| As a result of escalating fuel prices Nottingham City Transport have reviewed and simplified the fare structure for bus passengers from Sunday 3rd April 2005, some of NCT, South Notts and Pathfinder fares will change on this date, most remain unchanged.
NCT MD Mark Fowles stated “The increase is designed to simplify fares in the Greater Nottingham area and promote our pre-purchase fare schemes, thus rewarding regular passengers. There are only 3 adult fare types in the City which actually increase and many of our passengers will feel no effect at all.”
Fares for passengers making a return journey using the all day ticket “CityRider”, (providing unlimited travel on bus and tram in the City area) will remain the same at £2.30 Adult and £1.50 for Child CityRider. These tickets represent around 25% of all journeys made on the NCT network (around 225,000 a week) and usage is expected to rise, following changes to the single ticket prices.
In fact NCT's fares in general, are still extremely good value for money when compared to virtually any other major city in the UK . For example, the Derby and Leeds equivalents of the all day CityRider are £3.00 (Arriva Derby) and £2.80 (First Leeds) respectively.
Easyrider city season passes (28 days and above) which are renewed by phone, on the internet or Direct Debit also remain unchanged. Easyrider city usage, accounts for almost a quarter of NCT's patronage, and none of the remote ways to top up this ticket have increased in price, although the less popular 7 and 28 days cash renewal options have seen increases.
In addition, the easyrider anytime travel card, a “pay as you go” card, has actually decreased in price and NCT has also introduced a lesser cost alternative (2 and 5 day options) to stimulate demand for this excellent “pay as you go” new fare initiative.
Like many businesses, NCT's costs have increased in the last year. Most of these have increased broadly in line with wage or price inflation, however the cost of diesel fuel in particular has been a large issue for the company.
The price NCT pays for diesel has risen over the year from just over 60p a litre (net of VAT) this time a year ago to a price today of over 72p per litre. This 20% rise in NCT's second biggest variable cost after wages would be a large rise alone but, given that the company uses around 8.5 million litres of diesel a year. However, the reality is even worse, NCT(as all other bus operators) receives Bus Service Operator's Grant of around 38p per litre from Central Government, and that this does not change with fuel prices, which means the actual percentage rise in cost on a litre of diesel, net of BSOG, is a huge 55% to the Company.
Clearly a 55% rise in the second biggest cost to the company is one which NCT and many other operators across the country, cannot afford to absorb, thus some fares will change on 3 rd April 2005 to offset these massive increases – see table below.
Passengers have stated, that they find the current NCT fare structure too complicated. In addition, recent findings following the ticket checking venture last week with Nottinghamshire Police, reveal that Ticket overriding is a major occurrence and thus a big issue to NCT in terms of lost revenue.
The decision to reduce the number of single ticket options from 3 to 2 - 80p short hop up to ½ mile & £1.20 within the city area, addresses both these issues.
The smallest single fare, currently 70p, moving to 80p, accounts for less than 2% of all NCT's journeys, whilst the £1 ticket currently, and the £1.10 ticket currently, both moving to £1.20, account for around 13% and 11% of NCT's journeys respectively.
The new single fare of £1.20 is similar to other operators fares for journeys in the City area at present, furthermore it is anticipated that many £1.10 customers making 2 journeys a day will transfer to CityRider, thus only suffering an increase of 4.5% in daily travel cost. The £1.10 fare level has not increased for 2 years.
Some of the customers who currently use single fares may well find that they can limit their price rise by switching to easyrider city or easyrider anytime smart cards.
Pathfinder and South Notts fares outside the City have also been simplified as part of this revision. Some fares have increased, some have decreased, and some have seen no change.
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