Passengers face increase in fares for Midland Metro and buses
The price of a single ticket on the Midland Metro and National Express buses will increase in the New Year, it has been announced.
The adult maximum single ticket will increase four per cent from £2.30 to £2.40.
Overall, out of 32 fares provided by National Express, which also operates Midland Metro, 19 are to go up, with up to 50 per cent being added to some ticket prices.
A dozen tickets are set to stay at the same price, whilst the off-peak adult short hop ticket will go down in price from £1.90 to £1.50.
All adult West Midlands travel cards are set for an increase, with the year passes now costing £28 more from £650 to £678 and the city hop service will go from £1 to £1.50
The off-peak daysaver which offers unlimited bus travel after 9.30am weekdays and all day weekends is frozen at £4, whilst student bus passes remain frozen.
The increases will come into effect from January 2 and National Express maintain the increased fares will go towards giving staff pay rises, which they aim to do every year.
A spokesperson from National Express said: "We continue to invest in providing better services for our passengers and we are planning to buy more state-of-the-art Platinum buses, following on from already high customer satisfaction rates across our current Platinum routes.
"Half of the new buses will have hybrid engines to improve air quality across the region and we are also refurbishing hundreds of our other buses to bring them up to Crimson standard.
"From spring 2017 we are also fitting brand-new ticket machines in all our buses, speeding up journey times for our passengers and giving them the choice to pay with contactless bank cards, smart phones and watches as well as with cash.
"Over half of our costs go on wages for our 5,500 staff who do a great job helping hundreds of people get to work, school and to see their family and friends every day.
"We are the largest private company in the West Midlands to pay the Living Wage Foundation-accredited Living Wage and were the first private transport group to accredit, which testifies to our determination to be the best possible employer.
"We believe these tickets are good value, we're proud of our staff – they work hard and they deserve their pay rises."
Earlier this year, National Express increased the number of luxury platinum bus routes in the West Midlands. The Birmingham based firm invested £8 million in a new fleet of 46 of the luxurious buses which have comfier seats, more legroom, free 4G wifi and USB points to charge mobile phones or electronic devices.
For more information on the price changes, go to www.nxbus.co.uk
