But that's no different to normal, and even with the cap in place, there are still a few journeys even First don't think they can get away with charging the full cap for, so there's still a discussion about how much a journey will cost.
I'm sure as an established operator, they will have done their sums and worked out what is best for their business. Most passengers are not going to be paying £3.50 for a single ticket, because they offer all-day tickets for £5 and further discounts for weekly tickets or group travel, making them cheaper to use than most operators with capped fares if you're making even a simple return journey.
For existing passengers sure. But the whole point of the cap is getting new people on to the buses and reducing using their car. If bus is £4 for a day return then suddenly paying £6 to park in the town centre becomes less attractive.
First often offers cheaper fares for shorter journeys if using Tap On Tap Off.
The purpose of the cap is to help with the cost of living, whether you are an existing bus user or not. Modal shift is an added bonus from the cap.
The Government want something that is simple to communicate, simple to administer, simple to audit and quick to introduce. What is effectively a £2 flat fare does all of that. They don't want something with a whole load of points of argument about re-imbursement, or distances. The bonus they get is a scheme simple to understand by the public, simple to understand by operators and their staff, speeds up boarding of buses, reduces the cost of living to bus passengers (who mostly are made up of those most affected by the 'cost of living crisis') with the added bonus that it may encourage some modal shift by an almost unprecedented bringing of buses into the national consciousness. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
It speeds up boarding for those already buying single tickets as the driver just has to put a single fare into the ticket machine instead of finding a fare.
Half the time, I get a fare issued to the end stop of the route or to a couple stops down the road. Very rarely do I get a ticket issued to my actual stop. Say I'm travelling from one side of York to the other on Coastliner, I might be given a ticket all the way to Whitby or Scarborough.
The £3 fare cap is reimbursed direct from the DfT and doesn't involve councils in any way so reimbursement is the same mechanism for all operators. Reimbursement also isn't directly related to trip being an agreed fixed fee (which will vary from operator to operator to reflect different circumstances such as normal fares & average travel length). That said an operator would like to know where passengers are travelling (within reason of time & cost constraints which is why most stopped asking free passes as it created an interaction that delayed the bus and required a ticket issued) and the scheme has been running for long enough that these details may be needed for calculating the reimbursement each time it is reviewed. There will always be drivers who will do the minimum and each operator will set their machines up in different ways which will affect how tickets print and how much work is involved for the driver to find the right point (& it is fare stage not specific bus stops in most cases).
The cost of operating a bus service is a known figure. The only question is how much of that cost should be met from the public purse and how much of that cost should be met from the private purse.
That depends on your perspective, though.
Point of order, Mr Speaker... The nearest is Boston by a half mile
Little White Bus is part of the current £3 scheme (excluding their special Dales Jumper service) but does offer cheaper fares for short journeys, they're also part of the £1 scheme for Under 19s in North Yorkshire. Like with every operator, it will come down to reimbursement rates.
I would guess it would come down to reimbursement rates and also, if their services are tendered, whether the tendering authority insists upon it.
Judging by this, I am guessing that you are not the demographic that Buses are ever going to appeal to, so it is really not worth spending hundreds of millions on, just to be presented with another set of reasons why you won't use Buses. Just got to accept that these people (in their millions I might add, you are not alone) are not going to be won over, and will only use them if their circumstances change and they have no other option.
Buses should be a safety net of affordable transport, concentrated in those areas and catering for the demographic that have no other option, and the next tier up who are struggling. This demographic appreciates the efforts to make this mode of transport affordable, and of course welcomes any initiatives to improve coverage (by time, day, area) to enable them to access employment, education and other crucial life chores. I think they'd rather have low fares, better coverage and reliability than fancy buses, however welcome [the gradual move to electric vehicles is improving that somewhat, but not to a luxury degree, and that will take some time to complete]. My view is that trying to get completely non bus users out of their 'own control' bikes, walking and cars is an uphill battle very steep and should take a back seat to catering and honing to the likely bus riding demographic first. Of course, nothing to stop the others using the product, and we could make a start in better marketing of the detail (ugh!) .
Nothing wrong with your suggestion (although I think P&R is going out of fashion, due to expense) , but I don't consider this public transport. This is more akin to the car park shuttles at the NEC or an airport - generally not much use to those without access to a car in the first place. (I know some do stop intermediately, but that can detract from their P&R job....) . Pay for those by ULEZ / pedestrianisation / Car Parking schemes, not public transport budget.
In economic terms the bus fare cap is clearly a subsidy. The government is paying the bus companies to charge a lower fare.
Farepayers are not necessarily taxpayers, children and young adults in education don't pay much tax, apart from some VAT. Not all taxpayers are farepayers, lots of pensioners are taxpayers and already have ENCTS. The whole point of the subsidy is that the costs are shifted from farepayers to taxpayers.
And, for this reason. it isn't a zero sum game. You are right that the farepayer is likely to spend the £1 on something else instead. Also, at the margin, it helps low paid people to work and it helps students to study. But on the other hand, unless the government raises tax to pay for the subsidy, it would also have spent the £1 on something else, and that will have an impact somewhere else in the economy.
Not all taxpayers are farepayers, because a considerable proportion of them will never travel in a bus.
Not really. Not all farepayers are taxpayers and more particularly, not all taxpayers are farepayers.
Sutton in Ashfield is hardly semi-rural. The reality is that coastal communities have long suffered from being poorly located for most domestic manufacturing trade (there's a reason why most distribution centres are located around Rugby) and having highly seasonal low paid jobs. Then you have the post industrial decline in many parts of northern England (and South Wales) - those areas feel let down by both Labour and Tories and so are fertile ground for Reform and Restore (and Plaid).
Park and ride isn't really competing with the private car, though. Park and ride is about creating additional car parking capacity in cities where simply building more multi-storey car parks in the city centre isn't either feasible or desirable. Successful park and ride schemes (Oxford, York) are where the city centre could never support the amount of parking capacity which would be required, so the parking capacity is built out by the ring road.
I can't think of anyone who pays a bus fare who isn't also a taxpayer (N.B. income tax isn't the only tax out there).
The big potential merit of the £2 cap is NEETS (not in education, employment or training). Fares of £20 instead of £30 per week might make the difference that gets a young person into education, employment or training.
The evidence from the interim analysis of v1 of the £2 bus cap was that these people actually did travel more because it was cheaper, and that the additional travel was primarily leisure-focused (at pp.100-103).
The bus cap is being funded by removing overseas grants and converting them in to loans. Which is quite smooth, politically.
I agree, a more quality bus should tempt people out of their cars and to try the bus - which is why I was a keen fan of Stagecoach Gold and Arriva Sapphire when they launched but they ended up being watered down and ultimately discontinued. I would guess because of the logistics, the fact standard specs of buses had moved on (most buses now have USB etc.) But ultimately this is separate to the cap. The Zebra / BISP initiatives have provided money for upgraded buses but as high spec buses are so expensive it's not really made a dent in upgrading everything to a high standard. This £500m for capping the fare at £2 would not replace the whole fleet of buses within the UK, nor would it continually maintain and refresh them after years of use and therefore we'd just be in the same position as we were where we have tatty Gold and Sapphire buses rolled out in all sorts of routes looking rather dog eared and not premium.
There are plenty of all these scenarios round here (steep hills, mums with kids etc., rat runs) and I don't live out in the sticks. Also massive on-pavement parking that makes pushing a buggy pretty much impossible. Many kids are too young to walk a mile. I don't think your social engineering agenda should be solved with bus fares.
I hope this idea is toungue-in-cheek! Subsidising avocados and kiwi fruit really would help the poor and needy.
Is this really the case though as I'd imagine those who are travelling every day will still be better off buying a weekly ticket as the weekly ticket should reduce in line with the caps reducing.
