(01 Sep 2019, 4:02 pm)streetdeckfan wrote I do agree that the prices are a bit higher than they should be, but in comparison to other modes of transport I think they're perfectly reasonable.
I know it's basically the same price for me to take the car as it would be to take the bus just based on the price of fuel alone, once you start adding the cost of the car and insurance etc. even with GNE's 'high' prices, it's still cheaper. Granted, most of my journeys are the full length of the X21 route so it's not completely representative.
I've just done a bit of quick maths in Excel, taking into account the cost of purchasing the bus and spread it out over 15 years, the cost of the driver at £10 per hour, and the cost of fuel at £1.25 per litre. I 'calculated' the X21, 21 and X66 just to give a rough idea of both long and short routes
Obviously the numbers are VERY rough (and I'm making a lot of assumptions), and they don't include the cost of running depots, maintenance, customer service etc, but it's still quite interesting
For the X21, I came up with cost per passenger of around 95p if we assume that there's an average of 50 passengers per journey
For the 21, I got around 50p if we again assume an average of 50 passengers per journey
For the X66, I got around 10p if we assume an average of 35 passengers per journey
Obviously without knowing any of the actual figures, all I'm doing is speculating, but I feel I'm being fairly conservative with the figures, but I could also be completely wrong
I'm paying £1.25 pl at Costco for my diesel! That's cheaper than most places.
I imagine the big perators would baulk at paying that sort of price, especially as they hedge their prices and buy a significant amount of it!
GNE did publish their prices on the shareholder website. Not sure if they still do.
I do get the point you're trying to make though. Pretty sure someone did publish the costs per mile of operating a bus in service at some point on here.
Someone may be able to dig it out.
In one of the screenshots above, there's mention of how the T&W day ticket increased bums on seats by a million within the first few months of the scheme being introduced.
Quite a few more bums and quite a few more quid in the pot.
Imagine if adult fares were reduced... The numbers of bums on seats could be increased massively! Especially for those elastic customers on the demand curve.
The inelastic ones obviously benefit too.