North East Buses

It's a shame north east operators are so far behind with tap on tap off/automated price capping. The £2 max fare is the ideal situation to push it. Another missed opportunity

(22 Dec 2022, 11:51 pm)DeltaMan wrote [ -> ]It's a shame north east operators are so far behind with tap on tap off/automated price capping. The £2 max fare is the ideal situation to push it. Another missed opportunity

Ditto UK operators in general. It's been live in various European places for years. 

Agree this is a missed opportunity though.

(22 Dec 2022, 11:51 pm)DeltaMan wrote [ -> ]It's a shame north east operators are so far behind with tap on tap off/automated price capping. The £2 max fare is the ideal situation to push it. Another missed opportunity

GNE could easily implement it with this offer, they already have it on every bus after 7pm with the £2.30 evening cap.

(23 Dec 2022, 12:23 pm)deanmachine wrote [ -> ]GNE could easily implement it with this offer, they already have it on every bus after 7pm with the £2.30 evening cap.

But I doubt that GNE can afford to do it!!

Don't forget, the nationwide £2 cap is subsidised by central Government (i.e. the tax payers - of which I'm one!)

(23 Dec 2022, 1:21 pm)busmanT wrote [ -> ]But I doubt that GNE can afford to do it!!

Don't forget, the nationwide £2 cap is subsidised by central Government (i.e. the tax payers - of which I'm one!)

Can't afford what? I said it's literally already on every GNE bus already.

(23 Dec 2022, 12:23 pm)deanmachine wrote [ -> ]GNE could easily implement it with this offer, they already have it on every bus after 7pm with the £2.30 evening cap.

They'd need to scrap all fares below £2 though. And to be fair to Go Ahead (First and a lesser extent Arriva) they are all far further down the line with this soet of thing than Slothcoach, who think an app based solution is the way forward.

(23 Dec 2022, 3:26 pm)DeltaMan wrote [ -> ]They'd need to scrap all fares below £2 though. And to be fair to Go Ahead (First and a lesser extent Arriva) they are all far further down the line with this soet of thing than Slothcoach, who think an app based solution is the way forward.

You can tap off below £2.30 after 7pm already.

(22 Dec 2022, 11:52 am)Ianthegoon wrote [ -> ]Wait for it to be split into two (or more!) routes, with services "connecting" at the common end point .....

Technically, the 685 already is 3 separate routes (although ran all the way through by the same bus):


Newcastle - Hexham
Hexham - Brampton
Brampton - Carlisle



Hence the need to change buses at Hexham on Sundays and the Carlisle-operated short workings as far as Brampton only

Department for Transport clip on the £2 single fare price cap, filmed in Newcastle Gateshead:

https://twitter.com/transportgovuk/status/1609476649464270851?s=46&t=0G4MuljfPbOzkd1sy1VnzQ

(01 Jan 2023, 9:18 am)ne14ne1 wrote [ -> ]Department for Transport clip on the £2 single fare price cap, filmed in Newcastle Gateshead:

https://twitter.com/transportgovuk/status/1609476649464270851?s=46&t=0G4MuljfPbOzkd1sy1VnzQ

The clip of him man.

Meanwhile on the Tyne & Wear Metro they've capped Single Fares at £2 and Day Tickets at £4 providing you have an Adult/Child Pop Smart Card - https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/nor...d-25879140 - It really begs the question why Bus Operators can't do the same and cap Day, Weekly and Monthly Fares unless of course you live in West Yorkshire where this is already in place.

The fare cap was introduced from today (January 2) and will run for the next three months. The £2 cap gives an adult with a Pop smartcard savings of up to 38% on a single journey, with an all-zone ticket currently costing £3.25.

The daily cap on all-zone travel will come down by 85p, from £4.85 currently. The £2 cap will also apply to young people with a Pop 19-21 card and to bus services that are contracted by Nexus.

Nexus said that its offer was only being made on Pop, which is already cheaper than paper tickets, in order to "encourage further take up" and cut down on printing tickets costs.

The discounts will not apply to those buying paper tickets from Metro ticket machines.

Nexus say they have introduced the fare cap to help Metro customers with the cost of living, and match an equivalent offer on the local bus network, since the Government confirmed that all bus journeys in England would be capped at that level between January and March 2023.

I’m currently sitting on a crush loaded green arrow pretending to be a 21 with Mrs ambassador trundling home to low fell bathed in this weird green bus light and one is already regretting not just paying the ncp £6.50 to park the car

3 Buses to Brandon is a row were a single decker 5498, Green Arrow then 5390

I guess my point is who is this trying to attract?

Me and Mrs A. Low Fell into town and back. There’s £6, not horrendous….but makes you realise how shockingly overpriced GNE were in the first place.

The hassle of missing journeys remains, overcrowding on poorly allocated routes and general inconvenience remains. This isn’t tempting drivers out of their car, it’s not value driven enough to save weekly ticket holders any cash. It’ll drag in a few leisure loads and one off types but not long enough.

Not sure what the aim of this government is tbh aside tick a few boxes .

(04 Jan 2023, 12:09 am)Ambassador wrote [ -> ]I guess my point is who is this trying to attract?

Me and Mrs A. Low Fell into town and back. There’s £6, not horrendous….but makes you realise how shockingly overpriced GNE were in the first place.

The hassle of missing journeys remains, overcrowding on poorly allocated routes and general inconvenience remains. This isn’t tempting drivers out of their car, it’s not value driven enough to save weekly ticket holders any cash. It’ll drag in a few leisure loads and one off types but not long enough.

Not sure what the aim of this government is tbh aside tick a few boxes .

And I think this is why the £2 initiative is doomed to be as successful as MG's fare offerings.

It goes without saying that fares play a huge part in how successful or unsuccessful a route may be. 
However, there are many other factors to take in to account and I don't think this blinkered approach the government have, will be sustainable in attracting punters to make the switch long-term. 
Mainly because the de-regulated market has failed and will keep on failing the passenger. 

Ultimately, whether you are paying £2 or £4 for a journey, it needs to be a pleasant experience and it needs to take you to the places you want and need to be. On time and at the times/frequency you expect.

We could go back to the elastic/inelastic model I keep referring to and reinforce that theory.
We could tie it in with titivations and paint jobs. 
We could link it with the marketing and research operators need to do with the local population (passenger or not). 
We could look at demographics and population levels and work out what can be done to grow a route or corridor. 
Heck, research could be done to find out if they prefer paper timetables or not. 

This period (just like during the pandemic), is the ideal time for operators to make sustainable changes and improvements to their network and operations. 
I'd say there's never been a better time to do these things, but we all know there has been. So... I'll re-phrase it. 

There may not be another opportunity to do these things.

(04 Jan 2023, 12:09 am)Ambassador wrote [ -> ]I guess my point is who is this trying to attract?

Me and Mrs A. Low Fell into town and back. There’s £6, not horrendous….but makes you realise how shockingly overpriced GNE were in the first place.

The hassle of missing journeys remains, overcrowding on poorly allocated routes and general inconvenience remains. This isn’t tempting drivers out of their car, it’s not value driven enough to save weekly ticket holders any cash. It’ll drag in a few leisure loads and one off types but not long enough.

Not sure what the aim of this government is tbh aside tick a few boxes .

I mean aside from it being a poorly thought out scheme from the start, I think you're spot on with what you say here. It's more papering over the cracks.

Whilst I appreciate operators wouldn't have had much say in the launch date of the scheme, perhaps it shows how out of touch the DfT are, thinking it's a good idea to try and attract increased ridership without sorting out the basics.

Using GNE as an example, their cheap fares and the £1 evening single were launched in late Spring/early Summer 2021 iirc. Even with bargain fares, even more so on an evening, it failed to attract the levels of customers to make them sustainable. 

I'm all for a Government who would invest heavily in proper public transport, but I think the rationale that these 'help for households' fares is doing that, is just pure propaganda.

Anyone going on one bus from A to B could potentially save a good few quid over the three months, but how many of those would be travelling anyway? And once you have to change buses, a return trip becomes at least £8 and then you're in the situation of being better off with a day ticket.

In my view, the money the government is spending on this would've been better used on improvements to bus shelters and displays, installing area maps and live departure screens. Given some to local authorities to produce timetable booklets and leaflets, and marketing. That way, some benefits could last much longer than three months.

We're all bus enthusiasts and probably enjoy planning trips, going online to search timetables and so on, but most people don't want to go out of their way to search for all the information. Making it more accessible and actually having some paper copies of timetables is an area for improvement I think.

(04 Jan 2023, 5:49 pm)tvd wrote [ -> ]Anyone going on one bus from A to B could potentially save a good few quid over the three months, but how many of those would be travelling anyway?  And once you have to change buses, a return trip becomes at least £8 and then you're in the situation of being better off with a day ticket.

In my view, the money the government is spending on this would've been better used on improvements to bus shelters and displays, installing area maps and live departure screens.  Given some to local authorities to produce timetable booklets and leaflets, and marketing.  That way, some benefits could last much longer than three months.

We're all bus enthusiasts and probably enjoy planning trips, going online to search timetables and so on, but most people don't want to go out of their way to search for all the information.  Making it more accessible and actually having some paper copies of timetables is an area for improvement I think.

I would suggest that the average passenger would prefer the cheaper fares to any of the things you have suggested the money be spent on

(05 Jan 2023, 1:12 am)Bazza wrote [ -> ]I would suggest that the average passenger would prefer the cheaper fares to any of the things you have suggested the money be spent on

You're probably right, but it depends what the scheme is supposed to achieve.

If it's just to help out passengers with a temporary lowering of fares, that's fine. But if we want to encourage greater passenger numbers and develop more sustainable growth in bus usage, then I suggest that with some thought, better things could've been done with the funds allocated.

I'm currently sat in Spoons and listening to a conversation about the £2 bus fare.
They were both saying how it will still be considerably cheaper for them to get a day/weekly ticket than to buy singles.

More importantly, they said the way it's been marketed is misleading people into buying singles over a day ticket, which actually costs them more money. To be honest, I can see how that could be the case if you're not too familiar with the tickets available.