Truro park and ride scheme has been one of the great achievements of Cornwall Council transport policy over the past 10 years or so. It has provided a good quality, reliable service much loved by its regular users and by visitors to Truro who have found it easy to use and more cost effective and convenient than parking in the city centre or at the hospital. It has resulted in a significant modal shift from cars to buses and alleviated congestion on the roads and in the city centre car parks. The one flaw in the scheme was always the fact that the people who used it the least were council officers and councillors because the Council provided free parking at County Hall and free parking in Council car parks in the city centre for those who worked in Pydar House.
However, in the past year, the Council seems hell bent on sabotaging all the good points about the park and ride service. First, in February 2023, at very short notice, the ticket offices at each terminus where passengers bought tickets before boarding were closed and passengers were told to pay on the bus, thus slowing boarding times. At the same time, the smart card system which provided discounts for bulk purchase of pre-paid tickets was terminated and regular users were forced to change over to buying through the First Bus app and expiry dates were imposed on the use of the tickets (there had been no expiry dates on the smart card system). This meant that the occasional user would no longer see any advantage in pre-purchasing and would have to pay the full price on the bus at each journey, potentially discouraging some users.
Then on 2 April 2023, prices for day tickets and pre-purchased tickets were increased by 10%.
A year later, from 1 April 2024 ticket prices are going up again - see First Bus press release: day tickets to £2.40 and this will include Saturdays which had, until now, been at half the Monday-Friday price. Multi-day ticket prices are also increasing. There is a new 5-adult day ticket of £6 but how many of those groups there are is anybody’s guess - my guess is not many!
These increases in park and ride prices stand in stark contrast to the slashing of car park charges introduced over the past year, see cut price parking scheme. The Council has also announced half-price car park season tickets in the past few days - that will be the subject of another post shortly. In summary, the price of using the buses is going up, the price of parking in the city centre is going down. The complete opposite of Cornwall Council’s supposed policy of encouraging people to swap from car use to public transport.
However, don’t expect any complaints from Cornwall Councillors about this policy shift because councillors overwhelmingly like to drive to County Hall and park there for free. Seeing a councillor on the park and ride is rarer than hen’s teeth.