First Devon & Cornwall continue with the fare deals…
From 11 November were making single and return fares in Plymouth, Plymstock, Saltash, Torpoint, Tavistock, Ivybridge, Rame and Wembury (Plymouth and Plus zones) half the adult fare. Its that simple! Child single or return fare = half the adult fare.
Heres a few examples:
If the adult single is £1.10 the child is 55p
If the adult single is £1.60 the child is 80p
If the adult return is £1.70 the child is 85p
If the adult return is £2.10 the child is £1.05
This is for anyone aged 5 - 18 inclusive.
The only routes this doesnt apply to is the new 6 City - Lipson - Efford where the fare is £1 for any single trip for anyone - child or adult - and PR1 and PR2 as there are no child fares/tickets on Park & Ride.
Weve also reduced the price of day,week and month tickets:
Plymouth zone (including Saltash, Torpoint and Ivybridge)
Day £2 (was £2.90)
Week £8 (was £11)
Month £30 (was £44.50)
Plus zone (includes all in Plymouth zone above plus Tavistock, Rame and Wembury)
Day Plus £3 (was £3.30)
Week Plus £13 (was £15)
Month Plus £45 (was £52)
So kids across Plymouth, Saltash, Torpoint, Tavistock, Rame, Ivybridge and Wembury are in for a great deal when they travel with First from 11 November! To view the zone map and a printable copy of the above day, week and month ticket prices please click below:
Meanwhile, a reminder of how the First Group as a whole have a lot of work to do still...
Transport company FirstGroup has cut its losses and reported progress in its turnaround plan, but has warned of "headwinds". The Aberdeen-based company made a pre-tax loss of £8m in the six months to the end of September, compared with a £20.6m loss in 2012. FirstGroup said it had worked hard to "deliver" on its "potential". BBC
Its interesting to see these new fare reductions in the context of the group as a whole losing money. I guess the gamble is that a lot more passengers will travel if the fares are lower – but you need to carry a lot more in order for this gamble to work. In very simple terms if you half the fares charged you need twice as many passengers just to stay still. But it costs you a lot more to carry twice as many passengers through extra fuel costs – so actually you need more than twice as many passengers just to stay still. If you need to get bigger buses to carry these extra passengers then the growth needs to be even higher just to stay still. we can only speculate how the new routes and new fares are doing but I don't see massive numbers of new passengers so far. It does take time for these things to take off so I guess the company have a plan of how long they are prepared to go before making a profit. With the group still losing over £1 million a month they will also be watching Plymouth very closely!
I am sure Plymouth Citybus will be watching closely too but I have yet to see a massive swing to First from Citybus. Of course it does help that First have concentrated on so few routes in Plymouth to make buying on of their day/ weekly tickets less useful. If you only need to travel on a First route – then a First ‘Rider’ is clearly the best and cheapest option. If you need to go anywhere else than its Citybus – or the new Skipper! Meanwhile passengers who can get cheaper fares will be delighted to get them while they can. Of course you often get back to the big question – if they can manage with these lower fares now –why did they put them up so high in the beginning? A conversation I overheard just last night at Derriford Hospital – from a regular Tavistock passenger – happy with the lower fares but really annoyed at having to ‘mess about with the 15’!
I'd presume partly what they're aiming for, rather than simply doubling the number of children travelling, is actually encouraging parents to go into town with their children, or inviting them along because the travel expenses aren't much more. Certainly an adult and a half fare, possibly even with two, would be cheaper than driving the parking for the day in Plymouth, but that extra half fare where it may not have been included before could certainly make a difference to revenue.
ReplyDeleteAnother way of achieving that would be to have family tickets like they do on the trains.
DeleteKeith
Well done First. Still nothing new from Go Ahead? Shows the utter contempt they have for their customers.
ReplyDeleteYet another c**ck up from first. Monday morning and the advertised cheap child fares are not in the ticket machine. This company goes frpm strength to strength NOT
ReplyDeleteanon 19.11, we (Plymouth citybus) do not want to price ourselves out of business! if first wanna do that, let them crack on with it!
ReplyDeleteWe "PLYMOUTH city bus" ??? Dont you mean We go ahead?
DeleteOh, for heaven's sake, give it a rest and grow up. It says Plymouth Citybus on the side of every bus.... or haven't you noticed?
DeleteAs if its someone in a position of authority at Citybus / GoAhead! What a laugh! Why did you cut your Tavistock return to £4 something instead of your original £6...whatever it was. Of course Citybus / GoAhead don't want to cut the prices generally - it would wreck their revenue across their whole business. First can afford to play around with you across a smaller network and targeting routes and groups of customers. You're entirely in their hands. If they leave Plymouth you'll can take the pain until they do. Drop your fares, and if they go you'll find it so hard to put them back up again for a long long time. If they don't go, you're little 5% margin isn't going to get to GoAhead's target of 17% that they've set you to make is it! Looks like First are controlling your Plymouth profitability doesn't it - how long can you sit it out and hope they'll leave Plymouth? First are teaching you a lesson. What a terrible decision you made to compete on Torpoint and Tavistock after deciding not to buy the routes from First - you'd have had Plymouth all to yourselves within a year. Now you'll just have to live with the extra cost of the new services, and the financial effect of First's new routes and fares.
DeleteI am not quite sure I follow the logic of the lengthy rant against Go Ahead/Citybus. It is not possible to 'buy a route' - the licensing system has not worked that way for 27 years. Any bus operator is free to register any route whether or not someone else is running it already. If Stagecoach decided they wanted Plymouth, there is nothing to stop them registering routes here, there and everywhere. That's how they got Barnstaple.
DeleteIf it is freehold, Citybus could have tried to buy Torpoint depot - which would effectively give them the route as well. Stagecoach wanted to buy the whole Barnstaple operation, but the Competition Commission
If you want to look at examples of First and Go Ahead having a virtual monopoly, look at Bristol and Brighton. I don't know about the fares - but I think \i know which has the better-run service and is more popular with the passengers.
Keith
saw a tavistock enviro on pr1 tonight and a mayflower link on the pr2!
ReplyDeleteno I mean we PLYMOUTH CITYBUS.
ReplyDeletevery confusing, plasterd on the side of all go ahead buses it says we are part of go ahead group. NOT LOCAL OLD PLYMOUTH CITY BUS, NOT COUNCIL RUN .
DeleteIt doesn't say Plymouth Citybus at all on the near side or front of the red and blue flashes.
ReplyDeleteWhat about the legal ownership name and address on the nearside
Deleteclever marketing by go ahead on BLUE flasher as first is associated with the colour blue and in tavi passengers used to first.i think red go ahead buses in tavi would look out of place and be unused.
DeleteAnon 16/11/13 13:14. Well said I could not have put it better myself. Whomever it is that made the decision at Citybus to expand to Tavistock and Ttorpoint should really be worrying now. Had they sat still and waited instead of getting greedy then First would have pulled out of Plymouth and they would have had a monoploy, in fact from what I have heard First were due to pull out at the end of October this year.. but because Citybus/Go Ahead could not play fair the decision has been taken by the new First Devon management and Aberdeen to stay and stick it out. They now feel they can stick the knife into Citybus and turn their own business around and I agree to be honest. First have smaller network and less overheads especially now they have dropped long routes like X80 and loss making routes in plymstock and St Judes etc. They can now pick and choose areas of Plymouth that they know are umhappy with Citybus service and cream off their profit making routes.. easy pickings, they have enough to choose from. They are turning the screw in Efford, Citybus loosing here on 8/9 and the 3a is getting busier by the day whilst Citybus 61/62 gets quieter and quieter.. although still late as per normal. They can look at Plympton and Southway with a low cost alternative as well.. Go Ahead could end up with a 17% loss in Plymouth let alone profit. First have nothing to loose and much to gain.
ReplyDeleteif you bothered to open your eyes you will notice it has a citybus logo on the back window and underneath the drivers cab window on the panel.
ReplyDeletelike i said very very confusing when i open my eyes to see city bus logo plasterd on buses along with we are go ahead on same buses, maybe i should close my eyes that way i would not get confused as to what company runs them. mmmmmm maybe not i may miss bus, or perhaps i should catch a first bus as they know who they are and they do not claim to be my local bus company.
DeleteReally cant see how it is confusing? a National bus company - Go Ahead own Plymouth Citybus - a local bus company. GA choose to retain local identities for its operations unlike Stagecoach and First Group who prefer a national identity, although of course First are now at least putting local names on their buses to try and gain some sort of local feel.
DeleteMost passengers probably wont know or care who Go Ahead Group are - they just see Plymouth Citybus. Who owns the company is generally irrelevant to most people.
Do you remember the 'good old days' of Western National? Was that confusing - a local company owned by a National Bus Company? Is it really a good thing that First don't claim to be a local bus company (so why plaster TAVISTOCK names on the side?)
At the end of the day general day to day management of Plymouth Citybus is based in Plymouth. Some back end functions are centralised within Go Ahead Group and they have to justify their actions to GA HQ - but everything else is run from Plymouth.
nice to have a decent sensible reply to my confusion over names, thankyou graham, you have cleared up my issue and im no longer confused, your response is welcomed unlike the other reply i had about opening my eyes, very childish probably some grumpy city bus driver with issues, seem to be a few of them lately.
DeleteGraham's last paragraph is absolutely right - but therein lies a difference between Go Ahead and First. Go Ahead own Plymouth Citybus, but the local management are responsible for making it work and decisions on matters like vehicle purchases and the route network are theirs. With First, though, everything is far more centralised with quite detailed decisions being taken in Southampton or Aberdeen. In particular, I don't think the local management can go shopping for new vehicles; most are transferred from other First companies. I imagine, though, that vehicles bought by Citybus from Go Ahead in London are the result of a commercial decision taken locally.
ReplyDeleteStagecoach fall somewhere in between - they have not retained the name Devon General, but the Stagecoach brand nationally is not tainted in the way the First brand is. This may be because Stagecoach have, on the whole, made a better job of running trains. I think the management in Exeter, though, have far more local control that Plymouth or Camborne.
I think also that the profit targets of the big groups are quite a bit different - with First being the most extravagant and, I would have thought, unattainable in West Cornwall. I know nothing about Arriva - although Iget the impression they provide a decent service. I am not even sure where the nearest Arriva company is - London or Maidstone and District?
Keith