cap whilst those subsiding them have to pay more pay it is nothing but a political game.

 

[DDB]

Lots of people (including me) have posted examples of day tickets that are either less than twice the new cap or close to it such that minimal central government support will actually be needed in 2025. However I think these are all urban areas.
Where the challenge will be is for rural areas where I suspect the fare cap will still be well below the normal fare. I suspect something will still need to be done to protect and support rural services after 2025 but with the new cap for 2025 the government have at least given themselves a year to think about it.

 

[Wolfie]

In Greater Manchester Mayor Burnham says we are keeping the £2 cap into 2025 - subject to a possible revision mid-year. So if it bothers you, come and live here!!

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I'd rather stick to my £1.75 in London thanks... Kind offer though.

 

[Starmill]

The problem with that is that the current scheme (and the new scheme) work effectively because they are round numbers. A £2 or £3 fare cap is attractive. But if after a couple of years it becomes a £3.37 fare cap, it's going to look nit-picky and silly. And will still involve a hefty unfunded commitment that was never intended to be a long-term solution and does not provide even support to people.

It would be far better to use the money for supply-side projects yes, not a cap grant. But, realistically we can't agree politically that these reallocations of road space are desirable.

 

[takno]

So basically this is Labour’s way of punishing those who (live in areas that) voted for other parties. If Andy and Sadiq’s failing transport systems that have to be subsidised by taxpayers from elsewhere can afford a lower cap whilst those subsiding them have to pay more pay it is nothing but a political game.

This Trumpesque way of describing anything done by political opponents as "failing" in the face of all the evidence doesn't strike me as playing out well here. The suggestion that London is being subsidized by other areas of the country is also fairly absurd.

This is Labour maintaining a cap for another year which the Tories would likely have abandoned. Certainly £3 is higher than before, but in practice that's likely to mean that a rather higher proportion of the funding will go to rural operators next year, since city fares are far more likely to be below or close to the £3 cap.

In terms of the Greater Manchester decision, it's worth comparing with Edinburgh where Lothian operate a £2 flat fare and make a significant profit, so the costs of "subsidising" a £2 flat fare in Manchester may actually be zero.

 

[Qwerty133]

This Trumpesque way of describing anything done by political opponents as "failing" in the face of all the evidence doesn't strike me as playing out well here. The suggestion that London is being subsidized by other areas of the country is also fairly absurd.

This is Labour maintaining a cap for another year which the Tories would likely have abandoned. Certainly £3 is higher than before, but in practice that's likely to mean that a rather higher proportion of the funding will go to rural operators next year, since city fares are far more likely to be below or close to the £3 cap.

In terms of the Greater Manchester decision, it's worth comparing with Edinburgh where Lothian operate a £2 flat fare and make a significant profit, so the costs of "subsidising" a £2 flat fare in Manchester may actually be zero.

Sadiq Khan failing operation literally had to be bailed out (using taxpayers money hence being subsidised by the rest of the country) it was being so badly mismanaged.

 

[mangad]

In terms of the Greater Manchester decision, it's worth comparing with Edinburgh where Lothian operate a £2 flat fare and make a significant profit, so the costs of "subsidising" a £2 flat fare in Manchester may actually be zero.

Indeed. The stated aim in Greater Manchester has always been to use lower fares to drive more usage which in turn brings in more revenue which in turn helps makes the lower fares financially viable. Which sounds like it makes sense. There is a pretty fixed cost to running a bus after all. And the more passengers you can divide that cost between, the less each one needs to pay to cover that cost.

Sadiq Khan’ts failing operation literally had to be bailed out (using taxpayers money hence being subsidised by the rest of the country) it was being so badly mismanaged.

Nope. Transport for London was running without any operating subsidy from central government. Not a penny. In fact tube and bus fares were being used to pay for the TfL road network!

What changed? Well you may have heard of it. It was a little thing called COVID... Kind of screwed things up for most transport operators...

 

[Tetchytyke]

Sadiq Khan’ts failing operation literally had to be bailed out (using taxpayers money hence being subsidised by the rest of the country) it was being so badly mismanaged.

TfL is hugely dependant on fare revenue; in 2019 70% of its revenue came from the fare box.

It had to be “bailed out” in 2020.

My memory is somewhat hazy, but I think something happened in 2020 that caused fare revenue to fall by 90%?

The cap in West Yorkshire predates the national cap. We'll have to see if Metro follows the national cap.

It’ll be interesting to see where they go with it. They may have to for singles but they can keep the DaySaver at £5, so the effect isn’t so much.

 

[ChrisC]

Lots of people (including me) have posted examples of day tickets that are either less than twice the new cap or close to it such that minimal central government support will actually be needed in 2025. However I think these are all urban areas.
Where the challenge will be is for rural areas where I suspect the fare cap will still be well below the normal fare. I suspect something will still need to be done to protect and support rural services after 2025 but with the new cap for 2025 the government have at least given themselves a year to think about it.

The challenge is the rural areas, but I don’t think it is just locations that are right ‘out in the sticks’. It seems to be many places outside of cities and large towns in places like the shire counties. This is particularly so in the many counties which do not have multi operator tickets. For example in Nottinghamshire, Stagecoach have a DayRider ticket available in and around Mansfield at the very reasonable price of £5, which will be less for a return journey than £3 singles. However, once you get more than around 6 miles out of town, for example to some of the towns and villages on routes towards Newark or Nottingham, the cheapest day ticket costs £9.50 and that is only valid on Stagecoach buses and no other operator.

 

[gc4946]

Next year's £3 cap will mean more people asking for return fares or day riders from drivers. If operators allow timed transfers (hopper fares) on £3 single fares it'll be welcome, but suspect day riders will be sold instead. Living in West Yorkshire I suspect DaySavers will cost £5.50 next year

 

[158756]

Far too many people are fixated on these single fares and If I was a bus company I would start a campaign now highlighting the outstanding good valued weekly and monthly tickets available to everyone.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0l99xz719

But if you look at the student tickets for his area he actually pay more via the £2 single fares. I would love to know if most of the £2 fares are only being taken up by new passengers?

I'm a bit surprised he doesn't know about the existence of student tickets in Lancaster.

But in general, the single ticket price is the price as far as many people are concerned. The average person who is not a member of this forum does not understand the Byzantine fare structures in place. If they ever use the bus they ask for a single, or at best a return, and for occasional passengers these are they only tickets available anyway, and as these fares are extortionate it becomes common knowledge that buses are expensive. How many potential passengers has the industry scared away over the years?

Even if most regular passengers know about weekly tickets (because anyone trying to commute on singles before the cap would give up because of the cost), how many people really understand all the ticket options now, with many tickets only available via an app and with very little publicity? With the rise in hybrid working, how many still buy a weekly ticket when a bundle of day tickets or singles may be cheaper for someone not going into the office every day?

 

[Wolfie]

Sadiq Khan’ts failing operation literally had to be bailed out (using taxpayers money hence being subsidised by the rest of the country) it was being so badly mismanaged.

The previous Mayor of London signed up to a zero operational subsidy deal for TfL (with, incidentally, fare revenue being used to maintain London trunk roads) despite being warned about the dangers implicit in any unusual event..... Then we had a pandemic....

Oh, and l will offer you a deal: no money from "the rest of the country" to TfL and no taxes raised in London to go to the rest of the country....

Put it this way, Londoners could travel for free and the rest of the country would have previous little investment.

 

[MedwayValiant]

The commercial fare for most journeys is a day ticket. And most of those are below £6.

In my area, I get unlimited travel on ALL MODES for £6. Because I don't live out in the sticks.

This may well be true for many urban areas. Whether it's most I don't know, but certainly not the one where I live.

Much as we speak of the Medway Towns plural, in reality it's one large town. There are no fields between the five towns, and there is one "proper" town centre, together with the tourist bit (Rochester High Street). The main bus operator is Arriva, and a day ticket valid on all Arriva buses within the borough costs £7.10. There are two smaller operators, and if you need a day ticket covering all three operators that's £10. (That's a Discovery ticket and covers a much larger area, but it's all there is.) There was an attempt to introduce a multi-operator Oyster-alike a few years back, but that went nowhere because Arriva declined to get involved.

Arriva takes part in the cap scheme, and so for the moment most of its single tickets are £2. Most returns are more than £4, so they have practically disappeared. There are a few £1.40 single fares, but you don't get as far as a mile for that. But the second operator is Nu-Venture which has chosen not to take part in the cap scheme, and its single fares for journeys within the urban area go up to £3.80. It doesn't offer a day ticket apart from that £10 one.

We dream of £6 day tickets!

 

[158756]

This may well be true for many urban areas. Whether it's most I don't know, but certainly not the one where I live.

Much as we speak of the Medway Towns plural, in reality it's one large town. There are no fields between the five towns, and there is one "proper" town centre, together with the tourist bit (Rochester High Street). The main bus operator is Arriva, and a day ticket valid on all Arriva buses within the borough costs £7.10. There are two smaller operators, and if you need a day ticket covering all three operators that's £10. (That's a Discovery ticket and covers a much larger area, but it's all there is.) There was an attempt to introduce a multi-operator Oyster-alike a few years back, but that went nowhere because Arriva declined to get involved.

Arriva takes part in the cap scheme, and so for the moment most of its single tickets are £2. Most returns are more than £4, so they have practically disappeared. There are a few £1.40 single fares, but you don't get as far as a mile for that. But the second operator is Nu-Venture which has chosen not to take part in the cap scheme, and its single fares for journeys within the urban area go up to £3.80. It doesn't offer a day ticket apart from that £10 one.

We dream of £6 day tickets!

In Lancashire, Transdev's day tickets for local travel in their Blackburn, Burnley and Pendle zones are £6 (Rossendale is £7). But cross a boundary and you need the Lancashire ticket, costing £9. The boundary between Burnley and Pendle, all mostly one continuous urban area, is just 2 miles from the centre of Burnley. £9 day ticket for 2 miles! Though at least before the fare cap a return would be less. And there is no multi operator ticketing at all, which is very relevant since Transdev lost all the tendered routes.

 

[joieman]

This may well be true for many urban areas. Whether it's most I don't know, but certainly not the one where I live.

Much as we speak of the Medway Towns plural, in reality it's one large town. There are no fields between the five towns, and there is one "proper" town centre, together with the tourist bit (Rochester High Street). The main bus operator is Arriva, and a day ticket valid on all Arriva buses within the borough costs £7.10. There are two smaller operators, and if you need a day ticket covering all three operators that's £10. (That's a Discovery ticket and covers a much larger area, but it's all there is.) There was an attempt to introduce a multi-operator Oyster-alike a few years back, but that went nowhere because Arriva declined to get involved.

Arriva takes part in the cap scheme, and so for the moment most of its single tickets are £2. Most returns are more than £4, so they have practically disappeared. There are a few £1.40 single fares, but you don't get as far as a mile for that. But the second operator is Nu-Venture which has chosen not to take part in the cap scheme, and its single fares for journeys within the urban area go up to £3.80. It doesn't offer a day ticket apart from that £10 one.

We dream of £6 day tickets!

As I mentioned before, in my case, Loughborough and Leicester aren't in the same fare zone, so an adult day ticket for me would cost upwards of £7 rather than the £5.40 it does to travel within the NW Leicestershire Zone.

 

[Ghostbus]

If the emerging consensus is that the only people who benefit from the cap now are....

1. those in rural areas (except where cuts have denied them a bus at all)
2. those in areas where there is a misalignment in administrative and population boundaries
3. some (but not all, Canterbury £5.70, High Wycombe £5.00 etc) towns in the home counties eff

....then it becomes even clearer that this was an act of extreme folly by the Treasury.

The economic benefit of buses are legion, from accessing vital public services to social mobility, far outweighing the relatively meagre cost of this subsidy (as someone pointed out, Southestern alone is costing £400m a year, some of which is presumably resulting in absolutely absurd situations where if the cap has been done away with entirely, it would cost less to get from Chatham to St Pancras in 40 minutes than to take a 40 bus ride across Chatham).

The bus Industry is still on its knees. Growth has yet to even begin to mitigate inflation (wages, fuel, parts) or other forms of post-pandemic instability (rates, supply chains, labour shortages). The very last thing it needs are changes that make absolutely no sense from the perspective of what was best for its long term future.

A change that surely means that in almost all instances where the bus is a long suffered first, last and only resort, the cost to the user of this basic public service has now either gone up, or is now dependent on the economics of other modes and non-bus related central government funding, which has historically never been a situation where the bus is prioritised over those other modes. Pun intended.

 

[Falcon1200]

which the Tories would likely have abandoned.

Evidence for that? The Tories had already extended the fare cap, and kept it at £2. Labour in contrast have abandoned the £2 cap and introduced a £3 one instead.

It will be interesting to see what happens with fares which were just above £2, such as the £2.40 I used to pay on services I use in Oxford.

 

[takno]

Evidence for that? The Tories had already extended the fare cap, and kept it at £2. Labour in contrast have abandoned the £2 cap and introduced a £3 one instead.

It will be interesting to see what happens with fares which were just above £2, such as the £2.40 I used to pay on services I use in Oxford.

At some point the Tories would have had to have filled the 22bn black hole as well. Extending an election bribe probably wouldn't have been top of their priority list in the circumstances

 

[robbob700]

This is Labour maintaining a cap for another year which the Tories would likely have abandoned.

The tory manifesto actually committed them to keeping the cap.

Our Manifesto for You | Conservatives

Discover what Conservatives will deliver for you here.

www.conservatives.com

We will extend the £2 bus fare cap in England for the entirety of the next Parliament, benefitting young people and low-income households while pensioners continue to benefit from the free bus pass. The extension of the £2 fare cap will be funded by savings from reform of the railway which will save up to £1.5 billion annually.

Obviously governments don't always stick to manifesto commitments, but it's unlikely that it would have been completely abandoned.