(29 Jul 2021, 10:27 pm)mb134 wrote For a while, even before Covid, I've thought of the leisure market being the main area for growth.

For commuting, there's realistically only ever going to be a specific pool of people who you're appealing to. Unless you live on a direct route, cannot drive, have issues with parking, or would need to plough through heavy traffic, chances are most folk will drive to work. 

On top of this, you have the income from leisure that can really make the difference. Just about everyone I know considers using the bus for a night out in Newcastle, or to get to the match on a Saturday, or for shopping in town. Lots of these people, family members included, only do so because of the promotions when their routes were upgraded a few years back and they were made aware of the reasonable fares and late journeys. Out of those people, every single one of them uses a car for their daily commute. It's clear they will never change how they commute, in many instances it just isn't feasible, but it is clear that the correct marketing can easily get car users onto the bus for leisure.

I'd say they tend to focus on the commuters because of the consistent revenue, they're almost guaranteed a certain level of income from sales of corporate, monthly, and to some extent weekly tickets. From a company's perspective it's better to have a lower amount of consistent revenue than a higher but less consistent amount. If there's a month of bad weather then revenue is going to be considerably lower than if the weather was nice.

Having said that, it is very important to cater to the leisure crowd as well. In terms of pricing, it's hard to strike a balance. They need the pricing to be high enough to cover costs but not too high to scare people away. And with their regular single and return tickets I think they're pretty close to the high end of what they can charge (I still think day and week tickets are reasonable). MG said in his FB live that they'd seen a 100% increase in evening passengers and a 25% increase in revenue, indicating that pricing a pretty major factor when it comes to leisure customers.

They'd also rather have a bus with 50 passengers paying £1 than 10 passengers paying £5. If one of those passengers paying £5 stops getting the bus, that's an instant 10% decrease in revenue which with the relatively small margins could turn a bus from being profitable to just breaking even.

Now, if only they could introduce a proper Sunday service!