There might have been a cheaper way of doing my journey, but having spent £11 in total for a 30-minute and hour-long bus journey in Scotland, I can see how the £3 cap in England / lower in some mayoral areas is still a big improvement (as somebody who didn't use buses much before the £2 cap came in).
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How are you all coping with the £3 cap?
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Sniffingmoose
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In Burton on Trent it is now £3 for any journey including from the station into town which is under a mile. I thought it was meant to be a cap not a blanket fare.
So as I have to catch 2 buses to the station (2.5miles) I can buy a town day ticket costing £5.50 and guess what, the taxi fare to the station is £5.50! So the £5.50 bus fare is OK if doing a day return but for a single journey why on earth would I catch a filthy (and thay are very dirty) unreliable once an hour bus at that price when I can get a taxi for the same price from my front door. No wonder no one is using them.
The message is clear to me. There is little incentive to use the bus.
I wish it was not like this as the traffic in the town is dire.
So as I have to catch 2 buses to the station (2.5miles) I can buy a town day ticket costing £5.50 and guess what, the taxi fare to the station is £5.50! So the £5.50 bus fare is OK if doing a day return but for a single journey why on earth would I catch a filthy (and thay are very dirty) unreliable once an hour bus at that price when I can get a taxi for the same price from my front door. No wonder no one is using them.
The message is clear to me. There is little incentive to use the bus.
I wish it was not like this as the traffic in the town is dire.
1D54
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I'd seriously take this up with all concerned as it doesn't sound right to me. They either have a group of rip-off merchants running services in Burton or they are completely incompetent and need to get their act together.
johncrossley
Established Member
Obviously single journeys within a modest sized town shouldn't cost £5.50! Penalising passengers for changing buses on a single journey is barking mad. London and Manchester calling their single fares a "hopper fare" is also very over the top, when it really is just common sense and nothing really special.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Some fairly long journeys in Milton Keynes are now under the cap, just paid £2.50 for Bletchley-Westcroft.
Haywain
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Welcome to the world that most of us live in.
I'll probably annoy people, but I've not paid more than £2 for a bus trip, so far this year. Almost all my journeys have been in the £1 Keighley zone, apart from one on the 903 costing £1.50, one further, costing £2 and a few day tickets at £3.20 or £4.50. Tomorrow is likely to see a London bus or two.
and have lived in since the inception of buses over 100 years ago, for good or for bad. Nobody has yet identified a funding stream to do anything else.
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JGurney
Member
Burton on Trent Plusbus is £4.20 (railcard £2.80). The ticket covers unlimited journeys within the town, plus Swadlingcote and some nearby villages. Info: https://www.plusbus.info/burton
Still not good for a 2.5 mile trip, and it's bad that the buses are dirty, infrequent and unreliable, but a bit better than £5.50.
But to get said ticket, you already need to have visited the station…
And with the cheapest ticket from Burton (with a railcard) being £2.25, a lot of hassle for a small saving if you have a railcard.
Just shows what Diamond have turned the Burton operation into and they probably want you to buy the day ticket. At one time it was only £1 from the train station to town. trentbarton is not much better at £2.60 according to the online fare calculator to the train station but at least Stretton is still less at £2.70 before hitting £3 at Rolleston.
Most English speaking places give such tickets a name - in the US, they're often a "Transfer ticket" and sometimes attract a premium, being charged at more than the fare for 1 bus, but less than twice that.
johncrossley
Established Member
Now we have contactless cards and smartcards, paper transfer tickets aren't so common as they used to be. MBTA (Boston) and CTA (Chicago) seem to have phased out transfer tickets as transfers are no longer available if you pay by cash. MTA (New York), MBTA and CTA all offer either one or two free transfers on single fares. I'm sure I've paid a premium for transfer tickets when visiting those cities in the distant past.
Fares in my are have increased with some large differences between operators. From mine to Sheffield Centre First charge £2.80, Stagecoach charge £2.60. One of the biggest differences is on my local estate where Stagecoach charge £1.70 for this short journey but First charge £2.20 for the same trip.
1D54
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First drivers must be well used to pulling up at a stop with passengers waiting only for none of them to board if that is what they are doing. I can't understand why First would adopt such a seemingly crazy attitude unless they are undercutting Stagecoach on weekly / monthly tickets so they don't care.
Probably already mentioned and I just completely missed it but turns out West Yorkshire is going from £2 to £2.50 from 30 March
Russel
Established Member
Well, the £3 cap has finally started to effect me and put miles on my car...
Today, myself, partner and child wanted to head into Birmingham from Tamworth, under the £2 cap it cost £12 in total, under the £3 cap, it's now £18...
Parking at Four Oaks and getting the train in on the cross-city with a family and friends railcard is around £9, so £9 cheaper than using the bus, the previous £3 saving wasn't worth the drive, but £9 difference and a quicker journey, that changes things.
Even local journeys, my house into the town centre, a distance of 3 miles, even on my own is now £6 return, the bus simply is no longer a viable option.
Today, myself, partner and child wanted to head into Birmingham from Tamworth, under the £2 cap it cost £12 in total, under the £3 cap, it's now £18...
Parking at Four Oaks and getting the train in on the cross-city with a family and friends railcard is around £9, so £9 cheaper than using the bus, the previous £3 saving wasn't worth the drive, but £9 difference and a quicker journey, that changes things.
Even local journeys, my house into the town centre, a distance of 3 miles, even on my own is now £6 return, the bus simply is no longer a viable option.
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WelshBluebird
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I mean to be fair £2 for a 15 mile journey is pretty unsustainable so I'm not sure that is something to complain about.
BVW
Member
I was surprised to find out last that week while my single fare from the edge of First's Norwich inner zone to the city centre had recently gone up to £2.40, it's £3 to get to the railway station which lies the other side for me. Thankfully the one day Anglia Ranger paper ticket I purchased took care of the bus journey home. I only found out the night before that I was going on an impromptu day out so had no viable way of purchasing it in advance.
If I'm able to plan ahead for a day out somewhere by rail then a £2.15 Norwich PlusBus with railcard discount (£3.30 otherwise) does the job nicely, especially with the cost of two singles rising from £4 to £6. An inner zone day ticket is £5.50 (previously £4.50 during the £2 single era) so is only of use should I wish to make three journeys or more.
If I'm able to plan ahead for a day out somewhere by rail then a £2.15 Norwich PlusBus with railcard discount (£3.30 otherwise) does the job nicely, especially with the cost of two singles rising from £4 to £6. An inner zone day ticket is £5.50 (previously £4.50 during the £2 single era) so is only of use should I wish to make three journeys or more.
dk1
Veteran Member
I use the £3.30 PlusBus a few times a month in Norwich and is fantastic value especially as it’s valid on both First & Konnect buses.
The fares seem even more expensive when you live just outside the inner zone, especially the child fares. Luckily Sprowston P&R isn't far away where a child return is cheaper than a Norwich Outer single, even from today when it is now the same bus.
When it was the £2 cap the drivers nearly always sold my daughter an adult ticket as it was the same price.
All us Norwich area members. One day there might be a forum meal in the area
Nym
Established Member
I actually seriously started looking at buses again, moving offices shortly to one that's closer to the city centre (the only place the buses go to), and I'll spare the details, but it's still going to be quicker to walk the whole distance.
If one of those things of the actual fuel burn is around £1.60 to get to work and back, maintenance attribution costs take that up to around £2.50, and then annualised tax and insurance around £4. (There's no leasing or PCP costs, I own it.) So even taking all the costs everyone forgets into it, it's still actually cheaper to own, run, maintain, insure and fuel a car to drive to work than it is to take the bus, and it's quicker to walk than take the bus, and this isn't a cross city or weird journey, it's from a city's outskirts into the major employment centres.
Unless there is a major shakeup of routes to cater to commuters rather than retirees going into town, I honestly can't see a shift of commuters to buses any time soon in this city, and in a lot of other cities that I see.
If I had to pay to park at work, I'd just walk or cycle, because it's quicker and not reliant on a service that has issues.
Oh and a PS, I have to carry a *lot* of 'accoutrements' for my role, so cycling or walking most of the time isn't practicable anyway.
If one of those things of the actual fuel burn is around £1.60 to get to work and back, maintenance attribution costs take that up to around £2.50, and then annualised tax and insurance around £4. (There's no leasing or PCP costs, I own it.) So even taking all the costs everyone forgets into it, it's still actually cheaper to own, run, maintain, insure and fuel a car to drive to work than it is to take the bus, and it's quicker to walk than take the bus, and this isn't a cross city or weird journey, it's from a city's outskirts into the major employment centres.
Unless there is a major shakeup of routes to cater to commuters rather than retirees going into town, I honestly can't see a shift of commuters to buses any time soon in this city, and in a lot of other cities that I see.
If I had to pay to park at work, I'd just walk or cycle, because it's quicker and not reliant on a service that has issues.
Oh and a PS, I have to carry a *lot* of 'accoutrements' for my role, so cycling or walking most of the time isn't practicable anyway.
Man of Kent
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An Arriva Tamworth Plus Family Day ticket is £14, valid on the whole of the 110 into Birmingham.
Arriva Bus
www.arrivabus.co.uk
An adult day ticket in Tamworth - with extensive validity out to Lichfield and beyond - is £5.40.
I think that's a matter of your opinion! The kind of public subsidy the railway industry gets for its exceptionally inefficient operations, doesn't seem at all unreasonable to offer a long term subsidy for a journey by bus, with their very efficient operating model, to offer a rate of about 15p a mile long term.
ChrisC
Established Member
I agree, but I think that there is something to complain about in areas where there is no multi-operator ticket. Even a journey of no more than miles, involving 2 buses can end up costing £12 for a return journey. Even the £8 cost when the £2 cap was in force was more than enough.
Russel
Established Member
An Arriva Tamworth Plus Family Day ticket is £14, valid on the whole of the 110 into Birmingham.
Arriva Bus
An adult day ticket in Tamworth - with extensive validity out to Lichfield and beyond - is £5.40.
I'm aware of the day tickets.
The family ticket is still £5 more than the train and the local one is still more than what it would cost in petrol, £1.50-2 approx and parking £2 for two hours if I was to nip into town, any other running costs are irrelevant as I need a car for work so would be paying them either way.
To add to this, you then need to take into consideration Arrivas awful reliability and filthy buses, both outside and in, and I'm not talking a few discarded newspapers and drinks cans, I'm talking fabric seats caked in filth, floors covered in years of ground in dirt etc.
This thread I feel has run it's course.... Anyone wishing to discuss the mirage of topics discussed here feel free to create a new thread 
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