How are you all coping with the £3 cap?

[infobleep]

Funnily enough, Transport for Greater Manchester is about to introduce that, from the end of this week.

I wish that was possible in Guildford.

I haven't got a bus since 1 January yet.

I had planned to this week but now I have a cold so I'll be staying at home. The following week I will probably get a bus.

Today I was out and considered getting a bus but it said the next one was in 7 minutes and I didn't wish to stand around in the cold.

As it was the bus wasn't 7 minutes but I was between bus stops, so they lost out on my fare.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Cambridgeshire, to my surprise, appears to have stuck at £2, at least for now.

 

[YouLostAStar]

Another anecdote. Yep they don't mean much in isolation but interesting:

So I took the first trip of the year. Before the cap it would be about 6 by now. Anyway it was only a short trip so cheaper fare should apply. Driver didn't want to issue it. Said £3. Nope. Eventually got him to issue cheap short hop (also risen a fair bit over past year).

What was noticable was that at three stops before I got off every person now didn't know what to pay. One passenger challenges driver as asked for £3. This all held the bus up. Buses have now gone back to a lottery of what we should pay. Bus company says by distance online naturally but doesn't actually list the details online anywhere of what price it should be for a specific trip/distance. Maps? Boundaries? Nothing. Complete guesswork for passengers. None of which entices anyone to use buses.

Seen a similar situation in my area.
Local bus is the x39 that covers Bath to Bristol. Bath and Bristol have their own separate fare zones that are £2.40 a ticket but to get from one city to the other you need a West of England pass which is £3. The cities are 13 miles apart so if you get on the bus somewhere in the middle then you might pay £2.40 or £3 depending on distance and what ticket the bus driver gives you.

 

[py_megapixel]

The biggest issue that was experienced in Leicester was that there was no way to combine a journey with tap on tap off where the first bus broke down en route (as would happen at least once a week for most regular passengers at the time of introduction).

In that sort of situation (in my opinion) a competent operator should ask all passengers to tap out of the bus that has broken down, and then arrange for passengers to transfer to the bus behind free of charge.

 

[johncrossley]

Seen a similar situation in my area.
Local bus is the x39 that covers Bath to Bristol. Bath and Bristol have their own separate fare zones that are £2.40 a ticket but to get from one city to the other you need a West of England pass which is £3. The cities are 13 miles apart so if you get on the bus somewhere in the middle then you might pay £2.40 or £3 depending on distance and what ticket the bus driver gives you.

This is where a £3 flat fare for paying the driver could be used as an incentive to use tap in and tap out. When the flat fare was £2 it would cost the same to pay the driver and there was no way of discouraging it. Paying the driver in 2025 is daft enough without having to have a conversation with the driver to work out whether the fare is £2.40 or £3.

In 2025 wasting time issuing tickets is plain daft. If bus companies want the taxpayer to fund bus priority to speed up journeys then they need to do their own bit first.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

This is where a £3 flat fare for paying the driver could be used as an incentive to use tap in and tap out. When the flat fare was £2 it would cost the same to pay the driver and there was no way of discouraging it. Paying the driver in 2025 is daft enough without having to have a conversation with the driver to work out whether the fare is £2.40 or £3.

In 2025 wasting time issuing tickets is plain daft. If bus companies want the taxpayer to fund bus priority to speed up journeys then they need to do their own bit first.

I really don't know where you get this idea that there are loads of people routinely talking to the driver, asking for fares?

I travelled to and from Bath on Saturday. The only person I saw getting a ticket was me, and that was only because I was paying for the better half. Everyone else was either TOTO or scanning a pass/phone. I did see one passenger talking to the driver but that was only because they were unfamiliar with the area and so asking where to get off.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Seen a similar situation in my area.
Local bus is the x39 that covers Bath to Bristol. Bath and Bristol have their own separate fare zones that are £2.40 a ticket but to get from one city to the other you need a West of England pass which is £3. The cities are 13 miles apart so if you get on the bus somewhere in the middle then you might pay £2.40 or £3 depending on distance and what ticket the bus driver gives you.

I mean the boundaries of the fare zones are incredibly well defined and easily available for someone to see, so it isn't depending on what ticket the bus driver gives you at all, it's simply dependent on where you get on and off.

And in any case, most people around here (I live in Bristol but visit friends in Bath often) either use tickets in the mobile app or use tap on tap off. Hardly anyone buys a ticket from the driver.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

And in any case, most people around here (I live in Bristol but visit friends in Bath often) either use tickets in the mobile app or use tap on tap off. Hardly anyone buys a ticket from the driver.

Exactly my experience. I wonder how much cash is actually handled these days?

 

[YouLostAStar]

This is where a £3 flat fare for paying the driver could be used as an incentive to use tap in and tap out. When the flat fare was £2 it would cost the same to pay the driver and there was no way of discouraging it. Paying the driver in 2025 is daft enough without having to have a conversation with the driver to work out whether the fare is £2.40 or £3.

In 2025 wasting time issuing tickets is plain daft. If bus companies want the taxpayer to fund bus priority to speed up journeys then they need to do their own bit first.

I don't do Tap on/off, gives me too much anxiety about remembering to tap off at the end of the journey.
I'm sure its less of an issue for those that get used to it but if its not in my routine then I would just get off the bus and forget to do it

 

[Ayman Ilham]

In Blackburn, £3 is a de-facto flat fare unfortunately (not just a max fare as stated on paper), as even a short hop home from town is £3 with no lower fare between £2 and £3. Just used the bus now (used to be £2 or £1 after 7pm) to get home quicker than waiting an extra half-hour for my hourly local train. Total ripoff for barely 2 miles. Even for a full 10-mile journey to Preston or Chorley, it's steep if you're going for a round trip.

 

[1D54]

There must have been a lot of complaints in Blackburn about this. What company did you use, are drivers being questioned about selling £3 tickets for such short journeys? Something sounds very wrong about this.

 

[Haywain]

There must have been a lot of complaints in Blackburn about this.

Give it a chance, it's only been in place for 12 days!

 

[Ayman Ilham]

There must have been a lot of complaints in Blackburn about this. What company did you use, are drivers being questioned about selling £3 tickets for such short journeys? Something sounds very wrong about this.

Transdev Blackburn, the main company in the locality. They probably don't have any other single fares programmed at the moment (they had £1.70 short distance fares when my wife used to get the bus home from work but they got scrapped a few months back), so it appears the £2 fare that became £3 was simply being implemented as a flat-fare by the operator ever since. Most people who ride the buses locally use day tickets, or weekly/monthly passes, anyway so I suppose it doesn't affect them.

Personally, I don't really use the bus enough to justify a day or week ticket these days, especially when it's more cost-effective to use the train with my 26-30 railcard in most cases. £5.30 for a Blackburn local day ticket isn't really worth it when it's only valid on one operator within an urban area substantially smaller than Greater Manchester so the coverage is poor for the price, especially when the GM day ticket is cheaper (£5 exactly) but covers all buses within an area 10x greater than Blackburn and more dense to boot (even before Bee Network it was better value for money), so you've got access to maybe 100x more bus routes per fiver.

 

[jawr256]

Preston Bus have introduced a £3.70 return on my main bus route so my main journey has actually gone down in price since December (vs 2x £2 singles), but if I want to come back on a different route or operator I need a £5.50 day ticket or up to £6 for two singles, so swings and roundabouts

 

[studio_two]

Providing you tap-on / tap-off for every journey, First Potteries do now cap at the daily and weekly ticket prices. The problem is knowing / deciding at the beginning of the week whether to TOTO all week, buy just a couple of day tickets, or buy a weekly (or longer) ticket. Unfortunately if you buy a day ticket that doesn't then count towards the weekly cap. Similarly if you make any journeys with a different operator that doesn't count towards the cap.

I would love to see more of this type of technology used. It should be possible to get payments for individual journeys capped at a daily / weekly rate.

Preston Bus have introduced a £3.70 return on my main bus route so my main journey has actually gone down in price since December (vs 2x £2 singles).

Not sure if this allows you to change buses in order to complete your journey, but I think a further improvement could be to introduce a timed ticket in case you need to change buses. This would be useful for those with (say) a hospital appointment where they my need to go into town first, and then change.

 

[ScotGG]

Which bus company is this? The Stagecoach East Midlands app shows fares that are below the cap for appropriate journeys.

It was First. Their app doesn't sell individual tickets nor show prices except 10-trip bundles for £30 that expires after 28 days. Not sure why anyone would use that as not a penny cheaper than £3 a time and no more convenient as still have to tell driver the destination for them to issue paper ticket after tapping/scanning phone.

 

[RT4038]

It was First. Their app doesn't sell individual tickets nor show prices except 10-trip bundles for £30 that expires after 28 days. Not sure why anyone would use that as not a penny cheaper than £3 a time and no more convenient as still have to tell driver the destination for them to issue paper ticket after tapping/scanning phone.

Any ticket sold less than £3 will not count towards the subsidy of the £3 cap. So a bus company will not sell £3 tickets at a discount.

 

[NorthernSpirit]

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

West Yorkshire's flat rate goes up to £2.50 from the 1st April, South Yorkshire I presume has gone up to £3.

 

[Teapot42]

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?

I'm just back from a large city where a single on any bus costs around 40p, and a coach ride of around 15 miles came in at just over a quid.

But then some countries realise that travel is a social necessity, and making alternatives cost effective means that the roads aren't jammed with private cars all the time.

 

[Haywain]

But then some countries realise that travel is a social necessity

Thay also have different tax regimes and expectations to the UK, so comparisons are difficult.

 

[Deerfold]

Transdev Blackburn, the main company in the locality. They probably don't have any other single fares programmed at the moment (they had £1.70 short distance fares when my wife used to get the bus home from work but they got scrapped a few months back), so it appears the £2 fare that became £3 was simply being implemented as a flat-fare by the operator ever since. Most people who ride the buses locally use day tickets, or weekly/monthly passes, anyway so I suppose it doesn't affect them.

Personally, I don't really use the bus enough to justify a day or week ticket these days, especially when it's more cost-effective to use the train with my 26-30 railcard in most cases. £5.30 for a Blackburn local day ticket isn't really worth it when it's only valid on one operator within an urban area substantially smaller than Greater Manchester so the coverage is poor for the price, especially when the GM day ticket is cheaper (£5 exactly) but covers all buses within an area 10x greater than Blackburn and more dense to boot (even before Bee Network it was better value for money), so you've got access to maybe 100x more bus routes per fiver.

They should have at least one other fare programmed in

simple fares for 2025

www.transdevbus.co.uk

Travelling in Blackburn or Lancashire?​

Most of our single tickets will be £3, but we'll have a new £2.50 fare for shorter journeys. Your driver will be able to let you know if your journey is classed as a short one. These prices will be for cross boundary journeys between Lancashire and Greater Manchester too. The £1 after 7pm and on Sundays deal is here into the New Year for journeys in Lancashire.

 

[studio_two]

South Yorkshire I presume has gone up to £3.

It has.

They have also scrapped the £5 (local) Day Rider ticket. Cheapest is now £6.50 (but it covers a wider area).

 

[Ayman Ilham]

They should have at least one other fare programmed in

simple fares for 2025

www.transdevbus.co.uk

Travelling in Blackburn or Lancashire?​

Most of our single tickets will be £3, but we'll have a new £2.50 fare for shorter journeys. Your driver will be able to let you know if your journey is classed as a short one. These prices will be for cross boundary journeys between Lancashire and Greater Manchester too. The £1 after 7pm and on Sundays deal is here into the New Year for journeys in Lancashire.

Ah, I think my journey (Blackburn to the Mill Hill area) was probably just over the limit of being classed as a 'shorter journey', not sure where it's supposed to be within Blackburn. Luckily the £1 thing for Lancashire is still a thing on evenings and Sundays, so I'll keep that in mind.

 

[Deerfold]

Ah, I think my journey (Blackburn to the Mill Hill area) was probably just over the limit of being classed as a 'shorter journey', not sure where it's supposed to be within Blackburn. Luckily the £1 thing for Lancashire is still a thing on evenings and Sundays, so I'll keep that in mind.

I don't know where the shorter journey boundary is, but it looks like you're within the Blackburn Local zone there, with a £5.30 day ticket if that's any use.

ticket zone maps

www.transdevbus.co.uk

simple fares for 2025

www.transdevbus.co.uk

... and some of our most popular money saving period tickets​

	1 day	7 days	28 days
Blackburn	£6	£19	£78
Blackburn Local	£5.30	n/a	n/a
Lancashire	£9 (£10 duo)	£28	£110
Bee Bus	£5	TBC	TBC
Gold	£14	£45	£150

 

[Ayman Ilham]

I don't know where the shorter journey boundary is, but it looks like you're within the Blackburn Local zone there, with a £5.30 day ticket if that's any use.

ticket zone maps

www.transdevbus.co.uk

simple fares for 2025

www.transdevbus.co.uk

I'm aware of that (didn't really need a day ticket at the time because I just needed the one bus to get me home quicker than waiting an extra half-hour for my local train just to go 2 stops), but rarely use buses enough within the Blackburn local zone to make it worthwhile. Besides, when I know that for 30p cheaper about 20 miles south, I can get a day ticket that covers an area probably 20x bigger with a considerably denser network to boot, £5.30 is hardly worth it for a much more limited coverage of buses (one town, one company, barely any spokes to work with compared to even one town in GM let alone the entire metropolitan county). Sure, for 70p extra, there's the full Blackburn zone which goes further out to Darwen and Accrington, but I remember when the full Lancashire day ticket was that cheap. Now the latter has shot up beyond £9, the price the Daytripper used to be.

 

[158756]

I'm aware of that (didn't really need a day ticket at the time because I just needed the one bus to get me home quicker than waiting an extra half-hour for my local train just to go 2 stops), but rarely use buses enough within the Blackburn local zone to make it worthwhile. Besides, when I know that for 30p cheaper about 20 miles south, I can get a day ticket that covers an area probably 20x bigger with a considerably denser network to boot, £5.30 is hardly worth it for a much more limited coverage of buses (one town, one company, barely any spokes to work with compared to even one town in GM let alone the entire metropolitan county). Sure, for 70p extra, there's the full Blackburn zone which goes further out to Darwen and Accrington, but I remember when the full Lancashire day ticket was that cheap. Now the latter has shot up beyond £9, the price the Daytripper used to be.

It's not great, but the Blackburn and Blackburn Local tickets are still better than what Transdev offer in the rest of Lancashire. In Burnley the £6 day ticket will get you less than 2 miles from the bus station towards Nelson before you need the £9 Lancashire ticket. In Rossendale the cheapest day ticket is £7, and for their routes to Clitheroe and Chorley the only day ticket is the £9 one, however short the journey is.

 

[Amateurish]

My kids both take a local bus to school and it's a short journey of about 10 minutes. According to the Stagecoach website the cost should be £2.50 each way, however the drivers all refuse to sell that fare saying that the machine only lets them issue £3 flat fare. I've messaged Stagecoach but no answer. What should I do?

 

[Teapot42]

Thay also have different tax regimes and expectations to the UK, so comparisons are difficult.

True, the country in question has much lower taxes so it is a bit cheaper to run an effective transport network as operator costs are lower. Doesn't explain the 8x price difference though. Trains are only about a quarter the price so that's something in our favour I guess?

 

[Haywain]

True, the country in question has much lower taxes so it is a bit cheaper to run an effective transport network as operator costs are lower. Doesn't explain the 8x price difference though. Trains are only about a quarter the price so that's something in our favour I guess?

It may have much lower wages and costs as well, so whilst being cheap to you it may not be seen that way to the resident population. There are many factors at play and not all of them are by any means obvious.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

True, the country in question has much lower taxes so it is a bit cheaper to run an effective transport network as operator costs are lower. Doesn't explain the 8x price difference though. Trains are only about a quarter the price so that's something in our favour I guess?

Yeah but you're looking at one specific financial area.

They may have lower personal taxation but an overall higher tax take when you factor in taxation away from income tax. Perhaps in areas such as inheritance tax (and thresholds). What about average earnings - are they much lower?

Also, what about expenditure... how is health care structured? How much do they spend on defence - are they meeting the recommended NATO figure? What sort of welfare state do they have?

Taking one financial measure is meaningless out of context.