Wednesday, January 8, 2025

First Bus and Stagecoach confirm price rises as bus fare cap goes up 50%

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Anyone who takes the bus faces a price hike of up to 50% from Wednesday, New Year’s Day.

A Labour Budget change announced in October will take effect on January 1. This means the cap on bus fares will rise by 50% from £2 to £3 after the previous cap expires on December 31, 2024.

The only exceptions are Transport for London and Greater Manchester, which have fares set at £1.75 and £2, respectively, as they are not included in the national cap.

Two of the UK’s largest bus companies, First Bus and Stagecoach, have already announced how their prices will change on January 1.

First Bus said ‘some’ of its prices will go up to £3, but it is holding some fares lower than the cap.

Rob Pymm, Commercial Director for First Bus in the West of England, said: “Some of our fares will be changing from January 1 in response to the UK government’s £3 fare cap. While we had the option of increasing some fares by a larger amount, we’ve worked closely with local transport authorities to keep fares for most passengers 20% lower than the government’s cap.”

Stagecoach said it is increasing the price of some of its tickets up to the cap due to ‘rising operational costs’.

It said: “We are making some changes to our ticket prices from Wednesday 1st January 2025.

“We have made every effort to keep our ticket prices affordable for customers, with many remaining unchanged. However, due to rising operational costs, we’ve made the difficult decision to increase the price of some tickets.“£3 is the maximum you will pay. Lots of journeys will cost less – in fact most of our single fares across England will be less than £3.”

An MP has warned that higher bus fares put rural routes at risk of closure, while another said he had heard from would-be passengers who have had to turn down job offers because of gaps in the network.

She told the Commons: “To incentivise people to use buses in rural areas is a very difficult thing to do, so I think that we need to ensure that we get this right for rural areas.

“Increasing fares is not going to help us encourage more people to get out of their cars and use public transport.”

Polly Billington, Labour MP for East Thanet, told MPs that “the previous government had not actually funded the bus cap of £2 beyond the current level and so therefore what we actually have is a cap on bus fares in order for people not to end up with exponential fare rises for the next spending period”.

Transport minister Simon Lightwood said: “The current £2 cap on single bus fares had been due to run out at the end of this year, as its funding expired. This will of course be replaced by a £3 cap to help millions of people … to reach better opportunities and promote greater bus use by passengers.”

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