Bus fare costs

[RedDeer]

AIBU in that the cost of bus fares are to high.

For context I took my 2 DDs to the cinema today as its half term here. And it cost me £18 return to do a 20 min round trip.
The bust cost more than the cinema tickets themselves.

My husband had the car for work so it wasn't an option to use it, I'm shocked as it wouldn't cost anywhere near that price in the car.

I just checked Stagecoach Cumbria online and it is indeed £3 for both adults and children 🙁

Ah ok, here in Scotland under 21s have free bus travel.

Under 5 here

No doubt, where I'm from there are no buses at all after 6pm and none on Sundays, and a single is about 4.60. The village my dad lives in, the bus service enables you to stay in town for 2 hours or a week. But having been in London for 20 years I love a conversation about which of 3 bus routes is marginally faster as much as the next person arriving at a party.

Stagecoach do an adults and kids dayrider for £6.40 in my area. If they don't in yours I would be asking why not as that seems unfair.

Depends on the driver. On the route I usually get, the newer drivers who have only been driving since the fare cap came in put the terminus in by default even when I ask for my specific stop (which is at a cheaper fare stage). It's often not worth the aggro with the driver to save 90p.

Also I think @RedDeer is unlucky, I'm also covered by Stagecoach, but because I live in a large town there is a cheaper Dayrider available. If I lived in one of the small villages outside on the same bus route the only option would be to buy the county-wide ticket which is nearly double the price!

Well it all evens out, I live in London where it's cheap to get the bus but the cinema for me and my 4 kids would cost £55 so there you go 🤷🏻‍♀️

I WISH that was in place everywhere!
Here in rural South Wales a basic return ticket to the nearest town costs £6.60 and a single is £6.30!!!

London fares are £1.75, and you can transfer buses within an hour of paying for the first rise, And not certain what age, but children travel free.

& I'm over 60, so only pay before 9am.

Nationally bur fares were capped at £2, increased to £3 this year,

We are in a stagecoach area too, £3 cap. Its still good for us as we were just outside the zone to get to our closest town so used to have to get district wide day saver tickets which were £6.80 several years ago (pre covid/ pre £2 price cap) so £3 per way is still OK for an adult, I think they should still do half fares for DC, it's annoying if they don't - although I remember half fares were never available before 10am or after 3pm.

For Stagecoaches the problem with day tickets sometimes are boundaries, too. I can go 11km into one direction and the day rider is £5. If I go just three stops into the other direction, it’s £8.50 because I’m travelling across a zone boundary. The group DayRider is worth looking into if offered in your area.
For me, in either direction, the train is working out cheaper now at the weekend (with network railcard).

Yes it's way too much! A couple of years ago I didn't have a car for a few weeks and took my DC to town, it was £12 for the 3 of us. It's a 15 minute drive in the car and would have cost £3 parking. There's just no incentive to take the bus here unfortunately.
Buses are now only once an hour from our village to town too so you could be hanging around for ages waiting

Countries on the continent are moving to or already have integrated public transport, one ticket for all modes, for a flat daily/weekly/monthly fare. We should be demanding that too.

Yes! I’m recalling missing this. We have three bus companies here and so often it’d be most convenient to use two different ones, or the train and a bus etc. I hadn’t known it differently until I moved to the UK and it just makes sense.

Their website says children travel for two thirds the cost and have child day rider for £3.50 in Cumbria?

Where I am in Essex the £3 single cap is there, you can get a return but I don't know how much they are, an adult day rider is £6.50 DC £4.20 but you can get a family day rider for £12.50 which covers 2 adults and up to 3 children which I think is pretty good, you can also get the x30 to Stansted airport a good 90 minute plus bus journey and it's £3 covered by the cap! It's more like a coach than a bus too so pretty comfortable.

Here in rural South Wales a basic return ticket to the nearest town costs £6.60 and a single is £6.30!!!

Are you sure? What bus company is that, that has someone exempted itself from the national £3 single fare cap?

Keir Starmer announced it would go up in October from the end of the year.

Whatever it is, it's a complicated muddle. I'm in a First bus region, use buses sometimes but not enough to warrant a season ticket. It's so easy to find the cost of one of a season ticket on the app etc - but finding out the 'hop on' fare is another matter. I've had to burrow down into the website to establish those prices - it's all full of 'tap on, tap off, it's so eeeeasy, we'll charge you the best rate' - without actually saying what that rate is. Grrr! I hate it! Can't wait till I get my bus pass - no consolation to all you young uns, though

Cumbria has always been expensive for bus tickets, low population density and little or no competition plus local govt. that isn't interested.

The day tickets can be good value but only if you are doing multiple journeys over reasonable distances.

Children paying 2/3 of the adult fare, I think that was in place even before privatisation, we used to get a special chart to formulate child fares.

I wish they'd put the single ticket back to £2.

At £3 it's now no longer financially viable to take the bus into town so I drive as its only 7 miles.

But I can then get a single all the way to my nearest city for £3 which is 25 miles.

In introducing the £2 single tickets they seemed to get rid of the cheaper family tickets which is a shame.

They should be encouraging people to take buses and leave cars at home.

Would have been £8 where I am £2 capped single price for adults and £1 child.

It's £2 a single here. No return tickets available.
A day rider is £6

Kids are £1 a trip when travelling with an adult. It use to be £1 a ticket that would last a day.
We now have child day riders £4.50

Why is everyone assuming OP made a mistake or missed an obvious deal?

Where I live the dayrider deal is plastered along the side of the bus at £6. Usually a single is either £2.40 or £3.00 so the 'deal' is worse than or the same as two singles.

Rachel and Keir increased the price cap by 50% this year to £3, stating that working people would welcome the decision as it showed their toughness in fixing the public finances.

But fear not as they promised "better days ahead" from this and all the other increases and tax measures!!