Through a Student’s Eyes

The expansion of higher education has provided bus operators with an opportunity to develop some attractive, bespoke student bus services, often in partnership with universities & colleges themselves. New halls of residence can no longer easily be accommodated on campus, even assuming they could in the first place. And, increasingly, teaching buildings are scattered, too.

It was ironic that yesterday I answered a plea from my grand-son by delivering over some distance his pushbike. No, I didn’t ride it there. He’d apparently been using the student bus service for a week and was fed up with it. He’d requested private transport. At least he’d held firm on the decision to keep his pre-historic supermini at home, recognising that private, fossil fuel-powered transport is a considerable drain on student finance.

I dutifully arrived with said bike, asking him what was going on. Two issues:

• The bus was too expensive. The fare didn’t represent value for money. Thanks to his research via Facebook, he’d also learnt that some peers scattered elsewhere in England were paying less than he was.


• His local peers who’d chosen to cycle, though occasionally getting wet, were often completing their journeys faster than those by bus. This was because, at key peak times, you usually had to queue & wait at both ends, as the first vehicle to arrive was full. This meant the journey was not only protracted, there was no guarantee you would arrive when you intended to. Or you had to get up earlier (bit of a problem for students!). The operator simply didn’t provide enough peak time capacity.

Since he has decent A Levels including Economics, he understood fares and service depended upon such factors as demand, frequency, competition, distance and the extent to which a university subsidises its travel. But as he told me, had he received the service he was hoping for (by arriving and departing on time), the fare might actually seem reasonable. Or, he was prepared to queue but only for a cheaper fare.

Annual Student Ticket Prices:

Bath (First): £249; Bristol (First): £367 ; Exeter (Stagecoach): £250; Leeds (First): £312; Leicester (Arriva): £280; Leicester (First): £290; Liverpool (Stagecoach): £200; Manchester (Arriva): £271; Manchester (Stagecoach): £175; Newcastle (Stagecoach): £225; Portsmouth (First): £220; Southampton (First): £220; Tyneside: (Arriva): £450; York (First): £240; Yorkshire (Arriva): £453.