Tag: buses

Fares Up. . . And Fares Down!

by Jim

Bus fares are changing in August, but not all in the same direction – and there will be further ups and downs to come in the next few months.

Free Child Tickets in August

Both our local operators, Stagecoach and Lonsdale Buses, will be participating in the government’s “Great British Summer Savings” scheme that sees children aged 15 and under travelling completely free on local buses for the whole month of August.

Once you have delved deeply enough into the website to find the announcement, here is what Stagecoach says about it: “Free travel is available on most local bus journeys in England between 1 and 31 August 2026 for children aged 5–15 inclusive. However, some services are not included in the scheme, including certain longer-distance coach services, routes where older and disabled persons’ concessionary travel is not available, and dedicated school bus services.” The Bus Users’ Group understands that the only service likely to be included in the list of exceptions, where free child travel will not apply, is service X8, the Saturday-only limited stop service that calls at Lancaster Bus Station en-route from Chorley to Keswick.

Lonsdale Buses does not mention the scheme on its website at the time of writing, but it has confirmed to us that it will be part of the scheme.

There is nothing to say that children have to be accompanied by a fare-paying adult, nor do they need a pass or special ticket to take advantgage of the offer. Older children, however, might want to carry some sort of proof of age, especially if they look older than they are.

Stagecoach Fares up on 5th August

Four days after children become eligible for free travel, the cost for some adult passengers is going up as Stagecoach revises fares.

With effect from Wednesday 5th August, some Stagecoach bus fares are changing across “Cumbria” & Lancashire. Most passengers will not see a change to the fare which they pay, with the maximum price of a single ticket remaining at £3 and some other tickets, such as 28 day and Xtra products, remaining frozen in price.

Full details are on this link: but basically, some fares under £3 will rise by 10p; A Bay Area Day Rider will increase by 20p to £6.20, a Lancashire Day Rider goes up by £1 to £11 and a North West Explorer rises by 50p to £12.50 with a seven day Mega Rider going up from £22 to £23. The maximum price of a single journey will remain capped at £3.

All Fares Reduced from January

Assuming that our local operators agree to participate in the recently-announced £2 Fare Cap Scheme, these increases, at least to single fares, will be short-lived. Any fare under £3 that is increased by 10p from 5th August, will automatically reduce to £2 from January! Existing £3 single fares will also be reduced to £2 for the whole of 2027.

Stagecoach may also not get the hoped-for benefit from the increased price of Day Tickets. At £6.20 the Day Rider will be bought by anyone making more than two “capped” journeys at £3 each, but with the cap at £2 it will need more than three such journeys before a Day Rider becoames the best option. A North-West Explorer at £12.50 will only become a viable option if seven or more journeys are made in one day, making it attractive only to the most dedicated of bus riders.

Lonsdale Buses, assuming it joins the scheme, may want to think about the price of its £15 day ticket – requiring no fewer than 8 journeys in a day to break even against capped single fares.

Neither Up nor Down

And where does all this leave Lancashire County Council’s £1 Evening & Sunday fare cap? These fares won’t be affected by the August increase, but are due to rise to £2 in September. However, in January ALL bus fares are to be capped at £2 (assuming operators participate), which will be government-funded and if the government is paying to cap all fares at £2, presumably Lancashire will not need to pay for them to be capped at all. This could and perhaps should mean that the £1 cap will be reinstated or, better still, not raised from September in the first place.

We will keep you posted.

New Service 85 Timetable Revealed

by Jim
Lonsdale Buses service 85 is being retimed and extended to Lancaster

The new timetable for Lonsdale Buses service 85, Morecambe to Carnforth, from 6th July has appeared on the Bus Times.org website, although you won’t find it anywhere else such as Traveline or even Lonsdale Buses’ own website yet!

Frequency reduced

The service is being extended at both ends of the route. Northbound journeys will now start at Lancaster bus station and run direct via Morecambe Road, picking up the current route at Morecambe bus station. At Carnforth the route is extended to follow the full route of Stagecoach’s 5 from the railway station to Windermere Road. However, as no additional vehicles are allocated, the extra distance means that the frequency is reduced to every two hours. The first bus from Carnforth is at 0700 and the last at 1700. From Lancaster, the first departure is at 0800 but the last is at 1750, running ten minutes earlier than the pattern, which will make it harder to remember.

Criticism

The new 85 will still not be properly integrated with Stagecoach’s 5

When the service was introduced in October last year, it was criticised for being timed just 5 minutes in front of Stagecoach’s service 5 towards Carnforth and 9 minutes in front going towards Morecambe, with both services running hourly. Passengers saw this as wasteful when what was wanted was a regular 30-minute headway, which is also Lancashire County Council’s aspiration for the Overton-Morecambe-Carnforth corridor served by Stagecoach’s 5.

Integration Lacking

However, the new timetable doesn’t deliver this and suffers from the the traditional way in which most bus services appear to be planned in Britain – as individual routes rather than part of an integrated and co-ordinated network as found in places like Germany and Switzerland or, potentially the new franchised networks appearing in places such as Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds.

The new service parallels several Stagecoach routes, all of which operate hourly. Between Lancaster and Morecambe buses on the 85 will run 15 minutes in front of Stagecoach’s 41. Between Morecambe and Carnforth they will still run at similar times to Stagecoach’s 5 although now they will be six minutes behind rather than 5 in front! Because the 85 is timed more quickly than the 5, by Carnforth Railway Station it will run at the same time as the 5 all the way up to Windermere Road, with Stagecoach’s hourly 49 to Lancaster following one minute behind as far as Highfield Road, then nothing for another hour.

In the return direction, the 85 will be 20 minutes behind the 5, which does give a better 20/40 split, although the 85 is of course only every two hours and at certain times of day it will run on top of the 755 as far as Morecambe. Lastly, between Morecambe and Lancaster the 85 will be just 8 minutes in front of Stagecoach’s hourly 41.

The timetable shows a layover time of 17 minutes in Lancaster bus station, which unless the service is to be interworked with something else, will add to the pressure on the inadequate layover space at the station.

What could have been?

Clearly with a route of this nature it would not be possible to produce a regular interval timetable with parallel services over the whole route. However, a cursory look at timetables suggests that if the core section between Morecambe and Carnforth were timed to run exactly half-an-hour apart from the 5 the only real drawback would be that it would more closely duplicate the 41 between Morecambe and Lancaster, although even here the mid-afternoon journey would fill a two-hour gap in the 41 timetable.

The Bus Times version of the new timetable is on this link: Service 85 from 6th July 2026