Fare changes in Bath

From 30 October 2016 the following tickets will be changing:

Single Tickets in Bath Outer Zone

The on-bus price of single tickets in the Bath Outer Zone will be increasing. If your journey is over three miles you may find it more convenient and it will also save you money if your journey is further than six miles, to purchase your ticket as a set of 10 Single Journeys on the mTicket app.  

	Adult	Student/16-21 Years Old	Child
Up to three miles	from £1.70	from £1.20	from 90p
Three to six miles	from £2.70	from £1.90	from £1.40
Six to nine miles	from £4	from £2.80	from £2
Nine to Twelve miles	from £5	from £3.50	from £2.50
Over twelve miles	from £6	from 4.20	from £3

Bath Outer Zone 10 Journey Ticket 

The price of 10 single journey tickets will be increasing both on-bus and on our mTickets app.

	Adult	Student/16-21 Years Old	Child
10 Single Journey on-bus	£30	£21	£15
10 single journey mTicket	£27	£18.90	£13.50

Night ticket

Allows unlimited travel after 7pm until 4.29am the following morning in your chosen area.

	Adult	Student/16-21 Years Old	Child
Bath Inner Zone	£3	£2	£1.50
New Bath Outer Zone	£5	£3.20	£2.50

Group Day Ticket

This ticket will replace the Family Day Ticket and allows unlimited travel in your chosen area for up to 5 people after 9.30am Monday to Friday, all day Saturdays, Sundays and Public Holidays. There are no age restrictions so up to 5 adults can travel together in a group.

	Group (5 people)
Bath Inner Zone	£8
Bath Outer Zone	£13

Week Ticket

This ticket allows unlimited travel within the chosen area for 7 consecutive days. The on-bus price of all Inner Zone week tickets will increase and the on-bus price of the Child Outer Zone ticket has been rounded up.

	Adult	Student/16-21 Years Old	Child
Bath Inner Zone on-bus	£18.50	£13	£9.20
Bath Inner Zone mTicket or Touch Card	£17	£12	£8.50
Bath Outer Zone on-bus	£23.80	£16.70	£12
Bath Outer Zone mTicket or Touch Card	£22	£15.40	£11

All other fares in Bath Inner and Outer Zone remain unchanged

Buses in Bath are paying a heavy price for congested roads

Here is an extract of a letter we sent to Councillor Turner of BaNES council a month ago for those that may be interested.
.......As the one of largest independent operators of buses in Bath we despair at the attitude of Bath and North East Somerset Council towards buses and coaches.
Traffic in Bath is notoriously unpredictable and therefore we build contingencies into our timetables to try and allow delayed buses to get back on time and comply with our obligations to the lic...encing authorities. The problem arises when a bus does arrive on time is that the driver then has nowhere to go. We are allowed to stand on bus stops for up to ten minutes as long as the driver remains on the bus. When drivers either leave the bus for a ‘call of nature’ or drive around the corner to move out of the way, we are hounded by traffic wardens who regularly ‘ticket’ our buses.

What are we supposed to do ?
Bath is a World Heritage City. Regardless of the council’s political tendencies, there should be a realisation that buses and coaches are better than cars when it comes to reducing traffic, congestion and pollution. We often hear that a bus can replace 50 cars and this is a good thing. We have never heard a complaint that a coach is using up three car parking spaces and this is a bad thing.
Yesterday, the 19th September Bath once again suffered gridlock in the afternoon. Some buses were up to 35 minutes late. Perhaps the bus companies should close for a day to prove to Bath how much it needs public transport ?
We; The bus companies, the politicians, the local council, the residents should all work together to make Bath open to efficient public transport. Otherwise we may as well just have to accept that the battle is lost and Bath is just another victim of the motor car......
Here we are a month later and nothing has changed

The new way forward for bus travel

So why are First bus  encouraging you to buy your bus tickets on the free First Bus mTickets app?
See for yourself the difference between boarding a bus with customers paying by cash v mTickets. The results are unbelievable... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtUGq15dsnU&feature=youtu.be

                                                                    VS

                                         

NEW West of England group ticket available from 30th October 2016

5 people can travel anywhere across the west of England zone for £15 a total of £3 each per person  (your group must travel together through out your journey) Great for a day out Christmas shopping or to get to the office party. This ticket offers unlimited travel across the West of England zone in one given day. You could use the ticket in the morning to buy presents and that new party wear and catch the bus to your party later in the day.
( Some examples across the West of England zone Frome, Bath, Bristol, Wells, Glastonbury, Street, Shepton Mallet, Melksham, Salisbury, Radstock, Midsomer Norton, Devizes and ( Chippenham evenings only using First buses x31 )

Spotted beside the 267 bay

Spotted beside Bay 10  for the 267 a  notice about the new fares in Bath. Their was mention of the new Bath outer evening ticket which will save you £1.50 for an evening out from the 30th Oct ( new price is £5 adult or £3.20 student) Their is also mention about the new group ticket that allows 5 passengers to travel for £15 ( so long as you all remain travelling together )

Room on the 267 bus after a Bath rugby match

It was standing room only on the 2310 from Bath on the 20/10/16 after a Bath rugby match. I hope that the 267 isn't cut next year or these fans will no longer be able to follow their team.

New evening bus ticket for the Bath Outer Zone

New Bath outer evening ticket. From the 30th Oct you can have a night out in Bath or Bristol for £5 adult or £3.20 student ( after 7pm )

CHANGES TO FIRST BUS FARES FROM THE 30TH OCTOBER 2016

-https://www.firstgroup.com/bristol-bath-and-west/more/30-october-fare-revision/fare-changes-bath

267 route during the B3090 road closure at Oldford Hill

The B3090 will be closed 24/7 for drainage works from Monday 17th to Friday 28th October.
Whilst the closure is in place service 276 will divert as follows:
Normal route through Beckington, left onto B3090 to roundabout taking 2nd exit onto A361. Straight over the next two roundabouts, right into Clink Road then Forest Road resuming normal route from the end of Forest Road.
This route will be used in both directions

WARNING the sports centre stop is omitted along with the stops after it until you reach Beckington

x67 and x 34 routes during the closure of Oldford Hill

The B3090 at Oldford will be closed between 17-26 October. During this closure X34 and X67 services will divert via the A361 and Clink Road/Berkley Road before rejoining normal route.  X67 Stonebridge Drive and Brunel way stops will be served in the normal direction of travel. The Frome College stop will not be served during this closure

The B3110 at Norton St Philip will be closed again next Wednesday and Thursday between 0930 - 1530. During the closure X67s will divert via the A36 and Branch Road to Hinton Charterhouse and will not be serving Norton St Philip.
Please be mindful that this diversion will be in addition to the diversion being following due to the Oldford Road closure between Beckington and Frome and therefore delays to the service are highly likely

Delighted to see that Simon Cowell has decided to catch the bus to the first of The X Factor live shows on Saturday evening!
#XFactor #CatchTheBus #ITV

Funding for Wiltshires buses next year

Update - Wiltshire Council has decided to cut £500k from next year's bus budget rather than five times that amount which was their least draconian financial opt...ion in the consultation. Excellent news; perhaps not sustainable to future years, but a real window of opportunity which possibility they acknowledge in their reports.

They are proposing to "buck the national trend and safeguard the services people really need".
Article on their web site at http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/…/bus-services-consultation-hel… and cabinet papers with some more detail mirrored at http://option247.uk/ptr_20161003.pdf .
Personal initial comment: "very sensible news on the buses - I understand that Wiltshire Council has scaled back the cuts it had planned to make in bus service support next year. That means that the support budget will be £4.6 million rather than the previously planned £2.6 million, versus £5.1 million this year. The Council has stated that 97% of passenger journeys are safe, and that services costing over £3.50 per passenger in support will be the only ones subject to review this year. This news is very welcome in that it protects many services that people depend on for next year, and that it opens a window of opportunity to review / recast services for the medium and longer term once the options offered by the Bus Services Bill (report to House of Lords on 12th October) and the linked statutory instruments have been fully defined and initially tested. Cornwall Council (covering a similar sized area and with a similar population density to Wiltshire) are at the forefront of using new powers, with a partnership that could be backed up by franchising if necessary, and although the Council there are busy doing the work rather than doing lots of presentations, I was honoured to be able to attend their first presentation (“of very very few at this stage”) in Plymouth last month, and had the opportunity to speak with their lead who was inspirational, copied his presentation to me, and has offered to talk / help to us in Wiltshire as things progress. We are likely to have one or two highly charged discussions relating to the 3% of passenger journeys (that’s 300,000 rides) subject to review; some services can be sensibly restructured ahead of bus service changes, but some are parts of support “baskets” and we need to be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I know of one service, for example, that’s often full and standing and yet part of a subsidy group that’ll be up for review."