Council and bus companies sneak out announcement about fare increases
10 May 2024

Bus companies in Cornwall have announced that some fares are increasing from Sunday 12 May. The announcements have been made on the Go Cornwall Bus website under the News section on Friday 10 May, less than 48 hours before the changes come into effect; similarly on the First website also on Friday 10 May; and on the Transport for Cornwall website, presumably also on the same date; and on First’s twitter feed at about 5 p.m. (see screenshot below). It seems that the bus companies and Cornwall Council hoped that they could slip out this bad news on a Friday afternoon and hope that nobody would notice! By Monday morning, it would have happened anyway.

The £2 single fare cap is still operating, and the bus companies in Cornwall seem to be confirming now that they will continue this until the end of 2024 after there were rumours that there might be some doubt about this, although there may still be a question mark over Stagecoach’s position on this.

The band 1 single price that has applied to short journeys and all journeys within town zones is increasing from its current price of £1.60 to £2.00 in line with the price that applies to a journey of any length.

Return prices are all increasing and to such an extent that it will hardly ever be worth buying a return because the price will be as much as buying two single tickets, or even, on longer journeys, more than two singles! I would hope that any passenger who is unaware of this anomaly and asks a driver for a return is advised by the driver to forget the return ticket and stick with buying two single tickets.

Under 19 fares (called “child tickets”) are increasing considerably, e.g. band 1 single from £1.00 to £1.50, band 2 from £1.40 to £2.00, i.e. the same as an adult because of the government fare cap.

Town zone tickets are increasing considerably. As well as the single now being the same in a town zone at £2 as a journey of any length, a town zone return is increasing to £3.50 which is the same price as a town zone all day ticket, both up from £2.50. For a regular commuter in a town zone, it may still be worth considering the town 5 day bundle at £14.00 but it is a considerable increase from the current price of £10.00. Under 19 town zone prices are also being hiked, e.g. 5 day bundle from £6.00 to £8.80.

The all Cornwall day pass remains at £7 and the weekly and 5-day bundle remain at £25.

Update
13 May 2024
It has become apparent that there is a mistake on the notice of the fare increases. The child (under 19s) prices of the Cornwall week and the Cornwall 5-day bundles are stated to be £13.50, unchanged. These are wrong - the prices have been £15.00 and remain so.

Update
15 May 2024
After I contacted CC Transport and Go Cornwall Bus about the above error, the information has now been corrected on the Go Cornwall website, the First website and the Transport for Cornwall website. There is still, however, the unresolved issue of what will happen in practice where return fares are more than double the cost of a single fare.