Cornwall Bus Fares Set to Increase Following National Cap Adjustment

Bus fares in Cornwall are expected to increase following the government’s decision to raise the national bus fares cap to £3. Transport for Cornwall stated that the existing cap was £2 and, on Wednesday, detailed the forthcoming changes to bus fares in 2025 and their implications for residents of Cornwall. The organization also indicated that certain routes would receive subsidies via Cornwall Council’s reduced fares pilot program. The adjustment to the cap on single bus journeys was initially disclosed in the October budget. In 2019, the Department for Transport allocated £23.5 million to Cornwall Council for the implementation of a bus fares pilot scheme. This initiative involved compensating bus operators for the disparity between the fare paid by passengers and the standard commercial fare that would have been applied without the pilot. The primary objective of this pilot was to assess how reduced fares influenced passenger volumes. Although the pilot was originally scheduled to commence in April 2020, it was delayed until April 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Through this reduced fares pilot, the Transport for Cornwall partnership, comprising Cornwall Council and bus operators like Go Cornwall Bus and First Bus, successfully lowered bus fare costs and experimented with various new ticket choices. Go Cornwall Bus reported that the Cornwall day ticket, which will be priced at £8 starting in January, would have cost £11 without the reduced fares pilot. The company also stated that the bus fares pilot in Cornwall facilitated the sale of over 8.7 million discounted tickets and accounted for more than 15.7 million journeys. Go Cornwall Bus further indicated that the pilot’s funding was nearing depletion, suggesting that fares would probably revert to their commercial rates by the close of 2025.