Buses abroad v Buses in the UK.

[girlfriend44]

Having been to the Canaries lately I observed this about the buses.
They are clean and tidy and also fares are so cheap.
You can go along way for a reasonable cost.
Is it like this in other countries?
How come it's not like this where I live?
Fares are dear and the buses aren't exactly clean and tidy, or is that because people are cleaner and tidier on their buses?
Hmmmm?

My local buses are great. Various operators (one national, at least two local) both very good and good value for money. Onboard wifi, USB charging points on most seats, realtime app to see bus locations, frequent services. Buses have never been better for me.

Sorry if that spoils your agenda.

Yes, but if you've already got a car, the fixed costs are "sunk" costs, they've already happened, so the only decision is how much it will cost in variable costs, i.e. fuel and parking, compared with the costs of the bus!

It really depends on the city and bus company. In my city, we have one bus company who's busiest are always clean, tidy and modern, and another who's are awful.

I find the council owned companies are the scruffiest.

A group day rider for us, here in Lancashire is a whopping £33 via Stagecoach.

Fares in England outside London are mostly capped at 2 quid, a few companies didn't join the scheme and a few services aren't covered.

Newcastle to Berwick, 60 miles for 2 quid is a pretty sweet deal.

Services are unreliable as they are short of drivers, this is not due to any shortage of qualified drivers but because the big bus companies are horrible employers.

Our bus service has just been cut from 4 and hour to one an hour.

Big city suburb.

Buses are shite in the north. In my bit of the north anyway.

I’m in outer SW London and they’re great here - I use them loads. If I have to wait more than about 5 minutes, TBH I get a bit pissed off.

And they’re clean - except for the odd chav (absolutely no apologies for using that word here) who leaves their disgusting smelly fast food wrappings and drinks cans/bottles behind.

Our local buses are great. I’m in a small city. Buses are contactless card payment and cost £2 a single journey. £5 for a day ticket (automatically kicks in if you tap three single journeys).
children go free (Scottish government).

"A group day rider for us, here in Lancashire is a whopping £33 via Stagecoach."

Ah you're being a bit disingenuous with that one. That's for the north west group explorer. You could travel from Chester to Carlisle with that, nipping to Blackburn, Blackpool, Manchester, Windermere on the way and end in bloody Newcastle 🤣.

In fact upgrade to the week and you can all hop on and off to your hearts content for £70! A steal.

It's generally around £11 depending on bus company and covers a decent local area. But you knew that 😉

It's the ticket I'd need for the journeys I'd want to make. Nothing disingenuous at all. Not my fault the only ticket available to cover the route I'd want to take would cover such a massive area. The problem is that the bus company don't have a lesser ticket for the journey I'd actually need and want to make.

The price of cheaper tickets in other parts of the country is of no relevance to my own area.

It’s is though.

London’s transport is massively subsidised cheap and efficient. And free off peak travel for over 60’s. This is a massive boost to its economy.

In the north we don’t have anything like that. And the crap transport is affecting the economy of northern areas. It’s inefficient and expensive.

Much prefer the bus to the train. £2 a journey, so £4 return - and clean and reliable. Right in the city centre.

The train is filthy and costs £8.70 - can rarely get a seat and is usually late. For me it's also a 25 minute walk to the city centre.

Parking is ridiculous and even park and ride is more than the bus fair.

The best system I have seen recently was in Mallorca. As you get on the bus, you tap the terminal with a payment card - once for each person you are paying for. You do the same when you get off, and get charged a day or two later. If you 'forget' to tap out you are charged a higher fee. Buses not partiicularly expensive, and usually on time.

That's exactly the same system we have on our buses in the South West of England...

And then you often have to pay to park and that can be pretty steep in a lot of city centres.

I can travel all round my large county for £4, max, my county plus Tyne and Wear and Northumberland on buses or the Metro for £6.80 or the entire North East, down to Scarborough or Darlington, up to Berwick and across to Carlisle on one particular route for about £12. Pretty reasonable.

The buses are a mixed bag but mostly decent and with the exception of some of the older vehicles, as clean as some of the filthy sods with their sticky drinks allow them to be. Reliability would be better if there were enough drivers.

@PercyJackson and London! (Although no need to tap when you get off).

Tap on tap off is coming in over here, too. Arriva use it in our area.

Around here you can buy a Day Rider ticket for about £4 and have unlimited used of the busses all day. So worth getting that if you're doing more that 1 journey

Different areas have different rates/options. It's of no use to someone living in an area without, to know that some people in other areas have cheaper/better options!

@girlfriend44

You got lucky, on Tenerife the buses were hit and miss. Some brand new others a complete mess, tatty, and our bus broke down one day. The cost was identical to home for a similar distance (£2.30 here €2.50 there)

Daysaver in the midlands is £4.50- a group one is around £8/9 for 5 people.

Day tickets are also multi operator so you could use diamond, then hop on NX and then stagecoach and not pay extra.

the delays to buses in the midlands are mostly down to traffic though- building work “improvements” everywhere in Brum.

@Aaron95

Assuming you own a car, what you have to calculate is the marginal cost of a journey which for more than one person is always cheaper by car. Eg I was away at the weekend, cost for petrol was £120 vs £348 for the train which also was nearly double the time. Guess what, we drove

And the whole of London!

Are you in Scotland OP?

I find buses expensive, infrequent, lacking in coverage and dirty when I go back there, compared to London.

Yeah we used the tenerife buses too. It was more expensive than my local bus at home and packed with kids vaping at the back. Same story when we changed to the next bus.

Preferred Italy for the bus service and they start very early.