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With the lifting of the government’s cap on single bus fares in England from £2 to £3 from the start of the year, Stagecoach has announced details of its fares that will apply when services resume after the New Year break on Thursday, 2nd January.

All medium and long-distance fares from Lancaster, to places such as Morecambe, Carnforth, Galgate, Preston and Keswick will rise to £3, but will still offer substantial savings over the fares that applied before January 2023.

Local Fares

For shorter journeys, there will be fares of £1.80, £2 and £2.30, according to distance. Whilst some passengers currently paying £2 will see an increase of 30p, others will continue to have their fares frozen for a further twelve months, whilst others will experience a small reduction.

The £1.80 fare will take passengers from Lancaster city centre as far as Lily Grove on Greaves Road; Palatine Avenue on Bowerham Road; Scale Hall Spar on Torrisholme Road; Scale Hall Road on the 6A; Noel Road on service 7; Westbourne Road on service 11; Hill Road on Halton Road on the 49 and Barley Cop Lane on the 55 and 555 along Owen Road.

The new £2 uncapped fare will apply to a small number of journeys, including those to Lancaster University (on all services), Hazelrigg Lane on services 40 – 42 and Hathaway Road on service 7.

For £2.30, passengers can travel as far as Lancaster & Morecambe College on service 100; White Lund Industrial Estate on the 6A; Kellet Lane on service 49 and Beaumont College on the 55 and 555. This fare will also apply to those stops on services to Marsh, Vale and Ridge not covered by lower priced tickets.

The new fares are in the Stagecoach Journey Planner and can be checked by making a “Plan jour journey” enquiry and setting the date to 2 January or later.

Day, Week and Longer Tickets

Stagecoach has chosen not to increase the price of its Daily, Weekly and longer period tickets. A Bay Area DayRider will remain at £5.70 and will therefore now offer a small saving over two £3 capped single fares for journeys such as Lancaster to Morecambe.

Similarly the 7-Day Bay MegaRider price has been frozen at £21, meaning that passengers who have been travelling five days a week at a cost of £20 (10 x £2 singles) will suffer only a small increase of £1 a week and will also gain free travel on the remaining two days.

Stagecoach has announced details of amended timetables over the Christmas and New Year period, between 23rd December 2024 and 5th January 2025.

Services will be broadly similar to those in recent years. During this period, services will run to a SATURDAY timetable with the following exceptions:

Despite them being two of the busiest nights of the year for celebrations and “going out for the evening”, most Stagecoach buses will be tucked up in the garage by 19.00hrs on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve (neither of which are public holidays). For some services this means a particularly early shut down, with the last bus on the 51 from Carnforth to Silverdale being at 15.45, returning from Silverdale at 17.08.

The 555 Lancaster-Kendal-Keswick also closes down earlier than last year, with the last bus from Keswick to Lancaster being as early as 14.30 and from Kendal at 16.15. The last northbound buses on this service will be at 14.05 to Keswick and 17.50 to Kendal.

No buses will run on Christmas Day, whilst on Boxing Day a limited daytime-only timetable will be in operation on services 1A 2X 5 6A 41 55 and 100 only.

There will be no buses on New Year’s Day, and a Saturday timetable will be in force on all services on Thursday 2nd, Friday,3rd and Saturday 4th January

Normal service resumes on Sunday 5th January.

For full details of the amended services, including Boxing Day timetables, follow this link.

Details of services provided by Lonsdale Buses will be posted once we receive them.