Upon moving to Bristol from Wolverhampton many decades ago, the most striking immediate difference I can recall was that Bristol’s bus fares were double those of Wolverhampton and the service provided by the Bristol Omnibus Company was far more unreliable than that of the West Midlands Passenger Transport Executive (WMPTE).
Much has changed since those days: the Bristol Omnibus Company is now part of FirstGroup, whilst the WMPTE has been rebranded as Centro.
What hasn’t changed over the decades is the exorbitant level of bus fares charged in Bristol and the unreliability of the bus service.
A Bristolian called Daniel Farr has now decided to challenge the high price and unreliable service provided by First Bus in Bristol by setting up a petition on the government’s e-petition site.
The wording of the petition, with which I couldn’t disagree at all, reads as follows:
The prices of First groups [sic] bus tickets in Bristol and the quality of their service do not match up. Their fares are the most expensive outside of London, but yet their buses are unreliable and often late. Local government does nothing to improve the service or lower the prices so we call on the government to force First to reduce their charges.
Finally, frustrated bus users in the city have also set up their own website – http://www.bristolbususers.co.uk/ – to campaign for better and cheaper bus services in the Bristol area.
The petitioner could have justifiably claimed that the fares are even more expensive than in London.
When I moved back to Bristol from London four years ago, a single ZONE 1 and 2 off-peak bus fare on my Oyster card cost 90 pence, which theoretically would have allowed me to travel the 13 miles between Archway (northern limit zone 2) and Brixton (southern limit zone 2) – on the condition of there being a single bus that did such a journey of course, which I don’t think there is. Well I was horrified to discover that it would cost me double to travel just the 3 miles from Kingswood to the centre of Bristol.
Even to this day, and in spite of BoJo’s eye-watering price hikes, Bristol still works out more expensive. A single ZONE 1 and 2 off-peak bus fare on the Oyster card today costs £2.00. Therefore, the 12 mile round trip between Haggerston and Victoria station which I used to do on a regular basis would cost £4.00, or exactly the same amount it would cost me to do the 6 mile round trip from Kingswood to the centre of Bristol.
Aside from this, a complaint I have often made to First Bus and to which I’ve never received a reply is why can’t they publish the prices of all single fares as calculated by fare stage? They will have these documents, produced with public money, so they should damn well be published. It certainly would be helpful for people who are making journeys they don’t usually make or are making for the first time.