Wednesday 23 April 2008

Un-Fare Prices on Nottingham's Tram

I've been using the tram in Nottingham to get to and from work for about a year. Instead of paying for my fare onboard, I buy a 10 trip pass from any shop with PayPoint facilities. The price has always been £10 so each trip costs £1. If you pay the conductor for a return journey, it will cost £2.40, making it more expensive than my approach. Another reason I choose to buy this type of ticket is because the conductors rarely stamp it meaning I get some journeys for free :D.

As of 28/04/2008, the prices across the range of tickets will go up, making my pass £13 (a whopping 30% increase). My first grumble is that this is a huge jump on what was once a value-for-money scheme. The return ticket will only go up to £2.70; just a fraction more than 2 trips using the pass! My second, and more important, grumble is that I bought one of these passes on 22/04/2008 and was charged the new price of £13. I wasn't aware of the planned increases at the time so I paid the shop assistant. After contacting NET (Nottingham Express Transit) about the issue, it emerged that I'd been charged too much too early. NET spoke to PayPoint on my behalf who kindly gave me a 1 week pass for free.

If you've also paid the new price before the changeover date, submit a complaint on NET's website but remember to keep your pass as they use it to gather information about the transaction.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Similar thing has just happened on the NCT buses in Nottingham. The monthly direct debit price went from £35 to £40 for a month of the Easyrider pass. This is still value for money compared to the £3 per day CityRider ticket. NCT's announcement said "The main reason for the fare revision is the huge and continued increase in fuel prices. NCT are currently paying over 94 pence per litre, compared to only 72 pence per litre a year ago."
What I have noticed is the encouragement they've given car-sharing. If you park and ride now you can buy a 'car' ticket for £4. So if you've got four colleagues to travel in with, £1 a day is a pretty good incentive. Then again, you could all arrive together at the same time at the park and ride, and hop on the bus at the same time to take advantage of the same deal.