Having lived in Edinburgh for less than two years, I have now witnessed two separate fare increases on Lothian Buses.
Lothian buses is publicly owned, and they are taking some serious heat for the latest round of fare hikes. They claim increased costs and cuts to government subsidies. Even though bus service is generally quite good, I see no apparent improvement in service hours or frequency as a result of the second annual fare increase.
Lothian buses are the primary operator for municipal buses in Edinburgh, but First Bus company (which is private) also operates in the city. In Canada, municipal bus service is almost always operated by local governments or crown corporations.
That doesn’t always mean affordability, but in the UK there is a long nasty history of privatization in the transport sector. In most cases, service levels dropped and fares increased when train and bus routes were contracted out to private companies. Those companies slashed wages and cut staff levels, and several still couldn’t stay in business. Political pressure forced the government to intervene.
I’m told that bus drivers actually do quite well here in terms of salary, but I don’t really see users getting as much value here as they should be. The bus routing is not well done. Part of that can be attributed to the poor Edinburgh road system, and the current tram works on Princes street. However, even before that, there was always a logjam of buses on Princes Street and in the rural areas outside of Edinburgh, its common to see those big double decker buses with fewer than ten people on them.
There is only one express bus (to the airport) and you pay a premium to use that. You also have to pay a premium fare to travel on the night buses (even if you have a monthly pass).
Its difficult to make a direct comparison in service levels, but I was curious about just how those fares compared to my own country. I tried to focus on cities that were similar to Edinburgh, didn’t have metros or LRT systems, and were the central city for their region (not a suburb of a larger metro).
When I did the currency conversions, I found that single journey tickets and day passes in Edinburgh are still quite cheap compared to Canada, but you can often spend less in Canada on monthly passes, particularly when you factor in the public transit tax credit. There are concessions in Edinburgh as well, mainly the Scottish National Entitlement Card, which allows some young people and anyone over 6o or disabled to travel on the bus for free.
| City | Transit Operator | Single Cash Fare | DayPass | Monthly Pass |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edinburgh, Scotland (pop. 486,000) | Lothian Buses | £1.40 | £3.50 | £51.00 |
| Victoria, British Columbia, Canada (pop. 345,000) | BC Transit | £1.58 | £4.91 | £53.94 |
| Quebec City, Quebec, Canada (pop. 516,000) | Reseau de transport de la Capitale | £1.62 | £4.34 | £47.40 | Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada (pop. 663,000) | Winnipeg Transit | £1.62 | N/A | £48.82 |
| Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (pop. 692,000) | City of Hamilton | £1.62 | N/A | £55.11 |
| Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada(pop. 403,000) | MetroTransit | £1.42 | N/A | £44.33 |
Wright After Reading 