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Post by cardinal on Mar 2, 2023 13:10:37 GMT
The Bus Fare Cap Grant in England has been extended until 30th June 2023, with £75 million available from April - this is more than the £60 million made available for January-March and it is hoped that this will encourage more operators to join the scheme (although most operators already participate). Bus Recovery Grant has also been extended to 30th June (it had been due to end on 31st March) with a further £80 million to support services - and the Secretary of State for Transport, Mark Harper MP, has suggested that this latter grant may be extended further. Scottish Labour has called upon the Scottish Government to introduce a £2 fare cap in Scotland, but this is being resisted strongly by Ministers in Holyrood. www.route-one.net/news/bus-fare-cap-grant-dft-hopes-for-more-participants/Shall wait and see whether White Bus joins
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Post by greenboy on Jun 29, 2023 8:01:38 GMT
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Post by greenboy on Sept 20, 2023 15:47:11 GMT
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Post by wirewiper on Oct 4, 2023 17:51:11 GMT
The £2 fare Cap on England has now been extended to the end of December 2024. The extension of the fare cap was announced by the Prime Minister at the Conservative Party Conference on Wednesday 4th October, and is one of a whole raft of transport measures that will benefit from funds freed up by the cancellation of HS2 to Manchester. Also announced was a £700 million funding package for buses in the North of England, and £230 million for buses in the Midlands. However, there is still no sign of what trade body the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) calls “a funded, long-term plan” for bus services. www.route-one.net/news/buses-across-the-country-to-benefit-from-hs2-decision-pm-claims/
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Post by WH241 on Oct 4, 2023 19:09:01 GMT
The £2 fare Cap on England has now been extended to the end of December 2024. The extension of the fare cap was announced by the Prime Minister at the Conservative Party Conference on Wednesday 4th October, and is one of a whole raft of transport measures that will benefit from funds freed up by the cancellation of HS2 to Manchester. Also announced was a £700 million funding package for buses in the North of England, and £230 million for buses in the Midlands. However, there is still no sign of what trade body the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) calls “a funded, long-term plan” for bus services. www.route-one.net/news/buses-across-the-country-to-benefit-from-hs2-decision-pm-claims/ I think in general the £2 cap has gone down well with passengers and been welcomed by operators. Lets hope there is other enhancements and schemes that benefit from the freed up funds and hopefully this will include London.
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Post by southlondon413 on Oct 5, 2023 7:26:14 GMT
The £2 fare Cap on England has now been extended to the end of December 2024. The extension of the fare cap was announced by the Prime Minister at the Conservative Party Conference on Wednesday 4th October, and is one of a whole raft of transport measures that will benefit from funds freed up by the cancellation of HS2 to Manchester. Also announced was a £700 million funding package for buses in the North of England, and £230 million for buses in the Midlands. However, there is still no sign of what trade body the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) calls “a funded, long-term plan” for bus services. www.route-one.net/news/buses-across-the-country-to-benefit-from-hs2-decision-pm-claims/ I think in general the £2 cap has gone down well with passengers and been welcomed by operators. Lets hope there is other enhancements and schemes that benefit from the freed up funds and hopefully this will include London. Unfortunately I doubt think any benefits will extend to London, it was very much left out of yesterday’s announcement. It’s an excellent scheme although I thought there would be more to it. When I took a 420 from Redhill back to Sutton a few weeks ago I told the driver where I wanted to go and he just said “stamp your card”. But how does Metrobus know where I got off to reclaim the missing portion of the fare?
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Post by ibus246 on Oct 5, 2023 10:40:00 GMT
I think in general the £2 cap has gone down well with passengers and been welcomed by operators. Lets hope there is other enhancements and schemes that benefit from the freed up funds and hopefully this will include London. Unfortunately I doubt think any benefits will extend to London, it was very much left out of yesterday’s announcement. It’s an excellent scheme although I thought there would be more to it. When I took a 420 from Redhill back to Sutton a few weeks ago I told the driver where I wanted to go and he just said “stamp your card”. But how does Metrobus know where I got off to reclaim the missing portion of the fare? The reimbursement doesn’t work like that. It’s a fixed figure agreed in advance based on baseline data that the operator provides and then an assumption is made on passengers benefiting from the cap. So where you got off the bus is totally irrelevant.
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Post by MetrolineGA1511 on Oct 7, 2023 11:42:00 GMT
The £2 fare Cap on England has now been extended to the end of December 2024. The extension of the fare cap was announced by the Prime Minister at the Conservative Party Conference on Wednesday 4th October, and is one of a whole raft of transport measures that will benefit from funds freed up by the cancellation of HS2 to Manchester. Also announced was a £700 million funding package for buses in the North of England, and £230 million for buses in the Midlands. However, there is still no sign of what trade body the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) calls “a funded, long-term plan” for bus services. www.route-one.net/news/buses-across-the-country-to-benefit-from-hs2-decision-pm-claims/ The Conservatives usually prefer capital spending to subsidies. So, it is in a sense out of character for them to scrap capital spending on HS2 in favour of subsidising the continuation of the £2 fare cap.
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Post by wirewiper on Oct 12, 2023 17:24:17 GMT
The £2 fare Cap on England has now been extended to the end of December 2024. The extension of the fare cap was announced by the Prime Minister at the Conservative Party Conference on Wednesday 4th October, and is one of a whole raft of transport measures that will benefit from funds freed up by the cancellation of HS2 to Manchester. Also announced was a £700 million funding package for buses in the North of England, and £230 million for buses in the Midlands. However, there is still no sign of what trade body the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) calls “a funded, long-term plan” for bus services. www.route-one.net/news/buses-across-the-country-to-benefit-from-hs2-decision-pm-claims/ Due to time constraints, operators taking part in the Bus Services Fare Cap Grant scheme will receive funding for November and December 2023 based on existing data, and will be reimbursed in 2024 if they are underfunded (the cap had been due to rise to £2.50 on 1st November). The Department for Transport is running a new data collection exercise to calculate the allowances for the period 1st January-31st December 2024. There is an interesting comment about Bedfordshire operator Grant Palmer, which has not been participating in the scheme but is considering joining in January 2024. They feel that the viability of some services is at risk due to competition with participating operators. Grant Palmer has also expressed concerns about what will happen to fares inflation when the scheme ends, noting that there has already been kick-back at the proposed £2.50 cap when it still represnted a very-much reduced fare in many cases. www.route-one.net/news/dft-clarifies-next-bus-fare-cap-grant-allocation-process/
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Post by gwiwer on Oct 28, 2023 22:12:10 GMT
A very well-discussed point in many an operator's mess and board rooms.
It is all very well reducing fares as an inducement to travel but to return them to their previous level at the end of the funded period will almost certainly be a kiss of death to many of the remaining networks.
As an example taken from where I now live the fares on buses throughout Cornwall had already been reduced significantly as a local incentive but you still didn't get change from folding money in most cases. In the nation's poorest county the minimum fare in most places was already £2.70 rising to £3.80 within a mile. Into town was often £5 and a return triggered the issue of a day ticket for £9. The core route T1 between Truro and Penzance charged £7.50 single one way but that was reached after less than half of the route and then capped.
Most people not entitled to free travel simply could not afford to pay up to £9 a day to get to and from work, college, medical or shopping facilities. It was reduced to (iirc) £7 before Westminster stepped in but failed to win back any of the long-lost business.
The £2 cap has resulted in only modest increases in ridership across the county and across a full year. Many buses still run around with the driver and just one or two others for company. School and college traffic supports the network. But come summer - and the summer we just has wasn't too bad most of the time - buses filled and left people behind as tourists flocked to the area and to the now-affordable buses. The all-day any-operator ticket was just £5 and cheaper still using certain apps and options though has recently reverted to £7 as it is a commercial product and not covered by the Westminster initiative.
If fares return to even the previously-reduced level the bus network is in danger of collapse unless fully supported by Cornwall Council. Very few will pay even £7 for the privilege of going to the nearest supermarket. Routes I used to drive on a 3bph base timetable and which were moderately busy now struggle with 1 empty bus per hour. Rural routes, of which there are many, are a vital lifeline and still offer a network most other counties would be happy to have. But they cannot survive indefinitely if local people cannot afford to use them.
The £2 initiative is very welcome. In Cornwall it is also promoted to motorists on dot-matrix roadside signs and on-bus adverts. But a permanent and fully-funded "solution" is required to avoid the system collapsing when this money runs out.
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Post by gwiwer on Dec 15, 2023 14:03:06 GMT
Various bus company web sites are suggesting that the operator in question will not necessarily continue to participate in the £2 scheme until the end of 2024.
Brighton & Hove are advertising it only until the end of June 2024 while Stagecoach across England are saying "until at least January 2024". No commitment to continue thereafter.
Enjoy it while it lasts? Because it surely won't be around forever anyway. The question is, and it is a big one for Westminster as well as the entire industry, what will the effect be upon the public bus service when revenue support ends? Some single fares were nudging £10 (and a few maybe even above that) before support. Many were in the £5 - £8 region for even quite short journeys. Buses had become an expensive luxury.
The industry is not cheap to manage. Fuel, vehicles and staff cost substantial amounts of money. It is not sustainable at £2 a trip unsupported. The effect upon patronage of the £2 cap is not widely reported but allegorically seems to be rather variable and not as good as had been hoped for.
Currently living in west Cornwall I note our main hourly bus route, run commercially, often carries just one or two passengers. And that is after both Cornwall Council and then Westminster initiated fares cuts. It was £7.50 into town. It was then £5 and is now £2. Yet no more people are travelling than before; fewer if anything. And of those who do I suspect most are using some sort of pass paid for elsewhere; either a senior's bus pass or a student's college pass.
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Post by rogerout on Dec 31, 2023 20:32:57 GMT
The other point is , we may well have a change of government before June next year, and if Labour win , what will they do to support the bus industry?
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Post by edvid on Jan 2, 2024 19:17:47 GMT
Though coach-spec services are excluded, there are (technically) at least three exceptions where the cap does apply.
Arriva X6 (Leicester - Coventry) Newbury & District 730/731 (Heathrow Airport - Frimley / Frimley - Basingstoke)
The 730/731 is a curious case. It wasn't originally included, and though it is now the cross-Frimley singles are priced at £4 (effectively £2 per service registration). Furthermore it was only covered by E400MMCs until quite recently, so it hasn't qualified as coach-spec for long.
Anyone know of other examples?
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Post by gwiwer on Jan 3, 2024 0:49:35 GMT
All services introduced after the cap was initially offered are not require to adopt it. The 730/731, which is effectively one through route broken only on paper to meet legal requirements (as are many other longer routes these days) never had to offer the £2 cap because it is a new route. That it does so it more down to common sense by its operator who may not be able to claim the rebate.
Stagecoach 700 which is advertised as a Brighton - Portsmouth route has run in three quite separate sections for some time now. Unlike certain other routes where the break points are theoretical and you may stay on the bus even if the driver changes over you cannot do this on the 700. The eastern leg is Brighton - Wick (effectively now a suburb of Littlehampton) but you must change in Littlehampton town centre to go farther west. The mid-section is Littlehampton - Chichester and again you must change before its final stop in Chichester in order to continue as it serves a short unique stretch of route beyond the bus station. Finally the Chichester - Portsmouth section doesn't start from where the Littlehampton bus left you but from another stop nearby. There is no through fare between any of the legs; a Brighton - Portsmouth trip will cost you £6 and a much shorter trip between Shopwyke and Fishbourne across Chichester will cost you £4. For little more than a mile with a change of bus and a wait of up to 30 minutes on what is marketed as the same "Coastliner 700" service. The £2 cap does not apply to the all-night N700 between Brighton, Worthing and its long loop around Goring, Durrington and Broadwater. That has always charge a special flat fare which over the years has varied from £5 to £7 but is currently £4.
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Post by wirewiper on Jan 3, 2024 8:27:27 GMT
All services introduced after the cap was initially offered are not require to adopt it. The 730/731, which is effectively one through route broken only on paper to meet legal requirements (as are many other longer routes these days) never had to offer the £2 cap because it is a new route. That it does so it more down to common sense by its operator who may not be able to claim the rebate. Stagecoach 700 which is advertised as a Brighton - Portsmouth route has run in three quite separate sections for some time now. Unlike certain other routes where the break points are theoretical and you may stay on the bus even if the driver changes over you cannot do this on the 700. The eastern leg is Brighton - Wick (effectively now a suburb of Littlehampton) but you must change in Littlehampton town centre to go farther west. The mid-section is Littlehampton - Chichester and again you must change before its final stop in Chichester in order to continue as it serves a short unique stretch of route beyond the bus station. Finally the Chichester - Portsmouth section doesn't start from where the Littlehampton bus left you but from another stop nearby. There is no through fare between any of the legs; a Brighton - Portsmouth trip will cost you £6 and a much shorter trip between Shopwyke and Fishbourne across Chichester will cost you £4. For little more than a mile with a change of bus and a wait of up to 30 minutes on what is marketed as the same "Coastliner 700" service. The £2 cap does not apply to the all-night N700 between Brighton, Worthing and its long loop around Goring, Durrington and Broadwater. That has always charge a special flat fare which over the years has varied from £5 to £7 but is currently £4. Newbury & District/Reading Transport Ltd. did not initially have the £2 cap on the 730/731, but introduced it in November after seeking clarification from the Department for Transport that it was eligible for Bus Fare Cap support (I believe the eligibility criteria may have changed when the Cap was extended beyond the end of October). Interestingly the two routes are treated as separate for fare capping purposes, although effectively it is one through route with passengers staying on the coach in Frimley. This means that cross-Frimley journeys (e.g Basingstoke to Camberley) are charged at £4. Coach operation began at the end of November and ADL Enviro MMCs 760-762 have now returned to Reading Buses for repaint into generic silver.
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