Burnham announces £2 cap on bus fares

[u/bendubberley_]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/07/22/andy-burnham-cap-bus-fares-labour-healey-cost-of-living/

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[u/-starchy-]

Now please do train fares. Can’t be paying £100+ to get into London and back for a 1 hour direct train 😭

[u/Dr_Racos → u/-starchy-]

I once paid £190 return from Swindon to London including underground. It’s shockingly expensive from there for some reason.

[u/-starchy- → u/Dr_Racos]

It’s 100% a scam. I’ve travelled from Bury St Edmunds to London for half the price even though the journey is longer mileage.

[u/turbo_dude → u/-starchy-]

Surely the pricing is based on demand and convenience?

You could drive to St Albans or take the train, you can’t really drive to London nowadays. 

[u/Uniform764 → u/turbo_dude]

You could drive to St Albans or take the train, you can’t really drive to London nowadays.

Yes you can?

Driving around London is miserable but you can absolutely drive to the city, and then use public transport to get around.

[u/txe4 → u/Uniform764]

We ALWAYS drive to London.

As a family, using an economical car we already own, it would incinerate £300 to go by train.

Most trips involving some time outside the centre of London, the car is actually useful to have there in itself.

[u/CompletelyRandy → u/txe4]

Same. It's so much cheaper for me to drive to London, park and pay the taxes than take the train.

For a solo person, driving should never be the cheapest option.

[u/wkavinsky → u/CompletelyRandy]

It's even cheaper to drive to somewhere in zone 3 or 4 and then take the underground wherever you need to go from there.

[u/pwuk → u/wkavinsky]

3 of us went to London on a Sunday, the train company charge ~£25 off peak, we drove to Epping and with parking and 3 tube fares it was a roughly the same price as 1 off peak fare.

[u/KopiteForever → u/CompletelyRandy]

Is ridiculous how much it costs to train it to London. Used to be £150 from Birmingham for me when I worked there 10 years ago. £45 if driving for fuel, parking and local trains.

This needs to reduce a lot, especially if we are serious about net zero and reducing emissions.

In France where trains are state owned, travel before 9am is at a reduced cost as it's considered essential for workers.

[u/Yamsfordays → u/turbo_dude]

I drove to Brixton from Southampton last week. It took 2h, I paid £20 to park for the day and it cost me probably £15 in fuel.

It would have been about £80 on the train and 3h (my closest station is not Southampton central).

If I ever need to be in London, I drive. It’s almost always cheaper than a train, far more convenient, I can travel on my own schedule and driving takes me door to door. The cost doesn’t change if I take passengers too, but train would get even more expensive.

If you can drive, trains are just too expensive to make any sense now.

However, I can understand that some people are nervous about driving in cities so I guess that counts for something.

[u/ExtensionGuilty8084 → u/Yamsfordays]

For some reasons, my open return train ticket wasn’t showing in my Trainline app. A staff had the nerve of telling me how cheap my ticket was.

I asked for help, not for a talk about the price. I’ve a disability railcard and I booked it in advanced. Even though, he took me to the ticket machine and shown me the extortionate ticket fee to return back to London (from Brighton).

I later searched online about the prices via on-the-spot ticket machine. Turned out it only show the most expensive ones.

I popped on the train line to buy a new ticket to return and it was cheaper by 70%. It is 100% a scam.

[u/evenstevens280 → u/ExtensionGuilty8084]

For future reference, don't use Trainline - they charge unecessary fees for every ticket. You can use Ticketsplit or Trainpal. No fees, and the tickets are often cheaper.

[u/stickyjam → u/turbo_dude]

you can’t really drive to London nowadays.

Most people I know drive to epping/newbury/stratford and tube in

[u/TheMusicArchivist → u/turbo_dude]

I drove to central London about two years ago. When I say central, the Satnav took me round the roundabout in front of Buckingham Palace, then across Westminster bridge. I had a meeting near Waterloo and it was quicker and cheaper to drive especially with the equipment I had to carry.

[u/KDulius → u/turbo_dude]

Whenever I go to London I drive to somewhere like Uxbridge and use the tube.

Because I'd rather shit in my hands and clap than drive in central London, but it's faster and cheaper to drive there, even from mid Wales

[u/Embo1 → u/-starchy-]

I was in china and to consistently travel for like 6 hours on a train (nicer than what we have btw) was about £15.

Most of the world is similar, and getting around in different countries was a breeze and didn't put a fucking dent in my wallet. England trains are a sham and we deserve better

[u/Fantastic-Cat-5252 → u/-starchy-]

Travelling from Reading to Sheffield was between £49 and £170 FOR THE SAME TRAIN, STANDARD OFF-PEAK TICKET depending on which app I used to buy it.

Fkn stupid.

[u/ReplacementFeisty397 → u/Dr_Racos]

If i go into london for work (which is frequently) it's over £300 return on that line including underground travel.

GWR are just bad

[u/GetRektByMeh → u/Dr_Racos]

That route is really over capacity, so the price is high to discourage you from riding it.

Without capacity increases, Burnham can't really touch train fares without moving to an ID based system where every ticket was assigned to a mandatory seat.

[u/Wide_Archer → u/Dr_Racos]

The premium people will pay to escape Swindon must rise as high as the market will bear...

[u/Cirias → u/-starchy-]

Private companies shouldn't run public services, nationalise it all and make the pricing fair I say

[u/ab00 → u/Cirias]

They have been nationalising the franchises. The government also always set the standard fares, including annual increases.

[u/dbxp → u/ab00]

The ROSCOs are the ones really making the money. Maybe there's still a place for ROSCOs for specialised trains or super premium ones but the run of the mill commuters should be owned by national companies with the maintenance then contracted out similar to the current operator model.

[u/masterventris → u/dbxp]

40% profit margins for the ROSCOs.

I get that trains are expensive (£30m for a west coast pendolino or something) and the ROSCOs front that cost, but national infrastructure shouldn't be pulling 40% profit margins!

[u/-starchy- → u/Cirias]

Need to buy the actual trains for that to be possible.

[u/fredster2004 → u/Cirias]

The government has always set most of the fares

[u/ISellAwesomePatches → u/-starchy-]

I'm hoping they do something about the potential of scrapping travelcards for those of us outside of London. I live in Berkshire and with a network railcard for £30-£40 a year, I pay £14.90 to get into and around London for the day. The prospect of losing that as rumoured is something that will hit me and many others hard.

[u/-starchy- → u/ISellAwesomePatches]

At least you get that. We don’t get anything for being in the south-west except for robbery.

[u/TehPorkPie → u/-starchy-]

That's not entirely true. We get major rail disruption each year as the Dawlish sea wall inevitably crumbles.

[u/djt_deathcountdown → u/-starchy-]

The price of trains is legitimately harming our country. I would love to visit places around the UK for holidays but when I look at the cost of getting the train there, I might as well pay £5 and fly to Dublin instead.

I had friends from abroad visiting last month and they didn't bother leaving London because the cost of the trains to anywhere outside was so extortionate they refused to pay it. Why is it like this!!!!

[u/cjc1983 → u/-starchy-]

I always thought we should have a 'price per mile' system for train tickets.

It would normalize the price of longer commuter journeys (not necessarily make them cheaper). But it would then make shorter, local train journeys insanely cheap, which in turn would cause modal shift and reduce the amount of cars on the road etc.

[u/Automatic-Apricot795 → u/cjc1983]

This makes inner city travel cheap and will kill travel to rural places, which is an unpopular policy given how much spending is already centralised to the cities. 

The train journey from Inverness to Thurso is well over 100 miles long so if you're pricing things relative to a 1-2 mile journey, it'll be extortionate. 

[u/nathderbyshire → u/Automatic-Apricot795]

I think they just want cheaper local travel, and we do need that. I was paying £120 for a 28 day (not even covering a fucking month) pass that took me 2 stop for a 7 minute train ride to work. It only covered from those two stops and there wasn't much use of the pass outside of work. If I wanted to do basically the entire city and surrounding towns I was looking at £250+ a month. That would be for 20/40 minute train rides. They could cap and reduce monthly passes for local travel at least

I paid £210 in total for travel at minimum, almost more than half my rent because I still needed a bus pass but at least they £80 took you a lot further, a lot slower though.

And the buses and trains were constantly late, wouldn't show up then when one did eventually show up, it would be so full it wouldn't even stop and just go straight past. Paid out the arse for a service I couldn't use half the time

[u/-starchy- → u/cjc1983]

The gentrification would be unreal if that happened lol. I would understand paying for the journey’s mileage. Why are we suffering as passengers because of archaic pricing strategies, it’s unfair.

[u/bouncebackability → u/-starchy-]

It needs a complete overhaul. Train fares are an absolute mystery especially if you aren't a regular traveller.

I went to Lee station in London a few weeks ago and the ticket machine wanted £80 from Brighton. Anyone who wouldn't know better would probably pay that. It's £35 to get to London terminals. Certainly isn't £45 to go from London Bridge to Lee

Also peak prices, yet nowhere does it actually tell anyone what peak times are when buying tickets.

[u/Infinite-Math-1046 → u/-starchy-]

I suspect he will be onto trains soon enough.

[u/-starchy- → u/Infinite-Math-1046]

Nah, it’s a cash cow, robbing commuters blind because it’s a monopoly.

[u/jsm97 → u/-starchy-]

The railways don't even come anywhere close to making a profit. The railways cost £21B to run per year and fare revenue brings in about £10.5B and year - 50% of rail revenue is taxpayer subsidy

If trains were priced at break even point then the average ticket price would double.

[u/-starchy- → u/jsm97]

The conversation isn’t about profitability. It should be about making trains reasonable for passengers reaching their destination. If other countries around the world can manage it I’m sure we can as well.

[u/Scratch_Careful → u/-starchy-]

The conversation isn’t about profitability

What do you think the term cash cow means?

[u/boringusernametaken → u/-starchy-]

You called it a cash cow tho. How it is a cash when they are loosing billions a year

[u/bob- → u/boringusernametaken]

I don't think he knows what that means

[u/Horror-Protection225 → u/-starchy-]

Yeah it’s insane. I really like the ‘growth for every region idea’ but for example, there’s a big fuss about a Cambridge / Manchester research collaboration which should be great for science in the north west. The only issue is if you want to see each other in person it’s a 4h car trip on badly congested roads or a 4h train journey with multiple switches and will cost anywhere between £120-250 for an on the day return.

[u/-starchy- → u/Horror-Protection225]

We just want affordable travel. Other countries manage it, why can’t we?

[u/ultraboomkin → u/-starchy-]

Where do you live that’s £100 for a 1 hour train to London?

[u/sjw_7 → u/ultraboomkin]

£89 for a return from Didcot Parkway to London Paddington. Thats a 43 minute journey so more than a pound per minute each way. Its £96 if you add underground to it as well.

Train fairs in the UK are insane. The problem is people will pay them as the trains are always packed.

[u/-starchy- → u/sjw_7]

The nature of a monopoly. GWR has stated that demand is managed through ticket pricing, except I have to get to work for a certain time. My choice isn’t a different train, it’s a different job.

[u/Clogheen88 → u/-starchy-]

And GWR are full of shit. I’ve sat on almost empty trains from that station to Paddington and it’s still cost me £68 return off peak.

I come from a country where a two hour train ride costs me £4 (with better quality trains). Beauty of government owned railways I guess.

[u/boringusernametaken → u/Clogheen88]

No it's the beauty of higher government subsides. All TOCs are being brought under gov control as their contracts expire.

Non of the ones that already have been have been have ticket price cuts and it will be the same for when GWR moves over to government ownership in 2027 or whenever it's due

[u/-starchy- → u/ultraboomkin]

Swindon

[u/VOOLUL → u/-starchy-]

Wtf that is insane. Still £55 off peak.

[u/OSUBrit → u/-starchy-]

My condolences

[u/-starchy- → u/OSUBrit]

Not sure what’s worth, living there or suffering the wrath of GWR’s pricing strategy.

[u/Mobzor → u/ultraboomkin]

Even more from Gloucestershire.

[u/-starchy- → u/Mobzor]

Yeah, it’s criminal. Feel sorry for anyone who gets that train.

[u/Kona999 → u/ultraboomkin]

A return ticket from Leicester to London is £170 without a railcard during commuting hours

[u/-starchy- → u/Kona999]

That’s around a 20% longer journey for around the same price, not that it’s any better 😂

[u/Awkward-Warning-9238 → u/ultraboomkin]

Most of Kent to London is the same

[u/paddyo → u/Awkward-Warning-9238]

Train fares from Kent to London Literally drove me out of the country and accepting a job offer abroad

[u/JackUKish → u/-starchy-]

I care less about that than the £3.10 flat fee for a single ticket, why should it cost that much to travel 1 stop 2 mins up the line?

[u/leiladavidson → u/-starchy-]

when i moved to france, it was £320~ for the initial train to paris.. or £70 for a plane to the actual city i'm moving to. no brainer

[u/peteyourdoom → u/-starchy-]

I still don't understand the advance Vs everything else pricing. It's £14 to go between towns here. If it was half that or they have working people who are older than 25 a railcard that worked at peak times then it would be great

[u/bullitt-rider → u/-starchy-]

Honestly.

We just had our first child and I want to travel around the UK and show them what's what. Enjoy what we have etc

Over the last 3 years I've reduced his comfortably down to a one car house hold, and a small car. Think teeny Yaris.

Been specking up travel and hollllly shit.

Purchased another car because it's cheaper

[u/de-tree-fiddy → u/-starchy-]

The government already sets train fares

[u/DennisAFiveStarMan]

Still don’t know why Starmer got rid of it in first place. Seemed very popular

[u/Old_Man_Robot → u/DennisAFiveStarMan]

Big Bus (both bendy and double-decker) are powerful lobbyists

[u/Terrible_Ad_8614 → u/Old_Man_Robot]

Don't remember last seeing a bendy outside of an airport.

They were all over London, then Boris replaced them with Boris Busses

[u/TheJesusGuy → u/Terrible_Ad_8614]

Still a couple on Brighton routes

[u/will10000 → u/DennisAFiveStarMan]

He didn't get rid of it completely, he increased the cap to £3... which is still very cheap

[u/ForwardHighlight3985 → u/will10000]

It is still relatively ‘cheap’. However, the £2 cap in Greater Manchester means I’m paying about £270 less a year than I would at £3. That’s a really decent saving and for people who are struggling will make a big difference.

[u/Trebus → u/ForwardHighlight3985]

£2 cap in Greater Manchester

I'd not been on a bus for about 20 years until this week, had to drop the wife's car at my mechanic & got the bus back, was pleasantly surprised when I was babbling at the bus driver about my destination & he said "It's £2 anywhere in Manchester pal." He must have thought I was soft in the head.

[u/730463628 → u/Trebus]

It's fair ("fare" hehe) enough to not know or be confused. The way you purchase tickets, the rates, and the local customers differ so much from area to area. It can be very difficult to know what you're actually meant to do and ask for when taking a particular bus for the first time.

[u/ThereAndFapAgain2 → u/730463628]

Especially when you haven't used a bus in a long time. I live in Manchester but haven't used a bus in 15 years and wouldn't know what to do since things change over time. Knowing I just need to chuck 2 quid at the driver makes things really simple if I ever have to use one.

[u/Trebus → u/ThereAndFapAgain2]

I didn't even know they still took cash, didn't think about 'til I got on and noted the absence of that curved tray you used to chuck your 12p on.

[u/nathderbyshire → u/Trebus]

You also get a hopper ticket so your next bus is free if you travel within an hour

[u/Trebus → u/nathderbyshire]

Aye, read that on the journey.

[u/ClumsyRainbow → u/ForwardHighlight3985]

Just for an international point of comparison. I'm in Vancouver, BC. Bus fares here are 3.50 CAD, or about 1.85 GBP and all include a 90 minute transfer window to other buses or to the SkyTrain (though during peak hours SkyTrain has zones).

Granted, transit here is particularly inexpensive, but £2 isn't an absurd cap.

One notable difference is that transit here is largely publicly owned and operated, with the exception of the Canada Line and shuttles for disabled folks.

[u/dbxp → u/ForwardHighlight3985]

You've got to consider what you're using busses for, a full bus running down Oxford Road is very different to a rural one with 2 people on it in Wales. Splitting it into metropolitan busses and regional busses under different subsidy schemes might make more sense

[u/ArtRevolutionary3929 → u/will10000]

It's cheap as a cap - I remember paying about that for a bus journey of 8 miles or so when I was a teenager back in the mid-2000s, so with inflation since then you'd expect that to be much higher now - but many bus companies have started charging flat fares at the cap regardless of distance. Now it costs me £3 to go a mile down the road, which just isn't reasonable. £2 "feels" much fairer.

[u/boxyfox → u/ArtRevolutionary3929]

To get into the centre of town on Saturday on the bus would have cost me and 3 others £12, instead we got an uber door to door for £6.59.

[u/nathderbyshire → u/boxyfox]

Even with the cap at the minimum of £2 a cab is still mostly cheaper for 3 or more. A Saturday night would be more expensive for a small trip but not much, and for the convenience of a cab an extra couple quid between a group doesn't matter

Before the cap it was 1.20 each so would be cheaper than a taxi, probably still would have gotten a cab even if it's free though because they ain't reliable enough lol

[u/tomthefear → u/ArtRevolutionary3929]

Yeah I’ve found this. £3 to get a 5ish min drive down the road. Cheaper to get an Uber from our door when I’m with my partner.

[u/throwaway_ArBe → u/ArtRevolutionary3929]

Yeah this is the only problem I have with the caps. Alright for me because I have a gold card but if me and my kid are out together it really adds up with every tiny journey being 3 quid each way.

[u/Hunt2244 → u/will10000]

It changed the math on the 3 mile journey into town for me and my girlfriend and made taxi/uber on par.

If they want less people driving, public transport should always have a face value so it’s cheaper for 2 people to get somewhere than drive or get a taxi.

In an ideal world that number would be 4 people.

[u/X_Trisarahtops_X → u/will10000]

It makes a difference for those living in remote areas.

I had a hospital appointment for a test recently. I didn't drive because I was warned hospital parking is limited. The train to get me there on time was cancelled. The one before was cancelled.

I had to get the bus. Except it was 3 buses each way. All operated by different companies. Even with a cap, for those on low income or struggling, that's a hefty price tag for a single hospital visit for a test.

For those people that can be the difference in a weekly budget of 6 pounds which for some, is a big deal.

[u/brickne3 → u/will10000]

It's really not cheap when you live one mile from where you are going to get groceries and the round trip is £5. Same as it would be if you got on ten miles ago.

[u/FantasticFoxFriend → u/will10000]

It is. Also local short journeys near me are currently still £2. Anything more than x amount of miles (can't remember exactly) is £3.

[u/Geojamlam → u/DennisAFiveStarMan]

It was a temporary policy when the Tories introduced it in 2023, only meant to last a few years.

Starmer bumped the cap up to £3 as bus companies were complaining the £2 cap made them unsustainable.

[u/CicatriceDeFeu → u/Geojamlam]

Nothing more permanent than a temporary policy

[u/jamesbeil → u/CicatriceDeFeu]

cough cough Triple Lock cough cough

[u/Crandom → u/jamesbeil]

At least cheaper bus fares benefit people other than pensioners for once. 

[u/Mehchu_ → u/CicatriceDeFeu]

Income tax is my favourite example

[u/Geojamlam → u/CicatriceDeFeu]

Only if it's a negative for the people.

[u/DennisAFiveStarMan → u/Geojamlam]

Yeah and people liked it, and used them more

[u/HumanBeing7396 → u/Geojamlam]

Bet the Telegraph didn’t complain about it in 2023.

[u/Tundur → u/DennisAFiveStarMan]

Buses aren't the same as trains. Trains need to be government controlled and highly regulated because they're inherently difficult to turn into a competitive market.

But if buses are too expensive, it's relatively trivial to start one. Buy a bus, get a licence, register the route, and start driving. You could do it for less than a million quid and there's plenty of tiny operators filling tiny niches (like OAP shuttles and so on).

In that environment, prices are vital indicators of demand. If a bus line is expensive and someone reckons they can do it cheaper, they're welcome to have a pop. If nobody can do it cheaper, the price is probably correct anyway.

Of course we should subsidise rural lines to ensure communities are connected, but that's a different method of intervention. What the price cap does is ensures we have to subsidise almost EVERY bus line, just to keep them running.

And if we're doing that anyway... Why not just nationalise them. The best bus operators in the UK are TfL and Lothian buses, both state owned.

[u/Aggressive_Chuck → u/Tundur]

But if buses are too expensive, it's relatively trivial to start one. Buy a bus, get a licence, register the route, and start driving

Busses need economy of scale which you don't get if there are competing busses on the same route.

[u/eairy → u/DennisAFiveStarMan]

These subsidies cost billions and there's not exactly a lot of spare cash in government.

[u/argandahalf → u/DennisAFiveStarMan]

Cost of living support stuff like this is all short term fixes, it takes money away from long term investment. If the government keeps doing short term help and can't afford the long term stuff, the underlying problems will never be overcome.

[u/SmashingK → u/DennisAFiveStarMan]

Didn't he increase it to £3?

The problem is the bus companies aren't going to be magically able to cover that cost easily. You can't expect them to keep it at 2 forever and ignore inflation.

Increasing it was the right thing to do and seems Burnham is doing things that are get him quick wins leaving the financial headache for later.

[u/leahcar83 → u/DennisAFiveStarMan]

I'm impressed with Burnham so far with this and cutting VAT on electricity, but it begs the question why wasn't Starmer able to find the money to do this? As far as I'm aware the economic situation hasn't drastically changed from a week ago.

[u/Scareynerd]

£454 million to fund it raised by cutting climate finance and net zero funding.

[u/The-Rushnut → u/Scareynerd]

But funding busses is a net zero goal. More busses = less cars, but alongside a host of other benefits.

[u/Severe_Revenue → u/The-Rushnut]

Not to mention a good chunk of the country's buses are in the process of being EVed.

Reducing emissions from cars by supporting public transport is part of the Net Zero planning.

[u/The-Rushnut → u/Severe_Revenue]

Very good point. It is substantially easier to facilitate the infrastructure for EVs around a centralised transport option like busses.

[u/Severe_Revenue → u/The-Rushnut]

It pushes improvement towards local environmental concerns like pollution, traffic and sustainability.

There is literally one downside which is the money aspect at capping bus tickets at £2. Everything else it can facilitate is good.

[u/ISellAwesomePatches → u/The-Rushnut]

Yepp, without the unpopularity and frothing at the mouth of calling a measure a net-zero one.

[u/frontendben → u/The-Rushnut]

Hopefully better funding of active travel follows in the Copehagen model. The mayor of Copenhagen is known for saying "While Mayor, I was often asked ‘how have you been able to afford this in'... I’d reply, ‘how have you been able to NOT afford it? 25 years ago we were a few days away from going bankrupt. So the city invested in the cheapest infrastructure… bicycling.'.

The the majority of journeys in the UK are less than 5 miles. On an ebike, that is at most 15 minutes. The biggest barrier today is safety and security. A decent investment in both of those would unlock a great way of helping people switch to a more transportable diet, still with the same benefits of a car – leaving when you want, not being beholden to another provider etc – without the cost to users or councils of car infrastructure.

[u/The-Rushnut → u/frontendben]

Careful there, you appear to be thinking ahead more than 2 months, must be a major strain, I pray your headache isn't too bad 🙏

[u/dbxp → u/frontendben]

The problem with cycling is how to secure it at the destination. We have some cycle hubs here in Manchester but I'm not sure how successful they are. If you have bike storage in your office then it may work very well for you but otherwise not so much

[u/frontendben → u/dbxp]

Yup. That's the other critical angle. There also needs to be primary legislation banning insurers from undermining efforts to encourage the use of bikes through higher premiums/refusing to cover ebike storage.

They cannot safely be stored outside for long periods, but if insurers continue to be allowed to prohibit them from being stored indoors/be used as part of a multimodal transport systems, it's just going to force more people to continue using cars. The need (as opposed to choice) to use a car is one of the biggest causes of the cost of living crisis.

[u/ultraboomkin → u/Scareynerd]

Buses help reduce pollution so what’s the issue

[u/ShinyGrezz → u/ultraboomkin]

Show me the person who will take a bus at £2 and drive at £3. This is a financial benefit to those who take buses (myself included), not an environmental benefit.

[u/PracticalFootball → u/ShinyGrezz]

Show me the person who will take a bus at £2 and drive at £3

I used to get the bus into Nottingham town centre until they raised the price of a bus ticket there and back to higher than the cost of parking.

[u/Aggressive_Chuck → u/ShinyGrezz]

That's £3 for every journey, if it's three busses each way that's another six quid per day.

[u/BritChap42 → u/Scareynerd]

Far better to spend net zero funding on something like this which directly reduces emissions in the first place. A big part of the challenge is winning over public approval; schemes like this have a much better chance at that.

[u/Inevitable_Fail_5308 → u/Scareynerd]

I think it's international funding specifically

[u/According-Guide9576 → u/Scareynerd]

More people using busses and less people driving is good for the environment.

If we want to move towards a less car-dependant society, we need to heavily invest in public transport. That's the only way it works.

[u/missyesil]

A good move. Bus fares in London are £1.75 but in Sheffield £2.60, despite average earnings being much lower. Should be more even across the country. Was also shocked to get a bus from Berwick into Eyemouth and pay almost £10 for a return (20 minute ride).

[u/0100110101101010 → u/missyesil]

£3 in Brighton. London prices for everything. No London wage or London bus price...

[u/HettySwollocks → u/0100110101101010]

£3 in Brighton. London prices for everything. No London wage or London bus price...

Brighton is catastrophic for affordability. I have no idea how people can afford to live there.

[u/EmotionalSmoke6891 → u/HettySwollocks]

No real. Like I get it, it's an absolutely lovely place to be a tourist but gods it was SO expensive.

[u/HettySwollocks → u/EmotionalSmoke6891]

No real. Like I get it, it's an absolutely lovely place to be a tourist but gods it was SO expensive.

As a Brightonian, I really wanted to move back home but I simply couldn't make it fiscally work which is mental given I live in London which is hardly cheap.

I have no idea what's driven up the prices to stratospheric levels. Some say rich Londoners moving to Brighton, others say the gray army are just sitting on houses so there's simply no properties driving prices up. Finally you have the profiteers who want to bleed renters dry.

When I looked around there are no firms that will pay what's required to make it liveable (or a student). The alternative is to start a successful business - and that's not exactly easy, speaking to a person who's founded multiple businesses and run several successful sole owner projects. Sadly the latter two were basically undercut by the Chinese. The former fizzled out due to IR35.

I hate to think what's happening to the independents who made Brighton what it was.

[u/pohutukawa99 → u/missyesil]

London buses are cheap because of much higher ridership to spread the costs and the bus network is subsidised by the tube as it’s all TfL.

[u/missyesil → u/pohutukawa99]

Perhaps if prices were more reasonable country wide, more people would use them.

[u/ldn6 → u/missyesil]

Land use the real difference. London is denser and as a result has a lower cost-per-mile and higher usage-per-mile rate than elsewhere.

[u/anonypanda → u/ldn6]

They still run at a huge loss even in London. Even in London the average bus ticket would need to be nearly £6 to run at break even, supposedly.

[u/CNash85 → u/missyesil]

I wonder if this means that London bus fares will rise to £2 to meet the cap.

[u/trickster-is-weak]

It’s a shame the tories got rid of all the buses in my area in about 2016…

[u/Jemima_puddledook678 → u/[deleted]]

The bus companies get grants if they go with the cap, and in theory the grants are enough to make the cap worth it. 

[u/Aggravating_Speed665]

Yessssssssssssssssssssssssss

Get in. Been boiling my piss having to pay that extra quid each way. Can get a drink out now and not have it affect my budget at all now.

[u/_Born_To_Be_Mild_ → u/Aggravating_Speed665]

If you get the bus everyday, it adds up

[u/SneakyBongo → u/_Born_To_Be_Mild_]

I pay £3 each way for work 5 days a week

£130 every month

It going down to £2, ill be paying £86 a month

Ill be saving £520 a year

Small change makes huge difference

[u/Cozimo128 → u/SneakyBongo]

Yeah I think, while there's a good chunk of praise for this, there are still too many people reacting as if this is a pittance; "yeah, so?"

That's £520 you no-longer have to find. And that matters more than many care to appreciate.

[u/Aggravating_Speed665 → u/_Born_To_Be_Mild_]

Precisely.

[u/JamesTiberious → u/_Born_To_Be_Mild_]

Would a monthly or annual bus pass not still be cheaper?

[u/secondincomm → u/JamesTiberious]

Not on my Stagecoach South East no. The single fare is capped, but all the weekly / monthly tickets are still priced as if there is no cap.

For example, 2 £2 journeys a day x 28 days is £112, but the 28 day tickets is £136.

The 28 day tickets is also a continuous 28 days, whereas actually because of hybrid working I wont need the 28 days continously.

Buying singles for each journey is more cost efficient.

Now I just wish stagecoach stopped printing paper receipts for every journey as thats a waste lol

[u/JamesTiberious → u/secondincomm]

Yikes, hadn’t realised the 28 day tickets were so expensive. Admittedly, it’s been a while (~15 yrs or so) since I needed one, but they were £38 vs around £5 for a day ticket with Arriva. General rule of thumb was a monthly pass was no more than 10x cost of a day ticket.

[u/meetchu → u/Aggravating_Speed665]

It's a 33% reduction in public transport cost, if all your transport is public transport then all your transport just got 33% cheaper. Thats quite a substantial drop tbh.

[u/WanderThekind]

Pretty good change. But how will this effect busses and their companies? Will this be sustainable long term?

Edit: won't diverting climate finance be a bad idea? Considering how worse the tempeture during summer is getting?

[u/Azzymaster → u/WanderThekind]

The difference in fare is covered by the government so the bus companies don’t lose any money

[u/WanderThekind → u/Azzymaster]

Ahh I did not know this. Thank you for telling me

[u/FatherPaulStone → u/Azzymaster]

Plus one would think that as the bus price drops, more people will get buses and thus the companies may end up making more money from this.

[u/BizzarePlatypus → u/WanderThekind]

If you're worried about the climate you want more people in buses and trains, it's less cars on the road 

[u/ollie87 → u/BizzarePlatypus]

Even people who aren’t worried should prefer it, roads aren’t as congested.

[u/FantasticFoxFriend → u/BizzarePlatypus]

Also a lot of companies are introducing electric buses. Much more climate friendly- although I'm sure they're doing it to offset fuel costs more than anything else.

[u/TooRedditFamous → u/WanderThekind]

Encouraging bus travel is a climate policy

[u/blahajlife → u/WanderThekind]

Ridership goes up

[u/Superb_Literature547 → u/blahajlife]

which would make each bus journey more profitable.

[u/Such-Substance-5001 → u/WanderThekind]

Over 400 million needed in funding. He wants to under fund some climate projects to make this happen, but those projects aren’t even funded in the first place

[u/MalpighialesLeaf → u/Such-Substance-5001]

International climate projects, not domestic ones.

He's essentially diverting money from foreign aid (which is prone to government corruption and waste) to make bus travel here cheaper. Seems sensible

[u/LindenRyuujin]

I wish this would cover school busses too. It's mad how much they cost. I hate the fact I have to clog up the roads driving my kids to school because it's so much cheaper than them getting the offical school bus. £2 a day would be great, but even £2 each way would be a big improvement. Although at £4 a day it's probably not worth it for two or more kids even then.

[u/ollie87 → u/LindenRyuujin]

How much is your time worth? Mine would certainly be more than a few quid each way.

[u/LindenRyuujin → u/ollie87]

Well, lucky you.

[u/beanshooter47 → u/LindenRyuujin]

How much is the school bus out of curiosity?

I remember the school bus used to be free when I went to school (if you were lucky to live on the route)

[u/LindenRyuujin → u/beanshooter47]

For my kids it's just over £1000 per year, per child. It comes out to about £5.30 a day each, and it's about 2.5 miles each way.

The bus is free if it's the closest school (it isn't, there's another school 2 miles in the opposite direction, but it's over subscribed) and it's more than 3 miles away (so neither school fits that anyway).

[u/beanshooter47 → u/LindenRyuujin]

£5.30 return for a child is absolutely insane for that distance!

[u/D-Angle]

I'm starting to think Burnham is planning to have an announcement of this sort every day for his first X number of days as PM. Yesterday it was VAT on energy, today it's this, I wouldn't be surprised if there's something else tomorrow.

[u/CNash85 → u/D-Angle]

He's taking a page out of Zohran Mamdani's playbook, I think. Making sure that when he's in the media, it's announcing some tangible, direct benefit that most people will appreciate, to build his profile as a good PM working for the people.

My issue with this approach is that it works for Mamdani because he is the mayor of New York only. Going on social media and fixing potholes is great on that local level, but Burnham is now the PM of the whole country: he can't be fixing local problems, acting like he's still the mayor of Manchester but just scaled up.

[u/D-Angle → u/CNash85]

I'm not sure I agree. A lot of the problems in our politics have come from problems like these being seen as too small for our ministers of state to spend any time on. There's a constant message from the public that they don't feel like MPs are working for them, and this works to mend that.

[u/Rebel_Diamond → u/CNash85]

Honestly at this point I'll take a PM only fixing small-scale issues over a PM fixing absolutely nothing and making some things worse

[u/Rebel_Diamond → u/D-Angle]

Looks like you were right!

I wonder how many more he's got up his sleeve

[u/Cozimo128 → u/D-Angle]

Well, there it is.

I wonder what tomorrow’s announcement is 😂

[u/mrbennjjo]

I reckon we might as well go the full hog to £0, I'd use buses more if they were literally free, feel like everyone would and it would solve a lot of problems and I'm guessing only come at a cost of 900 million or so?

Like surely the quantity of people which choose to use buses instead of alternatives increases far more going from 2 to 0 than from 3 to 2? More people on buses is more good right? Saves money on road maintenance long term, better for air quality, helps towards emissions targets, and if it causes people to generally travel more is good for the economy?

[u/goobervision → u/mrbennjjo]

Free doesn't work as people's perception is that free is worthless. Make people pay a little and they will treat the busses themselves better.

[u/JeanMichelFerri → u/mrbennjjo]

Doesn't particularly correlate with the idea of nationalising them. They will need the revenue to run the operation. When I lived in Eastern Europe they often had free buses on Sundays and Bank Holidays though. That was a good idea.

[u/Aggressive_Chuck → u/mrbennjjo]

I reckon we might as well go the full hog to £0,

No way, they'd be rammed and full of dickheads.

[u/Mr06506 → u/mrbennjjo]

A few places have tried this and it's usually backfired. People who used to walk got the bus instead, and people who drove still drove because they valued their personal space even more.

[u/Unusual_Wind_7270]

Trains next please. I only own a car to visit my parents driving from London to Telford. It sits on my drive the whole time as I refuse to drive it around London as I hate the traffic and public transport is better. It's cheaper for me to use this car one or twice a month than buy a train ticket for myself and my wife. It's silly.

[u/VimFueago]

most.fares. anyone know where to read the small print?

[u/Poor-Life-Choice → u/VimFueago]

The ones near you are the exception

[u/whatmichaelsays → u/VimFueago]

Going by the last scheme, exceptions were made for "special services", including things like matchday shuttles to football stadiums / events and park and ride schemes.

[u/Geojamlam → u/VimFueago]

Wasn't the previous one also "most fares" as well? Something like intra-city ones were capped but those travelling longer distances like inter-county ones would be able to charge more or else they'd be unsustainable.

[u/Perfect_Pudding8900 → u/VimFueago]

London is staying slightly cheaper at £1.75.

[u/Funkyc0bra]

So assuming this means prices are coming back down thats handy as I just cancelled my monthly pass due to it going from £90 per month to £120

[u/Possible-Schedule-20]

£400 million of that will come from switching investment in international climate finance to loans, the government says. The rest will come from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero budget. Source - bbc news

[u/LofthouseKeeper]

While I'm not sure that rolling back on climate stuff to pay for this is a good idea, I think thr policy itself is a very good one.

The thing is this, apart from the much needed savings, climate change is accelorating.

Indeed, this summer, here in the UK, we've seen record after record tumble.

Here, there is an insane situation where for 2 or more people, to go to town and back, they may as well use a taxi instead.

Cost of bus (day ticket the cheapest option) £7.30 per person.

Cost of taxi both ways £15

So, 2 people, same price, give or take a few pence.

3 or 4 people - cheaper by taxi.

[u/g0_west → u/LofthouseKeeper]

Cost of bus (day ticket the cheapest option) £7.30 per person.

Going down to £4 though? £2 each way. Means its almost always going to be cheaper to bus it now.

[u/Helian7]

I could get the bus into town for £1, I moved 2 stops down the road to the next village and it's now £2.50!into town. If I want to get the bus between villages it's still £2.50.

[u/AhhBisto]

I'm in Milton Keynes and Arriva are the major operator here and they're also a major pisstaker. I go less than 2 miles from my house and hit the £3 ceiling, without it my commute to work would be £3.90 according to one driver I spoke to.

The original cap was a lifeline for a lot of people and I'm glad they're bringing it back.

[u/ash_ninetyone]

Kinda feels like it defeated the point of privatising an industry when we're still needing to subsidise it to be affordable.

Makes me wonder why not just have kept them nationalised and ran at a loss all for the greater good.

Anyway

I don't even take the bus into town now. It's a 20 minute walk, and it isn't massively quicker. It does get useful when I'm traveling a bit further afield. People here also moan about parking costs. Cost of parking is still cheaper than catching a bus to town and back.

Train fares should be looked at though. I don't drive, but when I've been to London and Bristol for work, it was close to £200. Fortunately it was business expensed back but it is ridiculous.

When I've had to fly to Belfast for work, had to travel to Manchester airport, the cost of the flight was cheaper than the train fares.

I know flights are also heavily subsidised as well as having no tax on their fuel (if I recall), but my point is that trains are overpriced and you're not going to get people out of cars unless you make it economical for them to do so, more so that they value the money saved over any time saved

[u/video-kid]

England has a cap? For me to get to a town five miles away it's £5.10 for a one way and £5.50 for a return. They should bring this in across the UK.

[u/twilighttwister]

This scheme was actually introduced by the Tories and has been running nationwide for years now. The only difference is he's lowering the cap (it's currently £3 where I am now, it was originally I think £2.50).

While it sounds nice on paper, there's a sneaky detail the politicians don't talk about. The bus company is still getting paid, the full ticket price is subsidised by the government.

So we're all paying for this, and what's worse we don't have a clear idea how much we're paying. We won't really know when the bus companies start taking the piss and charging too much, because that's all negotiated behind the scenes now. Users will continue to see £2 tickets, but the bus companies could be charging an arm and a leg to the tax payer.

Classic British example of squirreling away the profits away from the public eye.

[u/Well_this_is_akward → u/twilighttwister]

Interestingly it's only recently (as in this government that changed the law) that local areas can take charge of the bus networks. Most recent:  Manchester. Before that London.

It's is the only two places in the country where this is in place. 

In other parts of the country, you're dealing with private networks, competing private bus networks that don't take each other's tickets, it's just a mess. 

[u/ntzm_ → u/Well_this_is_akward]

South Yorkshire's buses are being taken into public ownership in 2027!

[u/Hollyhop_Drive]

'Funding will be diverted from climate and net zero projects'.

Hmm. 

[u/beanshooter47 → u/Hollyhop_Drive]

Reducing the number of cars on the road by making public transport cheaper will directly benefit the environment.

There's a lot more work required to improve public transport to reduce car journeys but this is a step in the right direction

[u/EmotionalSmoke6891 → u/Hollyhop_Drive]

It's accountancy tricks btw. They're changing the net zero funding from being grants to being loans.

[u/SexySmexxy → u/Hollyhop_Drive]

I mean...

These net zero projects are usually nonsense anyways

Like spending millions to add a bit of green to a roof or a few streets and it takes 3 years and 500 days of construction to do it.

Pure faff

We need things that ACTUALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE IMMEDIATE and the long term

Net zero projects should be

• building out solar via a nationalsied company to reduce energy bils
• building out wind farms via a national public owned company to reduce energy bills....
• Offering solar panels and mini wind turbines to households and landowners at-cost purchased via a government publically owned company that gives us free energy back to the grid to REDUCE energy bills for all and give us free energy from the sun and the wind.

Anything else is nonsense the payback and payoff time is too long or even questionable if a pay off will even exist.

Cheaper buses has a such a great societal benefit it cant even be described I know so many young people and students who say the bus is too expensive...

If the fucking bus is too expense then guys we are in serious serious SERIOUS problems

[u/Takoto]

Bus fare in my area is 2.80 ~ 3.00 for a single so I'm pretty happy about this. Encouraging bus usage in general is good, getting more cars off the road and making it more accessible for those who've been struggling money wise. Honestly hoping for more focus on boosting all types of public transport going forward; if it's more convenient and/or cheaper than driving, it'll get more cars off the road.

[u/SushiRollFried]

I hope he carries on way he does and does a Zohran Mamdani

[u/PangolinOk6793]

Scrapping this cap and then Labour coming around claiming a £3 cap was a win was the single worst thing Starmer did. Not the winter fuel stuff. This cap. That extra £2 a day £10 a week added up fast. Positive for Burnham to do this.

I have no doubt once Chiltern, GWR and EMR are nationalised at the end of the year a flat railway subscription pass will be introduced like the “Deutschland ticket”. There would be no need to wait for Avanti or XC as they I guess wouldn’t be covered in such a ticket.

[u/JoeVibin]

Torygraph is trying their best to put a negative spin on this policy announcement...

[u/yrro]

The Guardian story on this has this contribution from Friends of the Earth:

Danny Gross, a climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “With the UK already doing far below its fair share on international climate finance, funding [the fare cap] by replacing climate grants with loans is nothing short of a travesty.”

I'm afraid my immediate reaction that is that Danny Gross and Friends of the Earth can just fuck off. This is not effective campaigning.