Bus fares to rise

The city's leading operator First revealed today that ticket prices on many services will go up by ten per cent or more later this month.

The company blamed soaring costs of diesel, wages and insurance for the increases.

Single tickets, currently costing £1 and £1.50, will rise by ten pence, while a £2.50 return will jump by 30p to £2.80, and a First Day unlimited travel ticket will leap by 50p from £3 to £3.50.

Meanwhile, adult weekly tickets will increase by £1 from £12 to £13, and four weekly tickets will rise from £40 to £44.

However, return tickets for Park & Ride buses are being frozen, by agreement with City of York Council, and there will be no increase in child fares - while senior citizens will continue to enjoy free off-peak travel.

Arriva, which operates buses between Selby and York, is also raising its fares from today. A spokeswoman said most single fares were going up by ten or 20 pence, with return tickets rising by between 20p and 40p, depending on the distance travelled.

A single fare from Selby to York is going up from £2.30 to £2.40, while a return ticket increases from £3.90 to £4.10.

First commercial director Peter Edwards said that its increases, which will come into effect on Sunday, January 21, came after costs had gone up considerably beyond the rate of inflation.

He said buses in York used more than 3.4 million litres of diesel a year and the continuing volatility in world oil prices had a direct effect upon operating costs, while labour and insurance costs had also risen by more than the rate of inflation.

"As a commercial company we have a responsibility to make sure we cover all of our day-to-day costs," he said.

"The two biggest costs are staff wages and fuel for our buses and we try hard to absorb increases in costs ourselves and to keep our fares as low as possible. We have managed to hold our prices for more than a year but we have now reached the point where some fares have had to rise."

He said the repayments received by the company for carrying senior citizens were also fixed, so some of the other fares had had to increase significantly to generate enough income to cover more than a seven per cent overall increase in operating costs.

"Prices of our period tickets have not, however, been increased by the same extent and at £44 a First4Week ticket still represents excellent value."

First operates 22 services throughout York, Copmanthorpe, Bishopthorpe, Dunnington, Stamford Bridge, Earswick, Towthorpe, Strensall, Haxby, Wigginton, Skelton and Upper and Nether Poppleton.

Arriva stressed that the price of daily, weekly and four weekly tickets, offering unlimited travel in North Yorkshire and fully transferable to family and friends, had been frozen.

Phil Stone, managing director for Arriva Yorkshire, said: "We are pleased to be able to maintain the current prices on all our multi-journey tickets which offer full transferability for family and friends. In other areas we have tried to keep fares increases as small as possible to cover additional employment, insurance and fuel costs faced by the business."

Yorkshire Coastliner, which operates services between Leeds, Tadcaster, York, Malton and towns on the East Coast - with a day return between York and Malton costing £5.50 - said it had "no plans to raise fares".

Bus fare increases unacceptable'

First's fare rises were branded "unacceptable" by City of York Council's executive member for transport, Coun Ann Reid.

"Passengers will find increases of up to 16 per cent difficult to accept," she said. "First's claims about rising costs seem to be at odds with their own Bus Industry's Retail Price Index which shows cost increases to be below the rate of inflation in the year ending October 2006. The rate that costs are increasing is also slowing.

"We are shortly to meet with senior managers from First where we will be making strong representations about these unacceptable price rises and doing our best to ensure that prices for the under-16s are kept as low as possible.

"I strongly believe that if children get into the bus habit' early they are more likely to keep using the bus as their preferred form of transport."