Monday, 22 February 2010

Stagecoach Fare Increase

Stagecoach will be putting up it's prices on the 28th February.

The new prices will be;
  • Dayrider - £3.40 (+10p, +3%)
  • Dayrider Plus - £5.20 (+20p, +4%)
  • Family Dayrider Plus - £5.70 (+20p, +3.5%)
  • Megarider - £11.50 (+50p, +4.5%)
  • Megarider Plus - £20.50 (+50p, +2.5%)
The announcement is available here (from Stagecoach's website).

It's disappointing that in a time of economic hardship for residents across the region the bus provider in the area is raising fares. Especially when looking at it's published accounts Stagecoach managed to turn a £205m profit in 2008 into a £227m profit in 2009 - clearly escaping many of the effects of the recession.

At the same time as raising prices Stagecoach has also been proposing many cuts to the local bus services (like the evening stops for the Citi 4) and this is even before the cuts related to the opening of the Guided Bus take effect.

It's very difficult to see how this can possibly be justified. Perhaps The Office of Fair Trading knew what it was doing when it referred the Local Bus Market to the Competition commission.


2 comments:

GregoryB said...

The City Council is increasing the price of car parking by 10p or 20p *an hour*!
http://kingshedgesfocus.blogspot.com/2009/10/cambridge-city-centre-parking-changes.html

To paraphrase, it's disappointing that in a time of economic hardship for residents across the region the City Council is raising charges. It's very difficult to see how this can possibly be justified.

Anonymous said...

The money Cambridge City raises will go into not cutting services - services which are more in need than ever - during a recession.

Stagecoach is raising fares to increase (or maintain) its profits.

Not quite the same thing!

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