What isn't fair, exactly?
(My emphasis)
You're right it's not fair. Any scheme phased in is going to be unfair to someone.
Right, I think the context is needed in this claim. The difference is between £2 and £4, for a 100 mile journey. I really think you're blowing this out of proportion. Bearing in mind that even at £4 it represents an up to 90% discount in the old fare.
Boith are still exceptional value for money. Who's going to complain about a 97 mile journey being £4 instead of £2 outwith stubborn policy wonks? The old fare is £16 so people are still making a 75% saving even if the new scheme isn't perfect. Apart from the likes of you and me who take a particular interest in such policies, which passengers are going to complain that their fares are being cut by 75% exactly?
Nobody is being penalised. At b est, fares are being reduced by over 95%. At worst, they're staying the same. That's literally the opposite of being penalised.
You've made a weird policy assumption here that fares will be raised to the fare cap. That's not how a fare cap works. At worst, fares will remain the same. That's why it's called a cap.
£97.60 for the walk-up single by train on the fastest route (via Carlisle) by the way. Or £32.60 for the long trek via Glasgow. Alternatively, it's 'only' £26.90 if you take the bus to Lockerbie, wait 45 mins, then catch the train from there. The 101A only runs 4 times a day, is about an hour slower, and less comfortable, but I reckon paying roughly 1/7th to 1/25th of the train fare still makes it quite a competitive option.
Yes, quite. I did look at rail fares and chose to ignore them because again they're about 8-10x the cost of the equivalent bus fare under the new regime. It's also worth noting that the bus is about the same duration, if not quicker, so there's no great time saving to be made by taking the train.
Agreed. I actually suspect ScotGov will "fix" the "problem" with the fare boundaries on buses anyway.
Most (but not all) of the connections at Lockerbie or Carlisle are not great but good enough to bring the rail journey time down to around 2h 15. A 35 min time saving is significant, but you'd have to really be in a rush (or you'd have to miss the 101A by a few mins) for the extra £22-93 to be worth considering
A £2 difference is not nothing to people on lower incomes in rural Dumfriesshire, but given that the cost of the bus until now has been much higher I doubt there are any travel patterns being massively disrupted (or prevented from starting) by the bus costing £4 and not £2. Frankly if not for the seemingly arbitrary borders in parts of the Central Belt where there's a fair bit of cross-region travel, I think keeping the £4 for longer journeys would be at least somewhat useful for establishing fare cap prices that aren't wasting quite a lot of money.
I wonder if the intention is actually to have the £2 cap apply only within each transport partnership area, with longer cross-boundary journeys costing more. This would certainly solve the issue of being able to make ridiculously long journeys for only £2.
It’s politics… you can hear the screams from the Holyrood civil servants explaining why it can’t be done. I understand the Strathclyde addition was because it was a timetabled item, and if their didn’t deliver as promised , your argument would be the same. Why not add that the Lothians are being discriminated again to their detriment? The scheme exists, it benefits those that require it, and bearing in mind Govt on any colour is like steering an oil tanker. it’ll settle in like most things do.
Ember is £4 Glasgow to Fort William. See my post with screen shot vs train price on a previous page.
I agree, as I said in my previous post. Why do you think it hasn't gone nationwide just yet? You'd be the first one bumpin yer gums on here if the scheme was rolled out to the whole of Scotland and there were problems on the first day, yet you're complaining because it hasn't been rolled out everywhere. You can't have it both ways.
Citylink are honouring the fare cap just like Ember, it may take a while for the online booking to catch up
I'm certainly not intending to downplay the impact of a £2 bus fare reduction, but in the example given the fare has been reduced from £13.20 to £6; I hardly think that's going to result in a significant number of complaints.
I think that criticism being levied about the fact it appears to be rushed through to meet the 100 day deadline isn't unwelcome, but I do think it is overstated. I will say that the disparity between rail fares and bus fares are quite interesting, although it is probably more because rail is faster, more reliable and more comfortable than bus travel so the number switching to bus from rail isn't as high as some people may assume from the fare disparity.
You refer to the manifesto. The manifesto covers what is intended to be completed over the 5-year Parliament. This policy is still being refined as we speak, this is (as far as I know) a temporary measure as a result of the nature of the scheme that has been set up in the interim by the soon-to-be-obliterated Transport Scotland. It does not mean the scheme is "not what was promised" as the 'promise' you refer to is to be delivered by the end of the Parliament i.e. April 2031.
Crianlarich and Tyndrum, unless the definition of Stirling has changed in the past month since I last went there (to get the S60 ironically) are in Stirling Council and therefore under Tactran (not SESTran), which means they fall outside the boundary.
Nice! That's a good reduction on their previous £7.55 fare, or the ~£15 Citylink fare.
The Citylink fare is £7.50 today, so you would expect a similar reduction tomorrow.
Depends which option you take. £7.50-£16.80.
How on earth does the 08;30 service take double the time compared with the 08;20?Depends which option you take. £7.50-£16.80.
View attachment 211109
But yes, £5.10 is less than £7.50, a 32% saving, or 70% on the £16.80 fare. Great for passengers
The 0820 is an express service ('AIR'). The 0830 service is more of a local calling service going via Livingstone (the 902).
You hinted at the idiocies of its introduction - so that suggests they shouldn’t have bothered Introducing it.
The one exception being travel to Fort William: do you fancy 4h on a class 156 or 153 for £30, or 3h 15 on an electric coach for £4-15?
That would have made it harder to assess the effects of the Highland trial. I’m sure I’ve seen that ember has seen a 15% rise in passengers on Highland routes - the question is, is it from rail where available, is it completely new traffic generated which may well have a positive economic multiplier beyond the subsidy cost or is it from motorists taking the bus instead? The first is a concern, but the second two are wins.
