(01 Sep 2019, 6:52 pm)Andreos1 wrote
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.
For me, travelling by bus is way cheaper than it would be in a car, especially with the distance I travel. I pay less for my bus pass than my friends pay for their insurance alone. Sure, it's not as convenient, but if you plan ahead (which I'm particularly bad at), it's not really an issue. Plus, if I need to I can always just get a lift.
The thing is, I'm not necessarily sure they want to increase the number of passengers massively. There is definitely margin to lower prices, but with more passengers comes more vehicles, and drivers, and larger depots and the costs can soon skyrocket.
I think what they've done is set the prices at a specific rate to steadily increase passengers, which is better for shareholders, because if suddenly everyone travels by bus, there's no more room for growth so investors aren't interested.