I suspect this is mostly a me-specific frustration but I find it frustrating from Reading Green Park that the rail service and the bus service are operated independently of each other (fare-wise anyway), indeed PlusBus isn’t even available despite being in the Reading PlusBus zone!
Reading has a fantastic transport system with a PAYG bus operation along with a zonal ‘SimplyReading’ fare. My proposal would be that passengers utilising both or either rail and bus services in that zone (which I believe covers Reading, Reading West, Reading Green Park, Theale, Earley and Tilehurst), potentially expandable to cover Reading Buses’ other zones, to have a trial for PAYG ticketing that covers both modes of transport. Fares wouldn’t necessarily need to be cheaper than the theoretical cheapest combination of tickets currently available (including railcards on PlusBus which currently mirrors, more or less, the SimplyReading zone) but currently there is a reasonable increase in expense for changing plans during the day and changing mode of transport as a result.
My proposal would therefore look something like the following:
1) For rail customers only, existing fares apply (with railcard discount if applicable) but with a return equating to all-day travel for any given route (including breaks of journey) and the fare capped at £9.30 per day (the current Anytime Day Return price for Theale to Earley without railcard discount; lower caps would apply for disabled railcard / children / off-peak only travel)
2) For bus customers only, existing fares apply (primarily £2.90 for one journey, £3.70 for a hopper fare and £5 all day travel, with some local reductions)
3) For customers using both modes, the main winners are railcard users as they pay the rail fare, plus a reduced all day cap on bus fares of £3.55 to align to the PlusBus railcard price.
None of these changes (barring minor changes in point 1 and allowing use of any bus operators) actually change the existing fare system, it just integrates them.
Suggested extensions would be:
4) A proposed £10 flat all-day cap on journeys within the SimplyReading area.
5) For passengers making one single journey by rail and one journey by bus, a cap of the higher of £5 and the rail return fare for the rail leg. This prevents situations such as those at present where travelling by rail in one direction and bus in the other effectively duplicates the price paid.
Obviously you could keep playing around with it (or something completely different to the above! But was trying to think of solutions that didn’t change the existing fares too much) but Reading feels like one of those places which works well for such a trial given the level of integration and, given the introduction of Project Oval coming out to Reading, trying to integrate that with the local bus system at the same time seems logical.
Reading has a fantastic transport system with a PAYG bus operation along with a zonal ‘SimplyReading’ fare. My proposal would be that passengers utilising both or either rail and bus services in that zone (which I believe covers Reading, Reading West, Reading Green Park, Theale, Earley and Tilehurst), potentially expandable to cover Reading Buses’ other zones, to have a trial for PAYG ticketing that covers both modes of transport. Fares wouldn’t necessarily need to be cheaper than the theoretical cheapest combination of tickets currently available (including railcards on PlusBus which currently mirrors, more or less, the SimplyReading zone) but currently there is a reasonable increase in expense for changing plans during the day and changing mode of transport as a result.
My proposal would therefore look something like the following:
1) For rail customers only, existing fares apply (with railcard discount if applicable) but with a return equating to all-day travel for any given route (including breaks of journey) and the fare capped at £9.30 per day (the current Anytime Day Return price for Theale to Earley without railcard discount; lower caps would apply for disabled railcard / children / off-peak only travel)
2) For bus customers only, existing fares apply (primarily £2.90 for one journey, £3.70 for a hopper fare and £5 all day travel, with some local reductions)
3) For customers using both modes, the main winners are railcard users as they pay the rail fare, plus a reduced all day cap on bus fares of £3.55 to align to the PlusBus railcard price.
None of these changes (barring minor changes in point 1 and allowing use of any bus operators) actually change the existing fare system, it just integrates them.
Suggested extensions would be:
4) A proposed £10 flat all-day cap on journeys within the SimplyReading area.
5) For passengers making one single journey by rail and one journey by bus, a cap of the higher of £5 and the rail return fare for the rail leg. This prevents situations such as those at present where travelling by rail in one direction and bus in the other effectively duplicates the price paid.
Obviously you could keep playing around with it (or something completely different to the above! But was trying to think of solutions that didn’t change the existing fares too much) but Reading feels like one of those places which works well for such a trial given the level of integration and, given the introduction of Project Oval coming out to Reading, trying to integrate that with the local bus system at the same time seems logical.
