(19 Dec 2025, 10:25 am)Adrian wrote This is the point I made when the capped fares first came out. It's a complete lottery with our bus network on whether or not it's a value for money product for you. Introducing this without a hopper-style mechanism was a mistake.

The biggest issue with weekly/monthly tickets is that there's so much waste associated with them. I'd say the vast majority of those who were commuting daily in 2019 are no longer doing so. 5 days a week in an office is a thing of the past, and most have agreements of either 40% or 60% office attendance. This is another example of where the bus industry are engrained in the past though, and they've completely failed to grasp how the world of work now works.

Sure, there's the 'Flexi 5' product on offer, it's priced in such a way that you completely lose any value in what you previously had by purchasing a 28 day ticket. What's really needed is a larger bundle, e.g. 20 or 30 tickets, with a suitable discount applied. 


Because as a Country we seem to know the cost of everything but the value of nothing. Look at Crossrail (or even the Northumberland Line) for example; everyone was moaning about cost, being a waste of money, what we already have been sufficient etc, yet once open and people are using it, no one ever talks about the cost anymore.

I think there's also a snobbery towards public transport in particular, and it stems from Thatcherism. A lot of vocal people view it as a dirty, inconvenient and desperate way to travel, so even something as simple as a bus lane is seen as a waste of money. We never apply the same critique to roads, e.g. the hundreds of millions spent on the Coal House improvements, Tyne Tunnel 2, the Coast Road, .... the list goes on.

Think you’re comparing apples and pears with the bus lanes vs road infrastructure mind.  The obvious difference being the reality (inconvenient as it may be for some).  There are plenty of car journeys meaning (once the improvement works are done) a large proportion of the population gain a significant benefit.  Compared to bus lanes where there are ever fewer scheduled services using them, running to fewer places, less often – and which may or may not turn up and get you from A to B without breaking down.  The reason people see bus lanes as a waste of money is that there are so few buses on the road to use them even compared to 10 years ago let alone the peak after deregulation.  And that downward trend has been sustained and increasing over that time, so highly unlikely to change with or without bus lanes.  Increasing priority for something that runs so poorly and infrequently (and for some expensively) as is the case in many parts of our region is very likely just wasteful.