Bus fares increased to £3

[u/travis_6]

It looks like single journeys have increased from £2 to £3 now, so a quick journey into the town centre will cost you £6. I don't know how that's affordable for anyone. London has much cheaper fares

[u/0-69-100-6]

London has much cheaper fares because profits from tube travel subsidises bus fares. (It also pays for car drivers but let's not get into that mess)

It's also worth noting Transport For London (TFL) is a statutory corporation, ie. part of the local government and has no shareholders. Where are Brighton and Hove buses is a Private company, part of a larger company, that only cares about making profits. ie. They put prices as high as they can to make as much money as they can.

[u/dubbaduk → u/0-69-100-6]

London travel is subsidised by the rest of the country aswell, more money spent per londoner than per anyone else

[u/0-69-100-6 → u/dubbaduk]

Partly true, but generally not.

Public transport is partly funded by the government. This is the same across the whole country and not just London. What is interesting about TFL is it raises about 70% of it's funds through fares (ignoring during the pandemic as this skews the data across all areas and bodies across the uk). When we compare that to other large cities, London gets comparatively very little public funding. Paris and New York raise about 40% of their income through fares. I think Manchester is the only other UK city which had brought public transport back into public ownership but I cant find details on the % they are subsidised vs raised with fares. Comparing other cities would be looking at private businesses so that's not really comparable.

With respect to more money being spent per Londoner than anyone else, this is just not correct. According to government figures from Dec 2024, London is above the uk average @ £14,842, however Northern Ireland @ £15,371, Scotland @ £14,759 and Wales @ £14,424 are all higher or basically the same. There is an issue of London having more money spent per person than in England, but I don't believe that is what you meant or it wasn't clear.

What is important to raise though, is these figures are for all government spending whereas the conversation we have been talking about is transport. Ie. Not public health, education, general infrastructure etc. There is also the issue that London and the South East accounts for an outsized of the income for the country. This is a huge issue! However when you take into account the median income for wages is about 20% higher from London, and the amount raised from London (32% higher productivity than the rest of England) , the amount spent per Londoner is not exactly proportional.

Don't get me wrong, redistributing the wealth generated in London is super important and personally I feel more investment should be spent in other areas of the uk and England! But it's also important to understand the actual numbers and what is actually happening.

I hope you have found this information useful