How are you all coping with the £3 cap?

[1D54]

Doesn't bother me as I've now taken to the railway to get to work but are there any tales of irate passengers who put a £2 coin in the tray and claimed to know nothing about the cap going to £3.

 

[dk1]

Doesn't bother me as I've now taken to the railway to get to work but are there any tales of irate passengers who put a £2 coin in the tray and claimed to know nothing about the cap going to £3.

Some people definitely live under a rock

 

[Blindtraveler]

There seems to be a bit of confusion locally to me about what should be charged for which journey and what distance. But given the local Facebook groups are full of reports of passengers being undercharged rather than over, I should imagine it's all gone pretty smoothly for all the drivers who've just gone back to work today

 

[mangad]

Some people definitely live under a rock

You could put a big flashing sign outside everyone's house, and post leaflets through their door daily, and there'd still be people who will swear blindly that they haven't been told of a change.

 

[ChrisC]

Some people definitely live under a rock

It’s surprising how many people didn’t even know that there has been a £2 cap for the last 2 years.

 

[ScotGG]

I've stopped using buses already. Big jumps here of 33 per cent and bus companies have also used it to push child fares up a lot. Not worth it at new prices. Car it is.

We were using buses despite other options at those fares and destination in town made it attractive but now its back to the free car park on towns edge and walk in for a few mins. I know some other family's who did similar. Buses here likely to lose those types again and become preserve of free bus pass holders (and in turn services cut).

 

[Oxfordblues]

As a retired railway worker I'm in the very privileged position of having free bus travel and free rail travel. Also I cycle round Oxford where the bike can easily keep up with the local buses.

 

[Vexed]

Luckily where I am the single to the station is still £2 (£3.50 return), £2.50 (£4 return) to the city centre. Pre fare cap it was £2.20 single for both. I can't remember the return prices.

As most of my bus travel is to connect with a train, where possible I plan ahead and make good use of plusbus which is just £2.25 with a railcard.

What I dread the most is increased dwell times. Tap on tap off can't come soon enough. Boarding is so much quicker at uni in Southampton where 95% of people scan a barcode or tap a bank card compared to here in St Albans where 80% of people have a discussion with the driver about where they want to go then wait 5 seconds for Ticketer to accept the bank card, and just 20% board quickly with a QR code.

I feel it will be a slow couple weeks as people start actually caring about the fare stage they pay for, complaining about the increase, and drivers explaining that now returns are cheaper (depending on the operator if they keep them) after that not being true for a while.

 

[12LDA28C]

Since I never use buses, I'm coping just fine. If people are actually complaining about having to pay £3 for a bus fare then I don't know what to suggest. Hardly expensive, is it?

 

[1D54]

It is if you are using them twice a day.

 

[Mark J]

Since I never use buses, I'm coping just fine. If people are actually complaining about having to pay £3 for a bus fare then I don't know what to suggest. Hardly expensive, is it?

Well, what a great example of an 'I'm alright Jack' attitude.

£1 extra may not be much for you. However, for many bus users doing single journeys (not in possession of a free concessionary pass), it is an unwanted extra expense.

Also it means in some cases having to purchase more expensive Day Tickets. Whilst these remain reasonably priced by some operators. It is not true of all.

Even the bus operators were pushing for a tapered easing off of the £2 fare, which has been ignored by this 'for the people' and 'net zero' Government.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Still capped at £2 in Greater Manchester. Anywhere else where it's not just now been increased to £3?

 

[12LDA28C]

Well, what a great example of an 'I'm alright, Jack' attitude.

£1 extra may not be much for you. However, for many bus users doing single journeys (not in possession of a free concessionary pass), it is an unwanted extra expense.

Also it means in some cases having to purchase more expensive Day Tickets. Whilst these remain reasonably priced by some operators. It is not true of all.

Even the bus operators were pushing for a tapered easing off of the £2 fare, which has been ignored by this 'for the people' and 'net zero' Government.

In the overall scheme of things, is an extra pound or two per day really too much to bear? In comparison say, with gas and electricity prices going through the roof in recent years? How did people cope before the £2 cap was introduced?

 

[Polarbear]

Still capped at £2 in Greater Manchester. Anywhere else where it's not just now been increased to £3?

Also still capped at £2 in the Liverpool City Region.

 

[duncombec]

Without wishing to stray too far off topic, the general reporting around this rise, both here and in the wider media, after just two years of a capped fare shows the immense difficulty a government of any colour will have raising fuel duty again after 14 years of freeze. Some of the headlines - I can think of one local journalism example in particular - are excessive, as are the usual row of people who can be rolled out to say how much this rise is going to trap them in their homes - having seemingly forgotten that had it not been introduced, the fares would already have been more than the capped rate in a lot of cases. Let's also not forget that had Rishi Sunak not "found" some money down the back of the HS2 sofa, we'd have had a £3 cap for 6 months by now, and possibly no cap at all.

My single fare pre-cap was £4.10, so I'm still benefitting (indeed, nearly my entire route, a mere 25 minutes in length, has a £3 fare, because Arriva's fares are so expensive... the new "short hop" of £1.90 takes you three stops from the town centre!). I suspect many people in this area will consider it is still a lower fare than it could have been, and accept it for what it is, as the choices here are "bus" or "drive". Even once in town, the shortest one-stop fares (which few people would buy) are £3.60 single and £4.10 return... with all the faff of getting to the out of the town centre stations (uphill from town), 6 unevenly spaced trains an hour, £6 return for 10 evenly spaced buses an hour doesn't seem like a bad choice!

I appreciate there are people for whom every penny really does count, but experience tells me they are very rarely the ones who go alerting all and sundry to their plight all over social and local media. The people with real problems are sitting at home, trying to work out how to make their journeys as cost-effective as possible.

 

[Nippy]

Before COVID it would cost around £5 to from Tring to Aylesbury on the 500. £3 is still a bargain compared to that.

 

[nick291]

First West of England have put handwritten signs up on the drivers assault door with the new prices, not on every bus as far as I can tell, but still.

 

[dk1]

I look at it that we've been extremely lucky to have £2 single bus fares as long as we have. It was only going to be temporary anyway following the pandemic but as with anything in life, you can give people something and it's fine but dare to take it away and they feel hard done by. An extra quid on an already good deal isn't going to dissuade me from hopping onboard. It's better than having the cap scrapped which was an option.

 

[londonteacher]

I was in a position where I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase £2 singles on the Arriva app before the rise in the fare cap came in. This meant that I now have about 30 singles ready to use.

When I am back at work next week I will then purchase my monthly Medway ticket and the £2 tickets will then cover journeys to Bluewater.

My only issue is that Arriva have not really explained what the short fares are (e.g. the distance) and that seems to be causing lots of confusion for people.

 

[Falcon1200]

If people are actually complaining about having to pay £3 for a bus fare then I don't know what to suggest. Hardly expensive, is it?

That surely depends on the distance travelled! Oxford to Reading by bus, great value for £3 (if slow). Oxford suburb to city centre for the same fare however, not so much.

Tap on/tap off is a great thing, however on the buses I use in Oxford one user operates such a system, with fare capping, but the other does not.

 

[Harpers Tate]

If people are actually complaining about having to pay £3 for a bus fare then I don't know what to suggest. Hardly expensive, is it?

Not complaining. Just not using them, other than as a last resort. "Hardly expensive"? That depends on how you look at it.

If I want to go from here to the shopping mall then it's two buses. So £3 becomes £6. Round trip becomes £12. Two people travelling becomes £24.
Alternatively, it's one car ride, at a fuel cost* of under 40p round trip and the other person goes free.

The biggest change "they" could make, right away, is the concept used in many locations in the USA of a transfer fare. For no extra cost, you can continue your journey where a change of buses is needed - within certain time limits.

* Other costs conceded, but as the large part of those are fixed, and (as many do) I already have "need" for a car, those are already sunk costs. The major consideration here has to be the marginal cost of making the trip. Even if I double that fuel cost to account for other marginal wear etc., I still only get to 80p.

 

[stevieinselby]

If people are actually complaining about having to pay £3 for a bus fare then I don't know what to suggest. Hardly expensive, is it?

That depends on what journey you're making, and how often you're making it.
An extra £2 a day adds up to about £450 a year if you're travelling every working day, which is not a trivial amount of money to find for someone who is already struggling.
For a local journey, if they are charging the full £6 return then that is steep, and I can understand why people might feel aggrieved. On the other hand, for longer journeys it's still good value.

 

[dvboy]

That depends on what journey you're making, and how often you're making it.
An extra £2 a day adds up to about £450 a year if you're travelling every working day, which is not a trivial amount of money to find for someone who is already struggling.
For a local journey, if they are charging the full £6 return then that is steep, and I can understand why people might feel aggrieved. On the other hand, for longer journeys it's still good value.

If you're travelling every working day you probably have a season ticket of some sort already?

 

[stevieinselby]

Not complaining. Just not using them, other than as a last resort. "Hardly expensive"? That depends on how you look at it.

If I want to go from here to the shopping mall then it's two buses. So £3 becomes £6. Round trip becomes £12. Two people travelling becomes £24.
Alternatively, it's one car ride, at a fuel cost* of under 40p round trip and the other person goes free.

The biggest change "they" could make, right away, is the concept used in many locations in the USA of a transfer fare. For no extra cost, you can continue your journey where a change of buses is needed - within certain time limits.

* Other costs conceded, but as the large part of those are fixed, and (as many do) I already have "need" for a car, those are already sunk costs. The major consideration here has to be the marginal cost of making the trip. Even if I double that fuel cost to account for other marginal wear etc., I still only get to 80p.

If fuel costs (assuming petrol or diesel, rather than electric) are 40p for the round trip then I assume you're looking at a journey of under 2 miles each way ... sounds like walking or cycling would be a better option!
Are there many places where that would need two buses for such a short journey, with both legs charging the full £3 single and no return or all-day option?
For example, in York you can buy an all-day all-operator family ticket (so covering 2 adults, plus up to 3 kids if you have any) for under £10. Sure, that's still more than your 80p cost of driving, but substantially less than £24.

If you're travelling every working day you probably have a season ticket of some sort already?

Not every operator offers season tickets – and if they do, they are usually based on the shadow fares rather than the capped fares, and so if you're making a longer journey then it may still be cheaper to pay on the bus than get a season ticket.

 

[12LDA28C]

Not complaining. Just not using them, other than as a last resort. "Hardly expensive"? That depends on how you look at it.

If I want to go from here to the shopping mall then it's two buses. So £3 becomes £6. Round trip becomes £12. Two people travelling becomes £24.
Alternatively, it's one car ride, at a fuel cost* of under 40p round trip and the other person goes free.

The biggest change "they" could make, right away, is the concept used in many locations in the USA of a transfer fare. For no extra cost, you can continue your journey where a change of buses is needed - within certain time limits.

* Other costs conceded, but as the large part of those are fixed, and (as many do) I already have "need" for a car, those are already sunk costs. The major consideration here has to be the marginal cost of making the trip. Even if I double that fuel cost to account for other marginal wear etc., I still only get to 80p.

So again, how did people cope before the £2 cap was introduced? Were they not using buses then either?

 

[Trainguy34]

My friends son travels from his mum's to his dad's and back every Saturday (2 Buses each way), a Kid for a Quid day ticket was £1, but thats now been reduced to a single, now being £4 per week, combine that with a return trip going from £4 to £6 (One parent has a disabled pass), so £5 extra per day, luckily it's only once a week but still pretty bad for a 15 mile journey (£5 to £10)

 

[A S Leib]

Before COVID it would cost around £5 to from Tring to Aylesbury on the 500. £3 is still a bargain compared to that.

The Arriva Orbit student day ticket's currently £4.50, making it cheaper than two singles, let alone for journeys using multiple buses each way. I think that was the case two years ago as well, but I can't remember the exact student day Orbit cost then.

 

[YorkRailFan]

Still capped at £2 in Greater Manchester. Anywhere else where it's not just now been increased to £3?

West Yorkshire remains £2 until end of March. North East is £2.50.

 

[Mark J]

I was in a position where I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase £2 singles on the Arriva app before the rise in the fare cap came in. This meant that I now have about 30 singles ready to use.

When I am back at work next week I will then purchase my monthly Medway ticket and the £2 tickets will then cover journeys to Bluewater.

My only issue is that Arriva have not really explained what the short fares are (e.g. the distance) and that seems to be causing lots of confusion for people.

I thought the £2 singles had to be activated by 31st December 2024. That is the way I read it on various bus company apps.

 

[rg177]

West Yorkshire remains £2 until end of March. North East is £2.50.

Specifically the North East Combined authority (so Tyne & Wear, Co. Durham and Northumberland).