Stagecoach is extending its £2 single bus journey fare until the end of October.
The offer is part of the Bus Fare Cap scheme which launched in January.
The operator also plans to reward people for choosing to travel by bus. Customers who buy a £2 single ticket on the Stagecoach Bus App, available on both Apple and Android, can win further free travel passes during the next phase of the offer. One winner will be chosen at random from eligible customers in July, August, September and October.
The £2 offer, part of the Government’s Help for Households campaign, has helped bus customers save money but has also boosted local economies and communities.
Some 23% of Stagecoach surveyed £2 single ticket customers said they were making trips they wouldn’t otherwise have made. A similar proportion of customers reported they had switched some journeys from private vehicles to the bus, taking cars off the road.
Ray O’Toole, Executive Chairman for Stagecoach, said: “We are delighted that the £2 fare offer has been extended until the end of October, giving more people the chance to see where the bus can take them.
“With summer now here, there’s never been a better time to try the bus. Around 10 million people in England live within walking distance of one of our bus stops, so we’re hoping that people will take the opportunity to get out of their cars and give the bus a try for the bargain price of just £2 for a single ticket.”
Stagecoach bus tickets can either be bought on the Stagecoach Bus App in advance of travel, or on the bus using contactless payment or cash.
Why have a scheme to promote bus usage when simultaneously cancelling bus routes ?
Exactly.
With the exception of the Loop, there are few effective routes left in Thanet.
90 minute intervals. Service ends mid afternoon. No service at weekends.
Getting to Canterbury Hospital from Ramsgate by bus is now a joke. In fact, I have to go by taxi because I’m unable to drive.
There are trains!
First step affordable fares .2nd step reliable and frequent service including evenings and weekends.private bus companies only operate for profit not for people s needs
And the third step could be free bus fares. This is becoming a trend in a number of European countries. Some towns in Spain and Italy now run free services. And Luxembourg runs entirely free public transport throughout its (small) national territory.
This would cost money, of course, especially if the buses and trains were operated by private companies. They would charge inflated prices to local and national governments in order to make money on top of actual running costs to pay to shareholders. And they would always be looking to reduce services and staff wages while charging bigger amounts to governments.
But it could be done ,either by just running publicly-owned bus and train schemes (preferably combined in one to make sure the times are integrated.)
Or, if the private-business fetishists that infest even the Labour Party insist, they could be run by private corporations which would be obliged to provide a carefully monitored and regulated system.
Before I retired, it depended on which town/office I was based in that day, which method of transport I used. The train or my own car. Cost, and availability of parking, and even the state of the weather, influenced my preference for the day or week.
But if the train was free at the point of use, I would have opted for that for most journeys. I would have saved a fortune in petrol and it would have been another car off the road for those particular days.
We just need imagination and initiative. We have been stuck for too long with the dogma that everything must be privately-owned and run. It just hasn’t worked, as the current declining services and lost bus routes prove. Not to mention the sewage in the rivers and the annual droughts and hose-pipe bans.
My thoughts entirely.
Some public services should never had been allowed to be sold off to private companies, especially those that are abroad cashing in on it all. We have nothing left now, it’s all gone! Oh, and the competition bringing prices down theory just doesn’t work either.
Good though this is,the Stagecoach network is dysfunctional.there is little point in having low fares without bus services to go with them.
Fantastic news! I love the fact that I can now get from Thanet to Folkestone for £4.