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

[Qwerty133]

Absolutely not. The free passes for older people are beneficial to all by encouraging older people whose senses are failing to give up driving sooner or drive less. It's not a pure benefit for the individual like e.g. the winter fuel payment, it benefits everyone.

You could add a fee, but then this effect will be reduced for a very small amount of extra money.

Sorry but it’s an absolute joke that young people aged 16-18 have to pay sometimes full price to travel to compulsory education but that the old can doss about on buses all day free of charge (and many disabled people can get an identical commute to their colleagues free of charge whilst everyone else pays).
If we want to encourage bus use we need to make fares an affordable as possible life long and the best way to do this is to eliminate free travel so that the cost of the operation can be split as many ways as possible.
I also think it’s important to remember that the ratio of freebies to others on many routes have historically led to artifically high fares for those paying in order for the route to break even due to the way that free travel is reimbursed by councils.

 

[WelshBluebird]

If it goes up to the point that fares return to being staged, then you lose the potential advantage of being able to move to tap-in-only contactless as is used in London, which speeds boarding massively.

Worth saying that even in places that have the £2 cap and have a tap on system, many of then are tap on tap off despite the current fare cap. In Bristol First's system doesn't do the correct return journey capping if you don't tap off for example. In terms of speed, it depends, for buses with separate exit doors tapping off doesn't impact boarding at all, and you still get the speed of tapping on. For single door buses it does impact boarding slightly as someone needing to tap off does take ever so slightly longer to leave the bus but it isn't a large difference and the whole process is still much faster with tap on tap off than it is with specific tickets and cash payment.

 

[RT4038]

If it goes up to the point that fares return to being staged, then you lose the potential advantage of being able to move to tap-in-only contactless as is used in London, which speeds boarding massively.

On the other hand I do question whether we should be offering Oxford-Cambridge* fares for £2, you really could justify a lot more than that even if you subsidised it down from a commercial sort of price.

* The United Counties X5 is no longer a through service but does offer through fares - I used the X5 (only for a short trip or two) last week and ended up with a ticket issued to Cambridge from Buckingham, presumably because the driver was just being lazy and didn't want to change the stages.

I really can't see a £2 flat fare being retained in the future - this is too cheap for the really long routes as you mention. Either the routes will get shortened (which will inconvenience some, and in some areas will result in a nonsense ) or some sort of zonal or coarsened graduated system needs to be introduced. Perhaps on the long routes that can't sensibly be shortened it will have to be made clear that passengers must state destination (which to be fair they probably already do anyway?)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Sep 2024 ==

Sorry but it’s an absolute joke that young people aged 16-18 have to pay sometimes full price to travel to compulsory education

But that is probably something that needs updating with the 1944 Education Act, rather than dealing within the fares system?

 

[Bletchleyite]

We are almost putting the cart before the horse here - what's really needed is a country-wide Oyster-like system, tap on and off, then we can start planning distance-based fares.

There's no need to create a new Oyster style card because the banks have done it for us.

Tap in (and out, if necessary) is the way to go - people pay less attention to the actual price then because of the convenience factor. I suspect if you asked most Londoners what the bus and Tube fares were they wouldn't know, just as most people don't know the exact price of a loaf of bread or a pint of milk, just roughly what they spend on food in a week/month or similar.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Sep 2024 ==

Worth saying that even in places that have the £2 cap and have a tap on system, many of then are tap on tap off despite the current fare cap. In Bristol First's system doesn't do the correct return journey capping if you don't tap off for example.

That's just bad design. For a bus, the sensible thing is just that if you tap on and not off, or off and not on, you're just charged the maximum charge that could be applicable, i.e. from the tap in to the terminus or from the origin to the tap out, and keep it applicable for any capping. It's not like rail where you consider that someone might tap in at Euston and go to Crewe so there needs to be a penalty aspect. This also saves time if you alight at the terminus - no need to tap out.

Return fares probably don't make much sense as they make it difficult - you need to look what the actual journey was. Most contactless systems don't have them - just singles and daily caps.

 

[RT4038]

That's just bad design. For a bus, the sensible thing is just that if you tap on and not off, or off and not on, you're just charged the maximum charge that could be applicable, i.e. from the tap in to the terminus or from the origin to the tap out, and keep it applicable for any capping. It's not like rail where you consider that someone might tap in at Euston and go to Crewe so there needs to be a penalty aspect. This also saves time if you alight at the terminus - no need to tap out.

I suspect this is because the £2 fare cap was introduced as a time limited scheme, and the bus company does not wish people to get out of the habit of tapping out, for when / if the fares go back to previous levels (or to a graduated/zonal system) ?

 

[Bletchleyite]

I suspect this is because the £2 fare cap was introduced as a time limited scheme, and the bus company does not wish people to get out of the habit of tapping out, for when / if the fares go back to previous levels (or to a graduated/zonal system) ?

I think a sensible system would be designed so that it's fine not to tap out if your fare is the maximum for that journey (and if you don't tap out you're just charged that, and it can't be corrected afterwards). Creating unnecessary penalties or admin is just not sensible in a situation that's much simpler than TfL.

 

[Howardh]

Must point out that my single journey into town used to cost £1.30 and it jumped to £2 because of the cap! But have a feeling that if the cap was removed, that single journey would now cost far more. And a jump to £2.50 for a few stops doesn't feel right.

Also £2 from Windermere to Dungeon Ghyll?? Or Preston to Blackpool?? Perhaps the cap can stay but be increased for longer journeys, so round here Bolton - Horwich £2, Bolton to Chorley £4, and Bolton to Preston on the 125 £6? But to compensate the county-wide ticket would be, what, £5, £6/day and under a tenner if you include trains?

 

[WelshBluebird]

Whether by design or accident it seems that in many areas rather than being a cap you have a £2 flat fare. Indeed after being charged £2 for going three stops I asked our local operator if there were any fares under £2 as I was unable to find any on their online fares guide.

There is almost an issue at both ends where the £2 cap is overly generous for longer trips, but there is no incentive to bring fares down for local journeys.

For example, why pay £4 (or multiples thereof if travelling as a group) to pop in to town when you can pay a quid or two to park for a couple of hours? Finding the balance will be tricky, but £1 or £1.50 for rides under say 10-15 minutes could well get a lot of people out of cars.

How many local fares were leas than £2 before? Certainly in Bristol the only one was the 3 stop hop which was discontinued more due to fraudulent use than anything else.

Another issue is linked journeys. London does this well where a single fare applies when you change, but away from there, unless you are lucky enough to have a direct bus to where you are going you end up paying for 2 singles, or buying the relevant day ticket. (Not always available if multiple operators are involved, or at least not that cheap)

No reason why tap on systems can't take that into account. First in Bristol already have it set up so two journeys is charged at £3.80 instead of £4 (first bus gets charged at £2 and the 2nd at £1.80). No reason other than commercial that can't be tweaked to be more generous or to be time based.

One issue I can see why any variable cap though is enforcing it - which is the beauty of the current system. How many drivers could keep track of how far someone buying a short hop ticket actually

Which is exactly why lots of operators phased out short hop tickets in the first place.

We are almost putting the cart before the horse here - what's really needed is a country-wide Oyster-like system, tap on and off, then we can start planning distance-based fares.

But plenty of places do have that. We shouldn't stop pushing forward in oake places because not all bus operators have got upto speed.

 

[RT4038]

I think a sensible system would be designed so that it's fine not to tap out if your fare is the maximum for that journey (and if you don't tap out you're just charged that, and it can't be corrected afterwards). Creating unnecessary penalties or admin is just not sensible in a situation that's much simpler than TfL.

I don't suppose the system was designed for the £2 fare cap, and none (or only a very small minority) of routes before the cap were flat fare. If you are referring to the possibility of getting on at or after the last stage (and therefore only that fare can apply to you), I think that would be very confusing because you would need to tap out on the return (or outward) journey.

 

[WelshBluebird]

That's just bad design. For a bus, the sensible thing is just that if you tap on and not off, or off and not on, you're just charged the maximum charge that could be applicable, i.e. from the tap in to the terminus or from the origin to the tap out, and keep it applicable for any capping. It's not like rail where you consider that someone might tap in at Euston and go to Crewe so there needs to be a penalty aspect. This also saves time if you alight at the terminus - no need to tap out.

Return fares probably don't make much sense as they make it difficult - you need to look what the actual journey was. Most contactless systems don't have them - just singles and daily caps.

If you just consider single and daily caps then the system works exactly as you suggest. Not tapping off charges you the max fare for the bus journey (currently due to the £2 this is the same though). Its only return tickets that have this "penalty" for not tapping off.

 

[Magdalia]

You are all looking at this from the wrong angle. I look at it from the perspective of the public finances.

The £2 bus cap is due to expire on 31 December and the Department for Transport will only have funding for it up to that date. The Department for Transport has no money in its budget for the £2 bus cap after 31 December.

The £2 bus cap can only continue if the Treasury give the Department for Transport the funds to pay for it. If that happens, then it is likely to be announced as part of the Budget statement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 30 October.

But, according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, there is a £22 billion "black hole" in the government finances for 2024/25. It is difficult to see where funding will come from to extend the £2 cap beyond 31 December, either for the remainder of the 2024/25 financial year, or in the 2025/26 financial year.

 

[Ianigsy]

I have a couple of colleagues who changed to the bus for commuting, because the £2 Mayor’s Fares undercut the cost of parking in Leeds.

I’d keep it until Easter at least - the first three months of the year will be dead for leisure travel and the operators won’t want their income fallling off a cliff. The issue is longer routes like Leeds-Scarborough and Newcastle-Berwick - I don’t really mind the Treasury funding 75% if the cost of me having a day out at the seaside, but I don’t really see why it should either!

 

[ChrisC]

I think there is to be fair a reasonable north-south split on cash. In London people just don't use it at all, other than very, very poor people who may not have a bank account, though even they have to get an Oyster for bus travel and charge it with cash at a local shop. The further from London you go, the more cash seems to be used.

I think there probably is a definite north-south split. On my local route which runs through a mixture of wealthy rural villages and in complete contrast ex mining villages, lots of people are paying the £2 by cash. Nearly all paying by cash have the correct amount and certainly board the bus much quicker than some of those paying using a phone. Even raising the fare to £2.50 might result in lots of people requiring change.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Also £2 from Windermere to Dungeon Ghyll??

Apart from one journey a day that involves two buses so £4 which is not an unreasonable fare for that trip. I believe Stagecoach Lakes drivers can do through fares but most don't know how to do it or can't be bothered so you'll struggle to get one. I did once get one pre-£2 cap (the driver offered it) but it was just the sum of the two fares so no particular advantage.

 

[Trainman40083]

Absolutely not. The free passes for older people are beneficial to all by encouraging older people whose senses are failing to give up driving sooner or drive less. It's not a pure benefit for the individual like e.g. the winter fuel payment, it benefits everyone.

You could add a fee, but then this effect will be reduced for a very small amount of extra money.

I suspect the moment you end free passes for the over 66/67 group, passenger numbers would significantly drop.. At the moment, that remuneration is base revenue for the bus company, although not that well funded. A ball park assessment suggests the operator gets about 21% of the single fare (not the £2 fare) . In some areas, seems to be worked out on average fare. People talk about the cost of running a bus. I'd say £30 an hour (direct costs) to £50 an hour (covering all overheads) were in the right area. About half of the of the direct cost would be driver's wage. So, as it stands a bus operator could lose money running a bus.

 

[yorksrob]

In our area, a lot of young mothers (usually with a child in a trolley) mostly pay by cash. I must confess it surprised me, but I have seen this happen with my own eyes.

Some people prefer to use cash as it helps them to budget more easily.

 

[Tazi Hupefi]

My idea to resolve this would be to scrap the £2 bus fares, but allow the equivalent of an ENCTS bus pass to be purchased by anyone for something like £500-£750 per year, same time restrictions or perhaps £1000 that can be used at any time.

Reimbursement to the operators using the same mechanism.

That way, regular passengers retain affordable fares. There's certainty of demand up front, proper useage/tracking of how it's used and more targeted reimbursement to operators.

Could also encourage genuine modal shift, especially if sponsored or partly funded by employers etc. Allow it to be tax free like cycle to work schemes.

 

[yorksrob]

My idea to resolve this would be to scrap the £2 bus fares, but allow the equivalent of an ENCTS bus pass to be purchased by anyone for something like £500-£750 per year, same time restrictions or perhaps £1000 that can be used at any time.

Reimbursement to the operators using the same mechanism.

That way, regular passengers retain affordable fares. There's certainty of demand up front, proper useage/tracking of how it's used and more targeted reimbursement to operators.

Could also encourage genuine modal shift, especially if sponsored or partly funded by employers etc. Allow it to be tax free like cycle to work schemes.

Like the German Bahn card thing.

Some of us have been calling for something like this on the rails for years.

 

[Trainman40083]

There's no need to create a new Oyster style card because the banks have done it for us.

Tap in (and out, if necessary) is the way to go - people pay less attention to the actual price then because of the convenience factor. I suspect if you asked most Londoners what the bus and Tube fares were they wouldn't know, just as most people don't know the exact price of a loaf of bread or a pint of milk, just roughly what they spend on food in a week/month or similar.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 13 Sep 2024 ==



That's just bad design. For a bus, the sensible thing is just that if you tap on and not off, or off and not on, you're just charged the maximum charge that could be applicable, i.e. from the tap in to the terminus or from the origin to the tap out, and keep it applicable for any capping. It's not like rail where you consider that someone might tap in at Euston and go to Crewe so there needs to be a penalty aspect. This also saves time if you alight at the terminus - no need to tap out.

Return fares probably don't make much sense as they make it difficult - you need to look what the actual journey was. Most contactless systems don't have them - just singles and daily caps.

If everyone tapped in and out, including ENCTS users, just think of the data of what journeys people were actually making . Where they started, where they changed, where they go to ..I'd suspect in some cases, bus operators just issue a £2 ticket, rather than to a specific destination.

 

[geoffk]

After all the furore about the winter fuel allowance, I can't see the Government making any changes to the ENCTS free pass, e.g. by introducing a charge for pass issue. If there is currently no money to continue the £2 fare after December, we will have to wait and see whether the Budget makes any provision for it. As a matter of interest, how many bus fares come in at under £2? It's difficult to find out as operators tend to tell you it's "commercially confidential" if you ring them up or else "the driver will tell you when you get on", but they do promote day, weekly etc. tickets.

 

[Teapot42]

How many local fares were leas than £2 before? Certainly in Bristol the only one was the 3 stop hop which was discontinued more due to fraudulent use than anything else.

That neatly misses the point. There were some, all of which seemed to get raised to £2 when the cap came in. However, my point was to try and get people on the bus in place of using their car. In most small towns you can park for a quid or so an hour, or free a short walk out. That makes the bus even at £4 (there and back) unattractive, especially if they are only hourly.

No reason why tap on systems can't take that into account. First in Bristol already have it set up so two journeys is charged at £3.80 instead of £4 (first bus gets charged at £2 and the 2nd at £1.80). No reason other than commercial that can't be tweaked to be more generous or to be time based.

Exactly, and where it's the same operator they could decide to. Many don't as they prefer to sell a day ticket. Where it's different operators it's just another barrier to modal shift as people won't swallow 2 lots of fares. Even if you are lucky enough to be in an area that offers multi-operator tickets they are often expensive.

But plenty of places do have that. We shouldn't stop pushing forward in oake places because not all bus operators have got upto speed.

I'm not familiar with any outside of London. Some tap and cap but it tends to be bigger cities. Also not much use for out of area journeys. If you push forward too fast then places get left out and never get even the basic benefits.

 

[Eyersey468]

After all the furore about the winter fuel allowance, I can't see the Government making any changes to the ENCTS free pass, e.g. by introducing a charge for pass issue. If there is currently no money to continue the £2 fare after December, we will have to wait and see whether the Budget makes any provision for it. As a matter of interest, how many bus fares come in at under £2? It's difficult to find out as operators tend to tell you it's "commercially confidential" if you ring them up or else "the driver will tell you when you get on", but they do promote day, weekly etc. tickets.

It would be political suicide to remove the free pass scheme, regarding fares under £2 for us there's a few fares in Hull that are, the Goole Town fare is also under £2. I'm sure there are others as well

 

[Mikey C]

You are all looking at this from the wrong angle. I look at it from the perspective of the public finances.

The £2 bus cap is due to expire on 31 December and the Department for Transport will only have funding for it up to that date. The Department for Transport has no money in its budget for the £2 bus cap after 31 December.

The £2 bus cap can only continue if the Treasury give the Department for Transport the funds to pay for it. If that happens, then it is likely to be announced as part of the Budget statement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 30 October.

But, according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, there is a £22 billion "black hole" in the government finances for 2024/25. It is difficult to see where funding will come from to extend the £2 cap beyond 31 December, either for the remainder of the 2024/25 financial year, or in the 2025/26 financial year.

This is a scheme that (mainly) benefits poorer people, so politically would be incredibly hard for Labour to scrap without some sort of alternative.

Especially as encouraging people to use the bus fits in with their environmental message too.

 

[Recessio]

If everyone tapped in and out, including ENCTS users, just think of the data of what journeys people were actually making . Where they started, where they changed, where they go to ..I'd suspect in some cases, bus operators just issue a £2 ticket, rather than to a specific destination.

I've definitely noticed on my local route, some drivers always issue tickets to the terminus no matter what destination you ask for. So the company definitely won't be getting useful ridership data at the moment.

Sorry but it’s an absolute joke that young people aged 16-18 have to pay sometimes full price to travel to compulsory education but that the old can doss about on buses all day free of charge (and many disabled people can get an identical commute to their colleagues free of charge whilst everyone else pays).
If we want to encourage bus use we need to make fares an affordable as possible life long and the best way to do this is to eliminate free travel so that the cost of the operation can be split as many ways as possible.
I also think it’s important to remember that the ratio of freebies to others on many routes have historically led to artifically high fares for those paying in order for the route to break even due to the way that free travel is reimbursed by councils.

I agree, I think the cap system needs to be looked at as part of a wider review of free/concessionary passes. If too many people get discounts then it means the people that don't get faced with such outrageous prices that's it becomes far more economical to drive.

 

[YorkRailFan]

Why start with such a big jump?

It's not as big of a jump as removing the cap for many areas and it was the original plan by the previous Government.

Also £2 from Windermere to Dungeon Ghyll?? Or Preston to Blackpool??

My record is £2 from Exeter to Bude!

 

[Trainman40083]

I've definitely noticed on my local route, some drivers always issue tickets to the terminus no matter what destination you ask for. So the company definitely won't be getting useful ridership data at the moment.

I agree, I think the cap system needs to be looked at as part of a wider review of free/concessionary passes. If too many people get discounts then it means the people that don't get faced with such outrageous prices that's it becomes far more economical to drive.

You say the company won't get useful ridership data. I'd also suggest Councils don't either. How can you justify bus priority measures, without data. Say the data showed people going from A to B, and people going B to C. What if a significant number were actually going from A to C via B, and there would be modal shift if there was a service A to C. I'd suggest with the current system, even ENCTS, significant flow data is missing, meaning informed strategic decisions can't be made. We see bus companies saying why you should use the bus. But do we hear why people don't? Even people going where buses go.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Some people prefer to use cash as it helps them to budget more easily.

I think there was a report somewhere recently, which I cannot now trace, that made the point that people in parts of the UK are beginning to use cash more in response to ever growing financial problems with debt being run up on card.

 

[Mgameing123]

Honestly id wish the cap was more distance based. Heathrow to Harlow shouldn't be £2. I'd say £1 cap for the first 5 miles then £2 cap for the next 5 miles and so forth. It would work alot better since prices would reflect the distance your travelling.

 

[Trainman40083]

I think there was a report somewhere recently, which I cannot now trace, that made the point that people in parts of the UK are beginning to use cash more in response to ever growing financial problems with debt being run up on card.

Where I live, a bus company had an app for discount fares (over the standard fare)... When the £2 cap came in, everybody I knew who used the app reverted to cash fares, because it was easier. AND because the fare was the same for ad hoc travel. I guess throw in people who would also pay less than the weekly cap, and that sounds like a lot of £1/£2 coins. But, I imagine that increased cash handling charges and reduced cash in the bus company bank account.

 

[noddingdonkey]

If the scheme does continue it needs to have some more strings attached for operators, perhaps being contingent on increasing routes or service frequencies. Seeing certain large operating companies taking this subsidy whilst simultaneously cutting services and posting multi-million pound pound profits doesn't sit well with me.