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Goodbye 2d!
Page 44
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• Tomorrow, June 6, will be the last day on which a 2d ticket for a full adult fare can be bought on a British bus. The 2d ticket issued by Leicester City Transport—claimed by the undertaking to be the last in the UK—will disappear from the schedule on Sunday following a successful application to the East Midland Traffic Commissioners last week. There were no objectors.
The overall effect will be to increase fares by 10 per cent and bring an extra £211,000 in a full year. In anticipation of D-day, a decimal equivalent of the application was also submitted. General manager Mr L. H. Smith explained that the decimal equivalents would bring in a further £12,000 because it was impossible to balance the revenue exactly on conversion.
The chairman, Mr C. M. Sheridan, said it was important that decimalization should not be made an excuse for profit making, but the Leicester application was so modest that the extra £12,000 could rank as an increase deferred until decimalization.
Mr Smith told the hearing that the entire bus industry was against the new fp which was farthing-sized and could not be accepted by present automatic machinery. With the increasing trend to o-m-o, there would be a slowing down of fare collection if the coin were used, and consequent congestion. Told that the undertaking's average annual passenger loss over the past 10 years was two per cent, the chairman commented: "would that it were that figure all over the country."
The hearing was told that Leicester's costs had increased by /300,000 since the last fares increase in January, 1968. The undertaking had operated at a surplus until the last wage awards earlier this year and was completely debt free.
[Mr L. H. Smith, Leicester general manager, will be presenting a paper on many aspects of urban transport planning to CM's Fleet Management Conference on September 17 in London I.