Manchester First bus fares

HappySaver1968

Contrary to what the "On the Buses" movie/s might have sung about all those years ago, it's not such a... "grand life on the buses" these days! I've really been shocked at the increase in bus fairs over the last few years. I really rely on public transport to get around and can only be thankful I now have a bus pass, feel sorry for those that don't though as one time when I forgot it, I had to pay full fair and it was over £4 for what maybe 5/10 years ago was 50 or 60 pence if I remember rightly. What happened to competition? everywhere you look now it's First Group running the show... I remember all sorts of other companies who now seem to have disappeared.

John.

pmduk

They justify them on the basis...because they can. Any competition is ruthlessly squashed. The big four companies are all pretty similar and rarely compete,

Evilm

marleyboy wrote: »

I find it ironic here in Manchester, that it is cheaper for me to get a train than a bus.

I find it ironic that my regular train journey is cheaper buying singles (Edit: I mean day tickets I really shouldn't post on here at 7am!) than season tickets! The weekly is 50p (Edit:30p) more expensive a week (over 5 days), the monthly only saves me 1 day and even the yearly doesn't allow for me to use my allowed holiday!

I thought season tickets were supposed to be cheaper for the commuter!

Edited : After working the full stats out with a spreadsheet (see post #40) the yearly ticket does save me about 23 days. Still... its stupid the week season is more than 5 day tickets.

fashionlover10

I just paid £2.50 for a 2 mile journey on a First bus in Essex! I would normally walk but it was chucking it down.

Jeff_Bridges_hair

Evilm wrote: »

I find it ironic that my regular train journey is cheaper buying singles than season tickets! The weekly is 50p more expensive a week (over 5 days), the monthly only saves me 1 day and even the yearly doesn't allow for me to use my allowed holiday!

I thought season tickets were supposed to be cheaper for the commuter!

What is your journey. With an annual season ticket on the railway you pay only for 40 weeks. Now if your journey is one going agains the flow of peak travel then a season will never be cheaper asa they are priced for the peak flows.

System

Evilm wrote: »

I find it ironic that my regular train journey is cheaper buying singles than season tickets! The weekly is 50p more expensive a week (over 5 days), the monthly only saves me 1 day and even the yearly doesn't allow for me to use my allowed holiday!

I thought season tickets were supposed to be cheaper for the commuter!

What time do you commute to work? Season tickets are based on a peak time train ticket (they are more expensive before 9:30am). I find it suprising that a weekly season ticket would be more expensive than 5 peak returns. I would be interested to know what journey this was?

psyman17

Bus fares in Birmingham have just gone up too - its £1.90 max fare, £1.70 short hop & £3.80 day ticket.

Quat

arrogant drivers

This will be down to the employment policy shared by all bus operators. All potential drivers of peasant wagons are thoroughly screened to ensure the highest levels of arrogance and spitefulness.

Evilm

goater78 wrote: »

What time do you commute to work? Season tickets are based on a peak time train ticket (they are more expensive before 9:30am). I find it suprising that a weekly season ticket would be more expensive than 5 peak returns. I would be interested to know what journey this was?

I was quoting from head calculations but now I've actually looked up the exact working days for each period this year. It doesn't look quite as bad so I have changed by original post to reflect that and hold my hands up that it was a slight over reaction. )

Andover to Salisbury before 9am - (the Anytime Fare - the "off peak" applies from 9ish onwards. There isn't a 'peak fare on this route so the Anytime is the most expensive ticket). It does go away from London but there are plently of people using the route.

The daily fare is £7.80. 5 day tickets is £39.00.

The weekly season is £39.30, 5.38 day tickets (Ok, so 30p more).

The monthly is £151, 20.15 day tickets (so barely a days discount if I use my 20 "free" days of holiday evenly*).

The quarterly is £452.80, 58.05 day tickets (less than a days discount)

The six monthly is £905.50, 116.09 day tickets (I'd be paying them 1 day extra in the first half of the year, paying them 6 extra in the second half due to fixed holiday allocations)

The Yearly is £1572. This is 40 weeks of the basic season ticket or 201.54 day tickets. Now I have done the calculations properly (and updated the flaw in my spreadsheet ) this one is better and saves about 23 days work a year.

OK, so reviewing it with the spreadsheet and a working day calculator the Yearly is the only one that makes it worth bothering to buy it and in this economic climate that's a bit of a gamble to save £180ish when if something changes it could cost me quite a bit more than that.

If I get a single days illness or flexi time for all the rest then I'm out of pocket by buying it.

The whole problem starts with the fact that the weekly season ticket is more than 5 day tickets. If it wasn't for that it would start to be more reasonable. I keep looking at it telling myself I must be wrong and they can't have done that but I can't see where I am going wrong.

*Christmas and 1 week company shutdown in late summer is preallocated for us. (I appreciate that I am lucky to get 28 days plus bank holidays)

/ Apologies to OP for threadjacking.

Makeandsave

Dont apologies please VENT in this thread about bus fares, Its been all about train fares going up on tv not seen anything about bus fares going up