(15 Dec 2024, 12:17 pm)Andreos1 wrote And BA adapted their model because they were seeing passengers move to the cheaper airlines.
It's pretty obvious things like the upselling and dynamic pricing would be a total step change for bus operators and I'm unsure if it would ever work.
However it is proven that lower fares can be attractive when growing passenger levels. Particularly for those who are elastic and have an option.
The rhetoric that we have seen repeatedly from operators pushing for more expensive car parking and by virtue the fares look more attractive hasn't worked.
Subsidising fares via the Taxpayer isn't a sustainable, long term option.
What alternatives are there?
Personally I'd rather go down the get arid of the operator problem instead and acknowledge buses won't be profitable.
I don't think fares are the main problem anyway personally, it's the fact the buses don't go where people want, are too infrequent, run the same route as a car so have no time benefits and if you live in certain areas don't bother turning up at all.
The fares is all just a sticking plaster imo to hide the real problems and if we spend some of the millions we spend upgrading roads which half the time do absolutely nothing when a North East council is involved on bus improvements then you wouldn't need them anyway.
and by bus improvements I don't mean bus stations in the place no-one wants to go to. I'm struggling to think of 1p of the BSIP being spent on some infrastructure that's actually useful, so far, which actually 'improves' buses as a whole.