The £2 fare cap was introduced by the UK Government at the beginning of 2023 as part of its Help For Households scheme. It was originally only planned to last for three months, but was extended on several occasions, and will finish at the end of December 2024.
The new Labour government in its first budget last month announced that the fare cap would be retained until December 2025 but increases to £3.
Here in the West Midlands, this means the cost of a single bus journey will rise to £2.90 from 1st January 2025 as it is below the new £3 fare cap. It sounds like a dramatic jump, and to many it will be. But there are questions to be asked as to whether taxpayers should be expected to keep subsidising bus operators to keep bus fares low, as well as whether this scheme has achieved its desired purpose or effect.
What was the purpose of the ‘fare cap’?
For context, bus service patronage was decimated during the Covid pandemic lockdowns, through a combination of people being forced to remain in their homes, not being able to travel to work or for leisure, and then some pretty strong ‘behavioural messaging’ which suggested that you would probably die if you travelled on public transport.
Even when the lockdown restrictions were lifted, having to wear a mask and sit on a bus that looked like it was full of surgeons about to perform major transplant surgery was enough to continue to put people off from using public transport.
So it was little surprise that bus patronage failed to recover in the way that was expected.
Then of course there was all the business with Ukraine and Russia in 2022, which resulted in energy prices skyrocketing, and causing the ‘cost-of-living crisis’, as everything suddenly became so much more expensive, and bus services themselves became more expensive to run and maintain. Yet it was insisted that bus fares in the West Midlands should remain ‘frozen’. (Which they did, until mid-2023)
The £2 fare cap was intended to help people with the ‘cost of living crisis’ as well as encourage more people to ‘try’ travelling by bus, instead of using their car, to get around.
It was a great idea at the time, and I did welcome it. Those people who made the odd ‘occasional’ bus journey certainly benefitted from the price reduction. But what I have always advocated is that bus travel becomes more cost-effective the more you use it, and that the bigger savings are to be made by buying longer-term tickets/passes, rather than single or day tickets, as I shall explain later on.
The whole purpose of the £2 fare cap was to encourage people to try using bus services, and then to ‘retain’ those new passengers by getting them to understand the value for money of paying for weekly or monthly tickets, and therefore becoming ‘regular bus users’.
I’ve never owned a car so I have been pretty much reliant on bus services to get me around the West Midlands all my life. About 15 or so years ago, I realised that buying a monthly pass and paying by direct debit was the most convenient (and cheapest) way to pay for my travel.
Let’s break this down
I’ll use my own experiences in a typical week to show you how this should work.
On Mondays to Fridays, I’ll travel to and from work. That’s two journeys a day, so at present that’s £4.
On Saturday, I might go to Kings Heath, Shirley or Solihull if there is any shopping that I need. That’s another two journeys, so another £4. If I make another trip, that would be £8 buying singles, or £4.80 for a day ticket.
Then on Sunday, I might decide to go visit my parents. That’s two buses each way, so again £8 buying singles, or £4.80 for a day ticket.
So by using buses seven days a week, buying singles or day tickets would cost me £29.60.
Ooh well yes that is a lot of money – “buses are too expensive!” etc.
The first saving that I can make would be to buy a one week nBus ticket, which currently costs £18. This allows unlimited travel on all buses within the nBus area all day for seven days. That’s an instant £11.60 or 40% saving! And works out at £2.57 a day.
Now let’s say the following week, I work from home on two days, and then make a shopping trip on Sunday. That’s eight single trips, totalling £16. OK, so there’s no benefit from having a weekly ticket that week then.
The week after that, I only work from home one day, then I go shopping on Saturday, and then make a trip on Sunday for leisure, like to go and explore some park somewhere or meet some friends for a drink. I would save money by having a weekly ticket again.
Now if I repeat this pattern regularly enough, I find that I would be better off with a 4-week nBus ticket which currently costs £64. That works out at £16 per week, or £2.29 a day, for unlimited bus travel all day. You’ll see that’s also what it cost me in the week I only used buses on four days.
Better still, instead of buying 4-week tickets every 4 weeks, for seasoned bus travellers there is the monthly direct debit nBus pass. This costs £59 per calendar month – yes some months have more days than others, but the cost is averaged out over the course of a full year – and breaks down to £13.62 a week, or £1.95 per day*.
* £59 times 12 months = £708 – divided by 364 usable days (no buses on Christmas Day) equals £1.95 a day
Finally for the dedicated ultra die-hard travellers prepared to pay up-front for a years worth of travel, there is the 52 week nBus pass which costs £700, and breaks down to £13.46 a week, or £1.92 per day.
As I pointed out earlier, I’ve been a direct debit subscriber for over 15 years now, and as a regular bus user, it works out the best value for me, and at £1.95 a day for unlimited travel on all buses, is less than the cost of one single journey.
Other ways of saving
Family/Group day ticket
If you’re travelling in a group together, instead of buying individual tickets, there is the option to buy a Family/Group nBus day ticket.
This is available for a group of up to 5 adults, or 2 adults and up to 4 children, and costs £8.50 for a whole day’s unlimited travel on all buses within the nBus area.
For a group of 5 adults, that works at £1.70 each, far cheaper than individual day tickets at £4.80 each!
Tap And Go / Swift Go
On National Express West Midlands/Coventry buses, if you pay by tapping the same contactless bank card or mobile device, depending on how often you travel, your fares will automatically be capped at daily or 7 day rates.
For the ultimate in convenience, and to enjoy 1/3/7 day cap rates across all bus operators in the West Midlands, you’ll need a Swift Go smartcard. Either top up your credit balance, or link your Swift card to your credit/debit card, then you can just ‘tap and go’ on any bus operator’s services.
This will work out cheaper for you than buying single tickets for each journey.
But still, if you regularly travel by bus every week, you might find that a monthly pass will work out cheaper.
Fares from January 2025?
All figures I have quoted earlier are from the time of writing in November 2024. I would not be totally surprised if there were any further ticket price increases in January 2025, though at present beyond a few rumours there has not yet been anything officially announced, apart from the single journey fare reverting to £2.90 as a result of the fare cap increasing to £3.00 from the present £2.00.
“Headline Figure”
It is my opinion that a lot of people have been ‘outraged’ by what I feel is a ‘headline figure’ being quoted by the media. Yes, it does look like the cost of a single bus journey will be increasing dramatically from January 1st 2025.
When the £2 fare cap was introduced in 2023, the maximum single fare in the West Midlands was £2.40. During the time that the cap has been in place, this has increased to £2.70 and then to the current £2.90 as of June 2024.
It is worth pointing out that Transport for West Midlands (TfWM) set the bus fares here, not the operators.
With the cap being adjusted, bus fares aren’t “going up”, they’re just reverting to what they should be, without the subsidy from the government.
But I feel what has been overlooked is how day/week/month tickets work out as better value for regular bus passengers.
Conclusion: did the fare cap achieve its purpose?
It was a subsidy introduced by the government to encourage people to use public transport as an alternative to driving. If nearly two years later, people are still demanding that it is retained, then it has been a failure, if new passengers have not already switched to buying weekly/monthly tickets as a result.
Bus services cost money to run, and they rely on paying passengers who use them. While it would be nice if they cost as little as possible to use, we can’t go on throwing public money at bus operators to subsidise ticket prices if it means operators are running these services at a loss. And I don’t believe that bus ‘franchising’ is a magic solution to keep fares low, as those costs will still have to be covered somehow.
As a comparison, it would be interesting to see how many single journeys have been subsidised by the government since January 2023, compared to any increase in weekly/monthly pass purchases in the same time period.
That would really tell you if this government scheme has been worth it or not.
wpDiscuz