Page 129 onwards of the latest NECA Cabinet agenda pack for tomorrow has an update on the Mayor's (NECA) fares. 

Confirmation that the period is extended to 31st March 2027 now, and that includes the £2.50 singles.

Northumberland ticket remains at £6, Durham ticket increases by £1 to £6, and the Tyne and Wear only ticket is proposed to be quietly scrapped. So you'll have even more of a postcode lottery of £7.50 in Tyne and Wear or £6 in each of the other two counties, as users will be forced to pay for a lot more coverage than they need.

There's also a proposal to agree that "tickets for young people aged 21 and under will only be available to those in possession of a “Pop Blue” smartcard, in a change to be introduced over the course of the next financial year.". So that's likely to cause some issues, as I think a lot of people have just got their ID on the Go North East app? I guess they have to try and justify this nonsensical crusade with Pop 2.0 in some way though...

Cost of subsidised fares is expected to be in the region of £32m for the year.

(Yesterday, 6:53 pm)Adrian wrote Page 129 onwards of the latest NECA Cabinet agenda pack for tomorrow has an update on the Mayor's (NECA) fares. 

Confirmation that the period is extended to 31st March 2027 now, and that includes the £2.50 singles.

Northumberland ticket remains at £6, Durham ticket increases by £1 to £6, and the Tyne and Wear only ticket is proposed to be quietly scrapped. So you'll have even more of a postcode lottery of £7.50 in Tyne and Wear or £6 in each of the other two counties, as users will be forced to pay for a lot more coverage than they need.

There's also a proposal to agree that "tickets for young people aged 21 and under will only be available to those in possession of a “Pop Blue” smartcard, in a change to be introduced over the course of the next financial year.". So that's likely to cause some issues, as I think a lot of people have just got their ID on the Go North East app? I guess they have to try and justify this nonsensical crusade with Pop 2.0 in some way though...

Cost of subsidised fares is expected to be in the region of £32m for the year.

The pop blue card needs to be better publicised in the wider NECA region, then.

Oooh that's gonna be fun. Good way to prevent it being abused - make it available only to people who have a thing barely anyone's heard of.

I wonder how much lost revenue is lost across the region for people falsely claiming to be under 21 in order to pay the cheaper fare, personally think there needs to be tougher restrictions on this ticket type, I seen it day in day out when on my local routes and it's clearly evident the person is not under 21 and more late 20's, early 30's.

Maybe no longer having the ticket available to buy on the buses and have it only purchasable via the Nexus/GNE/ANE/SNE App's with an age authenticator built in which would reduce ticket fraud and revenue loss.

I really don't understand why we're pushing Pop.

The thing should be scrapped with a new system brought in with Network One, Day Rovers, Metro Season Tickets, Metro Gold Cards, Junior Blue and all the other nonsense that's around abolished on the same date and it being under one system.

Is it really so hard to have a single system card like Oyster, 22 years after that was launched...

Pop imo is a NEXUS ticket so is extremely confusing for Northumberland / Durham, heck it's literally the Metro app.

(Today, 12:18 am)Storx wrote I really don't understand why we're pushing Pop.

The thing should be scrapped with a new system brought in with Network One, Day Rovers, Metro Season Tickets, Metro Gold Cards, Junior Blue and all the other nonsense that's around abolished on the same date and it being under one system.

Is it really so hard to have a single system card like Oyster, 22 years after that was launched...

Pop imo is a NEXUS ticket so is extremely confusing for Northumberland / Durham, heck it's literally the Metro app.

I thought POP was going to become the Oyster card for our area. It’s tap on tap off on the Metro making the single fare cheaper plus it caps the fare to the cheapest for distance travelled. It’s already in Northumberland on the Ashington line. I thought I had read that an Oyster type card will become available on all modes, probably this will be POP.
Actually London seems to be moving away from Oyster and using bank cards for to-to. I still use Oyster because you can have a Railcard added which seems to reduce tube as well as rail fares. I was recently in Edinburgh and you can use tap tap cap on all Lothian buses and trams which was really handy. £5 for t t c and £5.50 for paper day ticket. I’m sure we will get this eventually.

(4 hours ago)RMF1254 wrote I thought POP was going to become the Oyster card for our area. It’s tap on tap off on the Metro making the single fare cheaper plus it caps the fare to the cheapest for distance travelled. It’s already in Northumberland on the Ashington line. I thought I had read that an Oyster type card will become available on all modes, probably this will be POP.
Actually London seems to be moving away from Oyster and using bank cards for to-to. I still use Oyster because you can have a Railcard added which seems to reduce tube as well as rail fares. I was recently in Edinburgh and you can use tap tap cap on all Lothian buses and trams which was really handy. £5 for t t c and £5.50 for paper day ticket. I’m sure we will get this eventually.

Honestly not a clue these days, believe it was the plan, but they keep changing things all the time. The whole thing is a bit of a mess if you ask me.

Why Network One still exists, is a mystery to me, surely these should've been the first things done. 

Contactless is probably the future though really, but obviously you'd still need something for concessions etc.