Alternatives to the Bus Fare Cap

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The Government recently announced in the autumn budget that the £2 bus fare cap, which is expiring on 31st December, will be replaced with a £3 bus fare cap for 2025. A total of £151 million is being committed to the 2025 scheme which will run from New Years Day to New Years Eve.

There has been a lot of disgruntlement on social media about the fact that the bus fare cap is being increased by 50% and that the Government are the “epitomy of evil” for increasing the cost of living for the poorly paid. I have occasionally pointed out that it’s not a tax increase, but a discount decrease. Of course – mentioning that the Government could have simply let the discount expire does not go down well either.

So I think it should be time to look at the alternatives. Not everyone is going to need to buy two £3 singles for their return ticket because in some cases they will find that a return will be cheaper than £6. In other cases, a day ticket will be cheaper, especially (spoilers) if they are bought on the operators app in bulk packs.

But First…. PlusBus

Yes – I will mention PlusBus again this month.
No – I am not being paid by anyone to mention PlusBus

(I did however, get approached by a third-party rail ticket provider and asked to put a link to them in my articles…. Always buy your ticket from a national rail train operator or better still a ticket office.)

So – PlusBus – an optional add-on ticket that you can buy when you purchase rail tickets. Most towns and cities are signed up for the scheme and most bus operators accept them. I was using one last week when I wrote the round-up and I am using one this week as I will eventually get past the rail replacement buses and go somewhere.

Let’s look at the some examples in the Hampshire Bus Update region. These are all for adult one-day tickets:

• Weymouth £2.70 (£1.75 Railcard) – covers Weymouth & Portland and as far out as Upwey, Chickerall and Preston
• Bournemouth & Poole £4.80 (£3.15) – covers all of Bournemouth & Poole. Boundries are roughly Rockley Park, WImbourne, Ferndown, Bournemouth Airport, Highcliffe, Sandbanks.
• Southampton £2.90 (£1.90) – Runs as far out as Redbridge, Rownhams, Southampton Airport, Weston and junction 7 of the M27 (as in Hedge End is outside the zone)
• Portsmouth £3.30 (£2.15) – covers Portsea Island, Paulsgrove, Cosham and Farlington.

As you can see, if you are travelling into the town or city by train, in most cases the PlusBus is under £4. You can search by town or postcode on the PlusBus website for other areas.

SolentGo

I will mention SolentGo, although unless you are out riding buses all day then at the moment the bus travel day tickets do work out more expensive than the “£4 return” of the bus fare cap.

From 1st January though, if you are in the Portsmouth City Zone or Southampton City zone then the SolentGo day tickets are (unless they go up) £5.50. You can also buy packs of 5 which work out at £5 a ticket.

Stagecoach South

So on to the individual operator bus tickets. To try and cut down the amount of information overload I will just talk about tickets for the town areas rather than the whole plethora of multi-zone combinations.

In most cases, the Stagecoach DayRider tickets are £5 or less in individual towns and cities. This means that come the New Year, you will find that a day ticket will be cheaper than two singles at the £3 cap. The problem then comes that some DayRider areas are in very small areas; for example Portsmouth, Havant, Hayling Island and Waterlooville all have their own tickets, but most of the buses will cross many of the boundaries.

The cheapest way to get Stagecoach South DayRider tickets is on their app and buying the Flexi 5 packs of tickets. It is in essentially five for the price of four in cost. With the exception of the Hayling Island DayRider pack, each of the Flexi 5 packs work out at £4 a DayRider or less.

First Bus

First Solent do not really offer much in the way of a FirstDay ticket unless you are in Portsmouth or want one for the whole of the First Solent area.

The Portsmouth FirstDay is currently £4.90, which will be cheaper than the “£6 price cap return”.

Likewise, in First Wessex the only day ticket available is the one which covers all of Wessex.

Go South Coast

GoAhead do similar offers to that of Stagecoach via their app.

If you pay for a bundle of 20 Southampton zone dayriders it works out at £3.50 a day against the individual cost (and the maximum cap on tap-on-tap-off) of £4.10.

In Bournemouth and Poole the price is more expensive, 20 Zone A Dayriders are £87, which works out at £4.35 a day.

Unfortunately, the Isle of Wight, I am sorry, the £6 return is still cheaper than the £10.50 “Day” (24 hour) Rover. Although it is also valid for 24 hours, rather than a “calendar day”.

So – I get it!

People are really worried that with the new £3 bus fare cap being introduced in January, people do have a reason to worry about the increased costs of bus travel. In many cases those there are still cheaper alternatives to the “£6 return fare” that is going to become the new norm in some towns and cities. Of course, it is far better than the bus fare cap being allowed to expire and normal fares to resume.

At the same time however, the Government have also announced a £1bn funding boost to aid the development of bus services across most of the UK. As part of the announcement the Secretary of State for Transport, Lou Haigh, has suggested that some of the £712m for local authorities of £243m directly for bus operators will be heading to the Isle of Wight. It will be interesting to see where the money will be spent.