Feel like a mug paying for buses in Wales

CaptainArcher · 2025-03-30T22:05:12+00:00

I live in North Wales and the cost of a daily ticket on the bus is now £7.70 a weekly ticket is £28 now… It seems like every time i board the bus I'm the only mug actually paying, i tap on and off with my bank card. Everyone else is a pensioner using their free bus pass, or people my age (30s) have a white pass card.. Which means they're on the sick To make matters worse, i visit across the border sometimes to the Wirral and buses are so much more reasonably.. £2 for a single trip I can drive bus i gave up cars a few years ago to save money and live a more simpler life

DinoLil · 07/04/2025 11:02

I'm in SE England. Single trips are £3 and a day ticket is £10.

BCSurvivor · 07/04/2025 10:23

I went to buy a bog standard day return bus ticket in Swansea on Saturday and it cost me £6.90 with NAT buses!!!
A day ticket that would only cover the very limited network of their own bus services would have cost me £9.20 😲

Coffeeishot · 07/04/2025 10:03

nomas · 01/04/2025 19:02

Ok, she could be 50 then!

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Not too long to wait then!

Ninniwig · 07/04/2025 09:55

In England a bus pass must be applied for, along with proof of age, photo ID and address.
IF you use the card your local authority pays for your ride. If you don’t use your card you don’t cost the government a penny. We are restricted to travel after 9.30, quite rightly.
I don’t see a problem with anyone applying and getting a bus pass

Tourist29 · 07/04/2025 09:18

Obvnotthegolden · 31/03/2025 00:33

My grandparents are certainly not poor. They've got a house worth half a million, tons of investments, a car, pensions @CaptainArcher

But the pensioners on the bus aren't like your grandparents, are they op?

i don't know the statistics but most pensioners are not as well off as your grandparents.

According to google North Wales is an area of wealth disparity, having some areas that are the poorest in the UK, and some wealthy areas.

Perhaps your bus is passing through some of these poorer areas where people haven't been able to get their sh*t together.

You sound privileged and entitled and lacking empathy.

I hope her grandparents leave everything to Age Concern 😀

StartAnew · 01/04/2025 20:50

CaptainArcher · 30/03/2025 23:26

It should be affordable.

Everybody should be paying.. and then maybe the ticket price would come down to a normal level.

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The council will be paying for the white card journeys, they are not free.

WheresWeirdo · 01/04/2025 20:47

YANBU to whinge about bus fares.

YABVVVVVVU to bring disability into it . You want my disability? Take it, please!

Hortus · 01/04/2025 20:44

nomas · 01/04/2025 18:47

Why have you assumed OP to be a young person? She could be 60 for all you know.

I’m not a millennial and was able to buy a home and save for a pension but I can see why younger people are disillusioned. It’s unlikely that the young people of today will even get a state pension. I will retire at 68 and I don’t hold out much hope for getting it. I think benefits like winter fuel payment, bus passes for pensioners etc will gradually be eroded so that only the boomer generation would have benefitted from them.

Calling young people with fears for the future ‘bitter, envious and entitled’ just proves their point really.

Edited

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She says she's in her thirties in the OP.

CheeryPenisBeaker · 01/04/2025 20:36

NImumconfused · 31/03/2025 10:32

We do indeed have free prescriptions in Northern Ireland - the argument at the time the charge was removed was that the vast majority of people getting prescriptions were exempt for one reason or another (85% from memory), so the cost of running the bureaucracy to charge the remainder was more than the charges were actually bringing in.

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The same logic also applies in Scotland. The decision to charge for prescriptions is political not economic. Don’t make other nations pay prescription charges - lobby the UK parliament to drop the charges for English prescriptions.

nomas · 01/04/2025 20:17

TunnocksOrDeath · 01/04/2025 20:16

The bus companies get reimbursed for passengers who travel as concessions.
I didn't say concessions make the journey cheaper. Concessions encourage more people to use the route, which makes it less likely that the route gets closed. If the service is withdrawn because not enough people are using it, the question of whether the price is £2, £3 or £7 becomes moot.

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The government has withdrawn the funding though, so they’re not getting concessions, hence full price paying customers having to pay the increase.

TunnocksOrDeath · 01/04/2025 20:16

nomas · 01/04/2025 19:15

Bus companies look at revenue vs costs.

Pensioners using the service does not make the service any more viable or cheaper for the OP.

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The bus companies get reimbursed for passengers who travel as concessions.
I didn't say concessions make the journey cheaper. Concessions encourage more people to use the route, which makes it less likely that the route gets closed. If the service is withdrawn because not enough people are using it, the question of whether the price is £2, £3 or £7 becomes moot.

SwanOfThoseThings · 01/04/2025 19:20

I feel like that whenever I pay for a prescription. No one else ever seems to pay at my local pharmacy. There was once a trainee on the till - I'd popped in after work about five thirty pm, so I clearly was far from her first customer of the day - and she simply didn't understand the concept of paying for a prescription and kept insisting I had to sign the back of it.

At least you get free prescriptions in Wales, @CaptainArcher 😄

nomas · 01/04/2025 19:15

TunnocksOrDeath · 01/04/2025 19:11

If you want your service to disappear, by all means discourage people from using it - councils usually measure the viability of each route by the number of people using it, not how much they pay.
Collecting extra passengers is a minimal cost to running the service, so if pensioners who would otherwise drive are using it because it's free then that's a good thing for the other service users. It keeps the route busy and therefore viable.

Bus companies look at revenue vs costs.

Pensioners using the service does not make the service any more viable or cheaper for the OP.

Pandimoanymum · 01/04/2025 19:13

Mwydryn · 31/03/2025 09:33

Public transport in the UK is shocking. But I am thanking my lucky stars that I'm Welsh when it comes to prescriptions, and now that I have a DC going to uni. It would have been very difficult financially if we were from England and wanting a uni degree- I really feel for English parents.

As a South Wales mum I agree, I have a child who started uni last September and the Welsh student finance set up is much fairer than the English system.
As someone on a low income im also very grateful for the free prescriptions, although i don’t really think thats fair either. With the state the NHS is in, why we are ALL able to have free prescriptions in Wales when some of us can very well afford to pay, is beyond me.

TunnocksOrDeath · 01/04/2025 19:11

If you want your service to disappear, by all means discourage people from using it - councils usually measure the viability of each route by the number of people using it, not how much they pay.
Collecting extra passengers is a minimal cost to running the service, so if pensioners who would otherwise drive are using it because it's free then that's a good thing for the other service users. It keeps the route busy and therefore viable.

HelenWheels · 01/04/2025 19:05

at least op you dont have the expense of a car
and you can read or mumsnet or whatever while you are travelling on the bus

HelenWheels · 01/04/2025 19:04

£2 cap has gone up
now £3

nomas · 01/04/2025 19:02

ChristmasFluff · 01/04/2025 19:01

@nomas If OP was 60 she'd have the free Transport for Wales bus pass.

Edited

Ok, she could be 50 then!

ChristmasFluff · 01/04/2025 19:01

@nomas If OP was 60 she'd have the free Transport for Wales bus pass.

nomas · 01/04/2025 18:47

Lincslady53 · 01/04/2025 18:30

I get fed up of posts flagging off pensioners.
A few points. Everyone will either be a pensioner one day or dead. If the younger generations fight for things like free prescriptions and bus passes to be stopped, then guess what? You won't get them when it is your turn.
Of course most of the wealth is held by older generations. Me and DH worked for 100 years between us before we retired. During that time we paid off our mortgage, paid for our kids to be brought up, paid our taxes and managed to save a little so now we are reasonably well off. We had many times when we faced similar problems as today's younger generations, but I don't think we ever blamed them for our difficulties. We received very little in the way of inheritance, in fact we helped our parents out when we could. I don't get the embittered, envious, entitled attitudes of some younger people. If you don't like paying for buses move closer to work, get a job closer to home or go self employed.

Why have you assumed OP to be a young person? She could be 60 for all you know.

I’m not a millennial and was able to buy a home and save for a pension but I can see why younger people are disillusioned. It’s unlikely that the young people of today will even get a state pension. I will retire at 68 and I don’t hold out much hope for getting it. I think benefits like winter fuel payment, bus passes for pensioners etc will gradually be eroded so that only the boomer generation would have benefitted from them.

Calling young people with fears for the future ‘bitter, envious and entitled’ just proves their point really.

Lincslady53 · 01/04/2025 18:30

I get fed up of posts flagging off pensioners.
A few points. Everyone will either be a pensioner one day or dead. If the younger generations fight for things like free prescriptions and bus passes to be stopped, then guess what? You won't get them when it is your turn.
Of course most of the wealth is held by older generations. Me and DH worked for 100 years between us before we retired. During that time we paid off our mortgage, paid for our kids to be brought up, paid our taxes and managed to save a little so now we are reasonably well off. We had many times when we faced similar problems as today's younger generations, but I don't think we ever blamed them for our difficulties. We received very little in the way of inheritance, in fact we helped our parents out when we could. I don't get the embittered, envious, entitled attitudes of some younger people. If you don't like paying for buses move closer to work, get a job closer to home or go self employed.

BeCyanSloth · 01/04/2025 17:37

I live in West Wales daily ticket
Adults £8.50 kids 4.50
It is bad especially if you have to use the bus a few times a week.
But I don’t have any issues with disabled people or elderly people having passes.

Redpeach · 01/04/2025 17:18

Tourist29 · 01/04/2025 15:59

This seems to be a trend; I assume ‘society’ needs a group to pick on and the elderly have been chosen. Do some not realise that private pensions are paid into by the employee and employer and are not a free benefit. Likewise state pension is based on the individual’s contributions. If they own their own home it’s because they’ve worked and paid a mortgage. What a terrible group they are!! The poison aimed at this group by some is very concerning.

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To be fair, its usually cyclists

Baconmaple · 01/04/2025 17:16

What is the pass for 'people on the sick' as you put it.
I live in Wales and not aware of any pass for disabled/ sick people

JohnTheRevelator · 01/04/2025 17:03

You begrudge the sick/disabled and elderly free bus travel?