Fares – Again

Who’d pay £20mil an acre for land that will submerge under the sea in the not-too-distant future? (And where summer jams are so bad you can’t get in or out - thank heavens for the Sandbanks Ferry bus lane).

And who’d bank at HSBC Canford Cliffs where you need either a £200K mortgage or hold £50K on deposit just to speak face-to-face with a teller? This, a branch chosen for this “premier” service because of the concentration of rich people.

These are just two headlines this week in the Echo, the latter finding its way into the national media. Classic FM managed to scrape the barrel and find a spokesman from Canford Cliffs Neighbourhood Watch (yes, honest) to vilify HSBC.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the Poole-Bournemouth conurbation (and Poole in particular) is wealthy. Parts of it are, but not necessarily along the Ashley Road battle ground, at the heart of the Wilts & Dorset more versus Transdev Yellow Buses’ 1b/c fight, where cheaper bus fares remain an issue.

I hesitate to mention fares again but feel I must. Alongside TYB's new £2 capped promotional “Big Yellow One”, effectively a day ticket on its 1a/b/c trunk services, comes a new £8.50 weekly ticket on the same services. Seven days worth of travel on the *entire* TYB network still costs £12.

That makes TYB’s weekly ticket 50p cheaper than competitor W&D's more weekly, and its £2 day fare 20p cheaper than you’d pay for a return on W&D. That’s on top of W&D’s abandonment of its £2 maximum fare on more.

TYB has been coy at jumping in, fearing it might see marginally more passengers but no significant revenue growth. But it clearly feels that it has to do something on its 1a/b/c Poole-Bournemouth-Boscombe-Christchurch-Somerfords, given that it is still at a frequency disadvantage on the Poole to Bournemouth section. And, let’s face it, between these westerly points, more is the more popular of the two, though TYB cannot complain. The upsurge in demand at the start of the (low) summer season at Easter is the time to press ahead with its marketing campaign.

TYB also holds the trump card in terms of connectivity between Bournemouth suburbs and either Christchurch or Poole. It still offers a £3 day ticket, good value in opening access from the Bournemouth network by connection to TYB’s Poole-Bournemouth-Christchurch 1a/b/c.

The TYB promotional £2 comes after the successful February all-day £2 promotion, when 7,000 homes within walking distance of the key Ashley Road, Parkstone received a St Valentine’s card promoting TYB’s 1b/c.

Not to be outdone, W&D drivers distributed up to 20,000 mini Easter eggs on the Saturday before Easter Day. That’s alongside the more draws, with £18,000 given away by W&D to date. We wonder what else will emerge from each of the operators’ marketing departments as they search for innovative ways of luring passengers on to buses – and away from their competitor. Remember that W&D once gave away oranges on another route.

Will fares remain a battle ground, even in wealthy Poole? Perhaps one of the operators should break ranks and offer a flat fare, but there remains a significant obstacle in so doing.