Demand for £2 bus fares in South Yorkshire ‘surpasses all expectations’

Passengers have bought discounted tickets to complete more than 1.25m journeys since the scheme was launched on November 1, and more than half were made in the most deprived areas.

South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard brought in the £2 cap on single journeys before the Government capped bus fares across England at the same price for three months.

Around £1.1m will be handed to bus and tram operators by South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority, to subsidise the fares for passengers.

According to the organisation, it will cost around £400,000 more than originally planned as demand for the scheme has “surpassed all expectations”.

Mr Coppard said: “It’s been great to see so many people take advantage of the £2 fare cap on bus and tram journeys in South Yorkshire.

"Since we launched our scheme in November, the cap has saved passengers a combined £500,000 over more than 1m journeys.

“The cost-of-living crisis continues to affect us all and cutting public transport costs is part of the solution for the thousands of people in our region who rely on our buses and trams.

“That’s why we brought the fare cap in early in South Yorkshire, months ahead of the Government’s national scheme and extended it to tram.

“So it’s deeply disappointing that operators not only made sweeping cuts to services by plan to raise fares on buses and trams.

"At a time where we’re trying to cut congestion and air pollution, these actions fly in the face of everything we are collectively trying to achieve.”

The Labour mayor, who wants to bring buses back under public control, added: “This is yet more evidence that our public transport system is broken, and we need to see transformational change here in South Yorkshire. That’s exactly what I intend to deliver.”

In October, 45 South Yorkshire bus services were axed by operators who claim they are struggling with the significant drop in passenger numbers and rising costs.

It came after the Government agreed to extend the £2bn Bus Recovery Grant (BRG), which was designed to protect services during the pandemic, until the end of March.

Official figures show the number of bus cancellations more than doubled in South Yorkshire, between 2021 and 2022, rising from 8,304 to 23,986.

Over the period, the number of services which ran also fell by 18 per cent, to 838,969.

South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority said there has been a “vicious cycle of decline” in recent years, as people stop using buses because they are seen as unreliable and operators then reduce the number of services they run and cut investment due to falling passenger numbers.

Figures show the number of passenger journeys fell from nearly 115m in 2009/10 to just over 90m in 2018/19.

That number plummeted during the pandemic and it is expected to rise to just 65m by 2023/2024.