Progress with 'special offer' bus fares
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• Special offers on bus fares aimed at shopping traffic led to an increase in passengers, but insufficient additional revenue to offset the fare reductions was obtained, the West Riding Group of companies reveal in a report published last week.
Two experiments were undertaken, the first applying to West Riding's Lupset Estate, Wakefield, to Wakefield city centre service, on Tuesday, October 12. The reduced fares consisted of a penny off all fares available between 9 am and 4 pm, designed to attract shopping traffic on a quiet shopping day; a 2.6 per cent increase in passengers resulted.
The second experiment was more ambitious, and on each of four successive market days on Wednesdays and Saturdays, reductions of lp were applied on different groups of Yorkshire Woollen's services to and from Dewsbury, again between 9 am and 4 pm.
As a further inducement shopping vouchers were given to all bus passengers to Dewsbury on market days entitling the holder to lp reduction on purchases at market stalls. The traders and the company mounted a joint campaign publicizing the concessions.
The outcome of the latter experiment was a passenger increase of 4.4 per cent, and a revenue fall of 1.2 per cent.