Sandwell and Dudley fare cuts to be rolled out across region
Cuts to bus fares on services in Sandwell and Dudley have proved successful enough for the scheme to be rolled out across the West Midlands, an operator says.
National Express said that the trial of cheaper fares on buses around the boroughs had led to enough extra passengers using the service to drive increased revenues on those routes.
That was despite the company's bus division as a whole seeing revenues fall by 0.5 per cent in the first four months of 2017.
The biggest cut in adult fares – at 35 per cent – affected the Sandwell and Dudley low fare zone day ticket which fell from £4.60 to £3 in February.
The children's ticket was cut by more than 50 per cent from £3.10 to £1.50.
An adult weekly travelcard for journeys inside the zone fell to from £15.70 to £11, and a child's weekly travelcard from £8.75 to £5.50.
National Express said it would "extend the lessons from these early successes further across the West Midlands".
Elsewhere, the transport giant saw its overall revenue from continuing operations rise by 5.4 per cent over the period, with acquisitions helping drive growth in profit compared with last year.
Revenue in its coach division, which runs services from the region to major cities all over the country, grew by 2.7 per cent as National Express launched a new revenue management system.
Chief executive Dean Finch said: "I am pleased we have maintained our strong momentum into 2017, with a good revenue performance driven by both organic growth and the benefit of our recent acquisitions.
"Our diversified portfolio is providing broad-based growth that is also providing additional opportunities for further expansion."
He added: "We will continue to focus on operational excellence to drive our growth by both delivering high standard services for our customers and generating cash and returns that we can invest in future expansion.
"We remain on track to meet our full year profit and cash flow expectations."
