http://www.lothianbuses.com/news/2-general-news/577-adult-fare-changes.html
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
Bus fares going up
(25 posts)-
Posted 13 years ago #
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Has there been some control lifted on bus fares as they seem to be escalating really quickly at the moment. They were a similar amount for years, but have gone up by 10p fairly regularly.
£1.30 is a real pain in the butt amount too.
Posted 13 years ago # -
A £1.30 fare requires you to have at least 3 coins to pay, where as you could get away with 2 coins for a £1.20. I've long secretly suspected that LB makes a lot of extra money from offering a nominally cheap fare that can't be paid for with 1 coin and not offering change - if you've only got a £2 coin or a £1 and a 50p, you can either like it or yomp it on foot. What "should" have been your change is pure profit for LB (beyond the amount of fuel required to cart around all that metal in the coin hopper!)
I think the new 3-coin fare will result in more people finding themselves paying over the going rate as they can't find a £1, a 20p and a 10p and have to use 2 x 20ps or a 50p instead.
I have clearly thought about this too much.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Time to make yourself a tinfoil cycling cap in case LB's telepathic research unit hears you.
Do people often overpay a bus fare when they haven't the correct change? I can't imagine doing so but then only rarely take buses and always have time to plan coinage in advance. It's easier since it became a flat fare (and you no longer have to guess whether the driver would demand to know the destination or the value tendered despite letting other passengers on without having to explain themselves) but also means that only journeys of a length worth the flat fare are considered.
Posted 13 years ago # -
The two fare increases in quick succession a couple of years ago was what prompted me to get off my fat arse and start riding. I (wrongly) predicted that the fares would start rising very regularly once they got passed the
physiologicalpsychological £1 mark.Posted 13 years ago # -
physiological £1 mark
android trying to be clever?
Posted 13 years ago # -
whistles....
Posted 13 years ago # -
What they say:
"It has been more than two years since we adjusted our Adult ticket prices.
Since the current Adult fares were set in January 2009, the Retail Prices Index has risen by more than 9 percent and the price of fuel has risen by more than 40 percent."
They don't say if you'll still get a 10p discount for paying in advance at a ticket machine - something I do when I can.
"Do people often overpay a bus fare when they haven't the correct change?"
Occasionally. As Kaputnik points out, it's probably going to happen slightly more often now.
Posted 13 years ago # -
I think LB would be happier if all passengers had season tickets.
I wonder how many people only use one or two buses on a single day.
The increase in the DAYticket price from £3 to £3.20 means finding an extra coin too.
Might have been smart to hold that price and promote 'no increase on DAYticket'.
(Though as LB says - ""Even after this increase, fares and ticket prices on our network will be among the lowest in any large British city. For example, at the new price of £3.20 our popular unlimited travel DAYticket will still be cheaper than the equivalent ticket in Aberdeen, Brighton, Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Portsmouth and Southampton.")
Would also have been possible to make the single £1.50 - which would presumably increase sales of DAYtickets - but that would have led to 'shock horror' ENews headlines!
Maybe next time - "DAYtickets down - all day travel for the price of two singles".
Posted 13 years ago # -
They don't say if you'll still get a 10p discount for paying in advance at a ticket machine - something I do when I can.
According to EEN recently the machines are now being removed due to lack of use and no tram stops to put them in at.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Was there not an article last week saying they were going to bin the ticket machines? So that won't be an option soon. [EDIT - K's beaten me to it] As far as I know, you can still buy a carnet of tickets in advance at the LRT shop.
That same article suggested that LRT was moving towards card readers in buses (presumably non-PIN requiring ones, or the queues will be immense). Hopefully they'll read cards a bit quicker than the Travelcard readers they have at the moment, which are significantly slower than Oyster/Octopus-style readers.
Speaking of which, isn't Transport Scotland supposed to be rolling out ITSO-compliant smart ticketing across the country? That could be the answer to the age old change issue (showing my age - I remember having to buy an Evening News in order to get change from a pound to pay for the bus home).
Posted 13 years ago # -
showing my age
The lowest bus fare I ever remember paying was the rather odd 32p half fare to get to orchestra. We had to sign out plastic tokens from the school secretary once a week. I think carrying a sports kit bag or a violin case was some sort of requisite credentials to convince the bus driver you had the right to use tokens and weren't playing hooky and defrauding the bus company
Posted 13 years ago # -
When I lived in McDonald Road it was great, as it was the very last stop in the 50p zone if you got on at st andrew's sq. Although the bus drivers used to argue the point quite a bit.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Aahhh the plastic tokens.......10p half to get "up town" and by a cassette album from Virgin.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Posted 13 years ago #
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The ticket machines were supposed to speed things up, but in my experience they made things slower. The driver, after recovering from the surprise of actually being handed a pre-bought ticket, would have to take it off you, stamp it, then hand it back. About 3-5 seconds slower than lobbing money into the slot I reckon. Shocking.
Posted 13 years ago # -
It's a shame that the Ridacard doesn't offer a system where you can 'charge up' your card as is offered to Oystercard users in London. That would suit occasional users such as myself very well.
I think I might be stockpiling books of CitySingle tickets before the price goes up...
Posted 13 years ago # -
... but in their defence Lothian are still MUCH cheaper (at least 50%, discarding inflation) than any other place that I have lived (Weymouth, Paignton, Lancaster, Oxford...). Londoners have comparable prices, but they are very heavily subsidised
Posted 13 years ago # -
Someone once told me that if you don't have the right change you can ask the driver for voucher/token change that you can then redeem at one of the LRT shops.
I've never dared to ask one of the drivers though!
Posted 13 years ago # -
There's some sort of paper-based system they use when the printer is knackered and you want a daysaver, you exchange it for a proper ticket on the next bus you get on with a working printer. They also used to do some sort of note if you were without money and were promising to go to the LB office and pay your fare later.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Aahhh the plastic tokens.......10p half to get "up town" and by a cassette album from Virgin.
I think I remember my bus fare home being 15p for a half from the middle of town. Those were the days...fields...etc.
Bus tokens used to remind me of the plastic money we had at primary school to learn about adding. You could take the 10p token and paint it with Tippex to turn it into a 20p token.
But £1.30 for a few stops, or a ride all the way across town? It's not going to encourage me to use the bus more as long as I have two wheels under me.
Posted 13 years ago # -
Och its only 10p and First had been charging this for the usual journey I make for a while that I know of. Edinburgh is still cheap compared to anywhere else. And they have to recover the cost of Notram somehow.
Posted 13 years ago # -
"Lost track? Ticket machines for trams to be reinstalled"
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/topstories/Lost-track-Ticket-machines-for.6746266.jp
Posted 13 years ago # -
In the 1970s in Aberdeen it used to be 1p to go anywhere on the busses but the council was a progressive one. THey also had an instrument in the park that you played by jumping from one bit of astroturf to another, this was all pre-tellytubbies.
£1.30 from balerno to Portobello is a bargain but a few stops is daft. Also, bus stops are far too close together in Edinburgh, we should all walk when not cycling.
Posted 13 years ago #
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