Return fares R.I.P.  and child fares virtually abolished
2 January 2025

Further to my story on bus fare rises, there is more bad news as further details emerge.

The bus companies (Go Cornwall Bus and First Bus) announced in late December, "From 1 January 2025, the majority of single bus journeys will cost £3. There are some which will cost less than £3 as part of our offer to passengers.”

No further details were given on what would be in this "offer to passengers". I asked Cornwall Council for a schedule of the new single and return fares so that we could all see what the impact woud be on various fare bands and also on child (under 19) fares. It took four attempts to prise the information out of the council before I was finally given the table of fares, see below. The Council provided the table on the left, and I have added the information about the pre BFP fares on the right of the table.

Overall, it is very bad news for bus passengers. In essence return tickets are now defunct. Priced at exactly two times the single fare, there are no circumstances in which it makes sense for a passenger to buy a return rather than two singles. This is a major change from the strategy that bus companies have had for years of pricing a return fare at one-and-half times the single fare.

For child fares, until recently, the Council and the bus companies trumpeted the message that under 19s could generally travel at 50% of the cost of an adult. With the new fare structure, the biggest discount that a child will receive off the single adult fare is 20% and that is just for band 1 journeys; for band 2 journeys, the discount is just 17%, and beyond band 2, all children over 5 years will pay the full adult fare. With multi-journey bundles such as the Cornwall all day ticket, the discount is around 25% (see table on page about bus fare rises).

As can be seen from the table, child fares have rocketed since before the Bus Fares Pilot (BFP) started. In the worst case, a child short-hop return fare in early 2022 would have cost £1.50; as of today, it would cost £4.00.

It is only the government funded maximum single fare cap that is keeping some adult fares on longer journeys below those before the BFP. When this year’s £3 maximum single fare cap comes to an end, one can only hazard a guess at how high bus fares are going to go.

It is no wonder that the Council and the bus companies are not saying anything about this in their publicity about the new fares structure.

Also, as is always the case, the Transport for Cornwall website has not been updated and its information on ticket prices is all based on the 2024 situation. There is absolutely nothing about the January 2025 price rises.

Update
4 March 2025
For updates, see young persons fares reduced, and young persons fares more info.