Research and analysis

Evaluation of the £2 bus fare cap

Final report and associated interim reports on the £2 bus fare cap.

From:
Department for Transport
Published
17 May 2023
Last updated
12 February 2025 — See all updates

Applies to England

Documents

Evaluation of the first 10 months of the £2 bus fare cap

PDF, 2.81 MB, 151 pages

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£2 bus fare cap evaluation: interim report February 2023

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£2 bus fare cap evaluation: interim report January 2023

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Details

The £2 bus fare cap ran from 1 January 2023 until the end of 2024 to help passengers save on their regular travel costs. It was replaced by a new £3 bus fare cap on single bus fares in England outside London from 1 January 2025 through to 31 December 2025. 

The aims of this evaluation are to:

  • find out the extent to which the bus fare cap achieves its aims of saving bus passengers money and encouraging greater bus usage
  • understand how the fare cap is experienced across the country by bus users and non-users

The January 2023 report includes baseline trends from the period before the £2 bus fare cap scheme was introduced, including trends in bus usage and the cost of bus travel.

Observations from the first month of the £2 bus fare cap scheme include that:

  • take-up of the scheme varied by region, rurality, household income and car ownership
  • awareness of the scheme was high with national news acting as the main channel for raising awareness
  • early evidence suggests a potentially positive impact on patronage and the cost of living

The February 2023 report includes observations from the first 2 months of the £2 fare cap scheme including trends in:

  • patronage between early 2022 and early 2023, which appears to continue to recover following the COVID-19 pandemic (early evidence suggests the £2 Bus Fare Cap may be playing a role in this recovery)
  • ticket sales, with an increase in the number and proportion of single bus journeys since the scheme started

The January 2025 report presents an evaluation of the impacts of the £2 bus fare cap over its first 10 months (January to October 2023).

Frontier Economics and SYSTRA were commissioned to complete the evaluation on behalf of the Department for Transport.

Updates to this page

Published 17 May 2023
Last updated 12 February 2025 + show all updates

  1. Final evaluation report added.

  2. Added interim report February 2023.

  3. First published.

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