Customers are advised of upcoming changes to some fares within County Durham, Tyne & Wear and Northumberland areas, with effect from Sunday 20th November.

Our previous fare increase in the Northumberland, Tyne & Wear and County Durham areas was in January 2022 and was a conservative increase, much lower than the growing CPI rate at the time, with the expectation that Arriva could minimise the level of cost increase passing on to our customers. Regretfully, since then, costs such as fuel and utilities have continued to increase and as a result the difficult decision has been taken to undertake this additional fare revision.

Adult and Child single fares will increase between 10p and 70p, along with return tickets increasing between 20p and 80p. Most existing zonal products will also see an increase, of which some of these were previously frozen in price back in January, details are shown in the table below.

Young Persons/Student Saver zonal tickets will not change, neither will any fares or zonal products within Tees Valley and North Yorkshire.



https://www.arrivabus.co.uk/latest-news/...I33pY1EmnQ

Those are quite tough price changes.

(14 Nov 2022, 7:17 pm)Unber43 wrote Those are quite tough price changes.

It's around 8% give or take, quickly working out some of the increases.

(14 Nov 2022, 7:48 pm)Storx wrote It's around 8% give or take, quickly working out some of the increases.

Much like the GNE increases, I don't have a huge issue with the actual increases here. Drivers wages will be increasing, fuel costs are increasing etc. 

My issue with the ANE fare hikes are that, particularly in Northumbria, they've been timed incredibly poorly. Realistically I'd have given it another few weeks, even maybe until January, so that the Blyth services were somewhat stable before hitting customers with another blow.

(14 Nov 2022, 8:11 pm)mb134 wrote Much like the GNE increases, I don't have a huge issue with the actual increases here. Drivers wages will be increasing, fuel costs are increasing etc. 

My issue with the ANE fare hikes are that, particularly in Northumbria, they've been timed incredibly poorly. Realistically I'd have given it another few weeks, even maybe until January, so that the Blyth services were somewhat stable before hitting customers with another blow.

Agreed. Timing is questionable at best.

(14 Nov 2022, 8:11 pm)mb134 wrote Much like the GNE increases, I don't have a huge issue with the actual increases here. Drivers wages will be increasing, fuel costs are increasing etc. 

My issue with the ANE fare hikes are that, particularly in Northumbria, they've been timed incredibly poorly. Realistically I'd have given it another few weeks, even maybe until January, so that the Blyth services were somewhat stable before hitting customers with another blow.

Yeah totally agreed to be honest, it's like a sucker punch when you don't need it.

Wonder if there might be restrictions in place when they can bring them in for the price reduction scheme in January (if it happens). Could imagine some taking the piss otherwise.

"Our previous fare increase in the Northumberland, Tyne & Wear and County Durham areas was in January 2022 and was a conservative increase, much lower than the growing CPI rate at the time, with the expectation that Arriva could minimise the level of cost increase passing on to our customers. Regretfully, since then, costs such as fuel and utilities have continued to increase and as a result the difficult decision has been taken to undertake this additional fare revision."

So from January 2022's fares to November 2022's new fares:

(14 Nov 2022, 8:11 pm)mb134 wrote Much like the GNE increases, I don't have a huge issue with the actual increases here. Drivers wages will be increasing, fuel costs are increasing etc. 

My issue with the ANE fare hikes are that, particularly in Northumbria, they've been timed incredibly poorly. Realistically I'd have given it another few weeks, even maybe until January, so that the Blyth services were somewhat stable before hitting customers with another blow.

It's not just the poor performance, it's on top of permanent service cuts and temporary reduced timetables (whilst accepting the reasons for those). The fact is that customers are absolutely furious with bus services at the moment, and I don't think confidence in public transport in general has been any lower than it is right now. Some of that within operators controls, some of it outside. This is just another kick in the teeth.

Costs are of course increasing for businesses everywhere, as is the end-product to consumers, but businesses need consumers more than the consumers need a business.

As I said in the GNE thread at the time, it feels that operators are determined to nail shut their own coffin here.

(14 Nov 2022, 9:41 pm)Adrian wrote "Our previous fare increase in the Northumberland, Tyne & Wear and County Durham areas was in January 2022 and was a conservative increase, much lower than the growing CPI rate at the time, with the expectation that Arriva could minimise the level of cost increase passing on to our customers. Regretfully, since then, costs such as fuel and utilities have continued to increase and as a result the difficult decision has been taken to undertake this additional fare revision."

So from January 2022's fares to November 2022's new fares:

Appreciate you doing the work to draw those comparisons.

Interesting to see that some routes/areas don't see n increase. Presumably they won't be paying increased prices for fuel or staff wages.

(14 Nov 2022, 10:05 pm)Andreos1 wrote Appreciate you doing the work to draw those comparisons.

Interesting to see that some routes/areas don't see n increase. Presumably they won't be paying increased prices for fuel or staff wages.

Yes, some of the % increases are a bit odd and don't follow a pattern. At least with GNE's, you could see that the increases were lower in areas with competition, e.g. Sunderland Central and South Tyneside, but Arriva don't seem to be following that.

The most interesting one for me is the 6 Routesaver, which jumps up 16% to £18, and which just so happens to match GNE's price on the same competed corridor...

The point on increased prices always crops up, but it never seems to be argued offset against lower overheads, e.g. the Jesmond depot closure.

(14 Nov 2022, 9:49 pm)Adrian wrote It's not just the poor performance, it's on top of permanent service cuts and temporary reduced timetables (whilst accepting the reasons for those). The fact is that customers are absolutely furious with bus services at the moment, and I don't think confidence in public transport in general has been any lower than it is right now. Some of that within operators controls, some of it outside. This is just another kick in the teeth.

Costs are of course increasing for businesses everywhere, as is the end-product to consumers, but businesses need consumers more than the consumers need a business.

As I said in the GNE thread at the time, it feels that operators are determined to nail shut their own coffin here.

As I said in my initial post, I think the timing of the rises is ridiculous. 

That said, the tables you produced seem to suggest most of the increases are around 9-10% so they're pretty much bang on what would be expected with the current rate of inflation. A decent chunk of the people I know (across multiple industries and levels of seniority) have wages increasing pretty much in line with that, so it's possible that only a handful will actually be massively out of pocket. Obviously you'd also expect unions to be fighting for around the same percentage for bus drivers, which is almost guaranteed to be one of the driving factors behind this raise. 

You then have the constant rise of both diesel costs and gas/electricity costs. Couple that to increasing costs in maintenance, both with staffing cost and parts, and office based costs. 

I'd hope you agree that staff for these companies should be paid properly, so I don't personally see a huge amount of options other than raising fares to help pay for that.

This would be the first increase in the £1.40 local single fare in the 5 years I've lived in Durham City. Similar journeys on gne are around the £2 mark, now.

Wonder how GNE and Arriva will compare on the X21 now.
To get into Bishop it was £1.40 on Arriva and £1.50 on GNE.
Then GNE put their fare up to £2.10 (according to Bus times), which is a completely stupid increase, one which I certainly won't be paying.

(14 Nov 2022, 11:09 pm)mb134 wrote As I said in my initial post, I think the timing of the rises is ridiculous. 

That said, the tables you produced seem to suggest most of the increases are around 9-10% so they're pretty much bang on what would be expected with the current rate of inflation. A decent chunk of the people I know (across multiple industries and levels of seniority) have wages increasing pretty much in line with that, so it's possible that only a handful will actually be massively out of pocket. Obviously you'd also expect unions to be fighting for around the same percentage for bus drivers, which is almost guaranteed to be one of the driving factors behind this raise. 

You then have the constant rise of both diesel costs and gas/electricity costs. Couple that to increasing costs in maintenance, both with staffing cost and parts, and office based costs. 

I'd hope you agree that staff for these companies should be paid properly, so I don't personally see a huge amount of options other than raising fares to help pay for that.

Absolutely agree that staff working for Arriva, or any company for that matter, should be paid properly. 

On the point about wage increases though. You may know people who have had wage increases in line with inflation, but factually most people haven't had such increases. The ONS have published data on this today. The majority of the public sector have been offered below inflation awards; NHS doctors/nurses, Teachers and the Fire Service were offered around 5%, Civil Service have been offered 2%-3%. Also, despite being the region with the highest number of unionised workers in the UK, that still only stands at 28%. Many, including retail workers, will be lucky if they get anything other than the increases forced by an increase in minimum wage. 

Of course, this isn't a race to the bottom, and it shouldn't be prohibitive to a policy of fair pay, but a business has to offer a product at a price that people see as reasonable and are willing to pay. When we're in the middle of the biggest cost of living crisis in most of our lifetimes, people simply don't have that disposable income to continue paying increased costs. 

I'd always expect a business to consider increasing it's pricing to factor in increased operating expense, it also needs to remain competitive to be viable. Cutting services and increasing fares is the easy option, whereas focusing on growing the business may be more difficult, but could achieve the same result with some long-term thinking.

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but the key for me is that once upon a time, people who used buses and trains to commute had no other option. They were at the mercy of whatever operators wanted to charge. Many do have another option now though; they can work from home and therefore eliminate the transport cost completely. We're seeing that on the railways, with Govt Ministers regularly stating that they've lost their peak time travellers, resulting in a drop of fare revenue. Even with those who don't have that option, then increasing fares continue to push people towards private car use. Buses will never compare to cars on convenience, frequency or reliability, so you're left to trying to attract based on fares only.

I'd love to know what imbecile reviews these fare increases. The most poplular ticket is the the one zone day ticket at £4.70, now raised to £5.10, which will soon wipe out the change floats of the drivers. Why on earth they didn't just make it a straight fiver is beyond me.

(15 Nov 2022, 9:35 pm)Driver9*** wrote I'd love to know what imbecile reviews these fare increases. The most poplular ticket is the the one zone day ticket at £4.70, now raised to £5.10, which will soon wipe out the change floats of the drivers. Why on earth they didn't just make it a straight fiver is beyond me.

I suppose it depends on how many still pay cash fares? Granted that I'm not on a bus the amount of time a driver is, but most fares I see seem to be smart cards, app or contactless these days. 

Perhaps moving to a contactless by default stance would encourage more to use it, as it's still largely assumed you're paying cash (unless you say otherwise)

(15 Nov 2022, 9:35 pm)Driver9*** wrote I'd love to know what imbecile reviews these fare increases. The most poplular ticket is the the one zone day ticket at £4.70, now raised to £5.10, which will soon wipe out the change floats of the drivers. Why on earth they didn't just make it a straight fiver is beyond me.

If you had said that the ticket wasn’t very popular, I might have been inclined to agree - but surely being one of the most popular tickets is probably why it’s going up by 40p and not 30p, as it will deliver a greater return by increasing it?

I don’t think drivers’ change floats are a big enough reason to charge less, when most customers will pre-purchase on the app or buy with contactless on the bus.


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(15 Nov 2022, 9:45 pm)Adrian wrote I suppose it depends on how many still pay cash fares? Granted that I'm not on a bus the amount of time a driver is, but most fares I see seem to be smart cards, app or contactless these days. 

Perhaps moving to a contactless by default stance would encourage more to use it, as it's still largely assumed you're paying cash (unless you say otherwise)

While I do get a lot of mobile and smartcarrds, I think most tickets I get are paper day tickets and I think I'm yet to do a shift where I've taken in more card payments than cash.