Reconsider the decision to stop child bus passes in Cornwall

Children in Cornwall can continue to enjoy cheaper bus journeys after officials said they were reconsidering their decision to stop issuing monthly children’s passes in favor of more expensive weekly passes.

Go Bus Cornwall, which operates local routes on behalf of Cornwall Council, has removed all monthly passes and a weekly family pass on Sundays and increased prices on other passes.

Cornwall City Council told the BBC it was reconsidering the decision to scrap children’s passes due to public pressure, which would have led to a 29% to 73% rise in prices for some schoolchildren.

It said it was “working with bus operators to offer an affordable solution”. Go Bus Cornwall has been contacted for comment.

The council said it was working to reduce the “financial impact of abolishing the children’s monthly pass” and would “provide further information in the coming days”.

However, other price increases remain in place, as well as the decision to eliminate adult monthly passes and weekly family passes.

Cornwall Council said the original decision to scrap monthly passes was “based on data” showing “extremely low usage”. However, he assumed that the removal of children’s tickets “affected children who ride buses to school” but were not entitled to free transport.

The council has not said whether monthly passes for children will be reintroduced or whether it will offer something else instead.

The abolition of adult monthly passes and weekly family passes meant that people who had bought these cards could effectively pay between 45% and 110% more by switching to other, more expensive cards.

The council said less than “one percent of ticket sales” came from the discontinued passes.

The second price increase in less than five months comes when a subsidy program expires, the council said.

It said that keeping the discontinued passes would mean “funding would likely be exhausted by the end of this year”, meaning all passengers “would face paying full fares for journeys much earlier than planned”.

Go Bus has increased adult fares for passes by 7% to 20%, according to figures posted on its website.

The company said last week it had “looked at which products are most important to our customers” and “simplified” the selection of tickets it offers.

Individual bus journeys would remain capped at £2 per journey for adults until the end of the year, while children under five could travel for free, Go Bus said.

The company said it had “subsidized fares to keep them at reduced prices” since it launched its bus fare pilot in April 2022, and estimated that this had been possible Passengers are set to save “millions of pounds”..

However, rising operating costs, which the council said had risen by almost 25%, necessitated an increase in prices.

The council said without subsidies an all-day ticket would cost around £11.50, compared to £7.50 after the price increase.

The council said school buses would not be affected by the fare increases and free travel for eligible students would remain, as would “heavily subsidized bus fares for under-19s”, including a £20 unlimited travel pass.