The September issue of the much debated New Transit magazine included in its Heroes & Villains page a piece on what it describes as ‘User unfriendly pricing’. It results from a competition organised by sustainable transport lobby group Campaign for Better Transport that apparently aims to shame the government by highlighting high fares into investing more in buses.
New Transit quotes the CBT as saying that a 20p per cent cut in bus fares would increase travel by 13 per cent. Really? There’s no supporting evidence on where this figure originates. Rail fares regularly receive attention in the national press and in consumer journals such as Which? but as there is no regulation of bus fares, they tend to vary even more widely than on the train.
So, what is a reasonable bus fare? New Transit asked the question but didn’t provide an answer except to suggest that there needs to be some form of national benchmarking. They quote several examples:
- The first was for a family so, immediately, the bus fairs badly compared to a similar length journey by car. And the example quoted was disputed in the next issue of the magazine by the company concerned, who stated that a group ticket could have been purchased which would have reduced the cost.
- A second example was for a return journey of five miles each way, which cost £4.80. Excuse me, but that doesn’t sound excessive for a rural journey. Yes, in a conurbation one would expect to pay maybe £3 for a similar length return trip, but not elsewhere. Use the car, and with motoring organisations quoting true car running costs at around 50 pence a mile [The AA], £4.80 is cheap. A taxi would likely cost £10 *each way* (though you can cram five people in).
This is a further post by our Mystery Contributor
9 comments:
"New Transit quotes the CBT as saying that a 20p per cent cut in bus fares would increase travel by 13 per cent. Really?"
Just out of interest, as from the points elderly riders' povs fares have been cut twice, what increase in ridership has arisen from that source?
The example that Campaighn for Better Transport (CBT) quoted shows that there may be cheaper options that passengers might not appreciate. Many fare structures are not easy for the lay person to negotiate. Indeed this is one area where more effort could be made on operator websites.
What I have to question is why CBT were running a promotion to show how unattractive bus fares are. The marginal cost of bus fares may be high, but these reduce when greater use is made, such as season tickets.
As Metroman has pointed out there may well be cheaper options that passengers might not be aware of.
Some companies and their staff do promote such things as day tickets, but not all. The savings to a company in the cost of cash handling, etc, must be considerable if the number of transactions required for a passenger to travel is reduced. In a number of places Stagecoach have replaced return tickets with day tickets. This encourages travel and the idea that buses are affordable.
In contrast there have been occasions when I have seen people board buses, obviously not familiar with that system or local geography, and ask for single tickets becuase they do not know what else is available. The driver has failed to pick up on who they are and sold what was requested. The passengers then comment to others how expensive their journey is so receiving a negative message which can easily spread.
Metroman said...
"What I have to question is why CBT were running a promotion to show how unattractive bus fares are."
CBT are clearly a politically motivated organisation, and presumably do not necessarily represent the interests of bus (or rail) operators. This effort is, as the post says, aimed at the government, but I suspect it will misfire in several directions.
Firstly, I would share the scepticism already expressed about the impact of reducing fares. Past experience has shown that reducing fares frequently results in lower overall revenue for operators, which is hardly likely to help bring about an improved service.
CBT's objectives have common ground with transport operators, so embarassing operators in this way would seem to be a case of potentially 'shooting themselves in the foot'. However, CBT are campaigning for 'better transport', and not 'better use of existing transport'. Perhaps therein lies the answer - or possibly in a quote from their website: 'Bus services simply aren’t good enough in many parts of the country.'
However, bus operators might do well to include some more attractive fares as a tempter to occasional passengers, bearing in mind that potential new passengers may want to try the bus service before deciding to make regular use of it. A perception of high cost (however inaccurate that perception may be) is unlikely to encourage somebody to use the bus again - so maybe bus operators should consider some 'introductory offers' that don't oblige the passenger to use the bus again in order to obtain the maximum value.
I appreciate Anonymous' comments that negative publicity could result from passengers being sold expensive single tickets when another alternative might in fact represent a cheaper option.
However, the bus driver's time is valuable and cannot be spent explaining the intricacies of the ticketing system over and over again. rather, I would prefer to see bus stop information expanded so that first time users can work out their own fare and work out whether single tickets are what they need or whether some other option is preferable.
cirdan05 wrote "However, the bus driver's time is valuable and cannot be spent explaining the intricacies of the ticketing system over and over again. rather, I would prefer to see bus stop information expanded so that first time users can work out their own fare and work out whether single tickets are what they need or whether some other option is preferable"
Surely as more and more people use the internet, it is about time that operators put their minds to constructing an interactive program capable of dealing not only with trips solely within network, but also those that have to be made beyond.
Often, there are no better deals available. The worst case is when a passenger has to make a 2-leg journey involving different bus companies. The cost of doing that gets offensively high, as few areas have inter-operator ticketing.
And as for the myth about driving costing 50p/mile - that's only true if you would not plan to have a car. For the vast majority of car owners, who see a car as an essential purchase and are only interested in the marginal cost of each journey, a rate of 15-20p/mile is more realistic. Over longer distances, buses may still be competitive at that rate, especially if you have to take parking charges into account, but it's still a pretty close run thing.
If you have a 100 passengers at a £1 each & cut the fare 20% to 80p & carry 113 passengers, the revenue changes from £100 to £90.40. Who is going to pay the difference? Unfortunately too much public policy at present is aimed at increasing passenger numbers, rather than optimising revenue, but if you want a bus network someone has to pay.
Why should we worry ?
Compare bus fare price issues with using a taxi. How often do you see anyone haggling with a cabbie? They just have to to pay whatever the fare is at the end of the journey. As that often depends on traffic delay and the route chosen by the driver, this makes bus fares look very,well, fair.One price no matter how long it takes, and often irrespective of distance.
Someone who moans about a £ 1.50 bus fare, probably then goes and buys a coffee for £2.00 plus when they get off !
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