£2 Government Bus fares cap extended in England

but not in London.

Well as the flat fare of £1.75 in London, is set by the Mayor, of course not.
On the Superloop network you can travel for nearly 3 hours on that fare, if you get your timings right.
The same applies to the £2 flat fares in Manchester, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire, which are set by the respective Mayors, not by the Government.
The Manchester scheme is technically temporary with no end date.
The only fly in the ointment is that if a through bus changes route numbers during it's journey, you have to pay 2 x £2 fares. In the case of Lancaster to Skipton it changes route number twice, so you have to pay 3 x £2 fares for the through journey on the same bus.

The £2 bus fare scheme across England has now been extended to the end of December 2024- it is not now rising to £2.50 at the end of October 2023 as previously scheduled- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67005036

Bit unfair that the tourists also benefit from this. Most of us who actually live here can’t afford a holiday. It’s a bit irritating to see a bus full of American visitors benefiting when they can more than afford to pay full fare!

The "unfair" thing I can think of are the longer distance bus services that are sold online by coach companies, often but not exclusively for connections, at a higher price than the £2 you'd pay directly. These may well be the "normal" price but they haven't been that on the ground for some time.

Examples are National Express Leeds to York connection on the Coastliner and the Bristol to Bath connection on the X39.

On Megabus a prime example is the X5 Oxford to Milton Keynes to Bedford service, which is £2 if you pay the driver, or several times that on Megabus (or a different fare again on National Express).

All those examples have been given on the forum several times. There are others.

Another example is the Stagecoach Falcon bus from Bristol to Plymouth. Although not in the £2 scheme Megabus do not give senior discounts- but they are available from the driver. And many (but not all) shorter distance fares on the Falcon are cheaper as pay the driver than on line.

I have no difficulty with visitors using the £2 fare. In fact that is still expensive, at least for visitors from the Pacific North West where a large number of local transit systems are either zero fare or a very notional fare.

If it gets people out of their cars (whether residents or visitors) that is a good thing for the environment.

£2 fare or not, this Monday I was the only passenger on a 25 mile bus ride. That service has only recently been re-instated. But before it was cancelled several years ago the then subsidy per passenger journey was an astonishing £43- such was the lack of use . It is now being subsidised by a school transport contract.

Bit unfair that the tourists also benefit from this. Most of us who actually live here can’t afford a holiday. It’s a bit irritating to see a bus full of American visitors benefiting when they can more than afford to pay full fare!

Honestly, Have you actually seen a busload of Americans using a 2 GBP fare? I think it is far more likely that the average American traveler to the UK doesn’t know about the various discounts and is paying the expensive walk-up fares on the train.

Laura has it spot on.

I have been travelling extensively on the £2 bus fare and have yet to encounter any more tourists on buses I have used (US or otherwise) than in any other year, including in the Central Lake District. Also recently to Ripon and York- both tourist destinations, but very few tourists on the buses.

On this forum we seriously struggle to get people interested in using buses, even in the big cities, a huge shame.

I see little sign of the so called "cost of living crisis" where I am- a supposedly impoverished area.

And anyone who really and honestly can't afford a foreign holiday should use the £2 fares or the £15 go anywhere National Express mid week coachcard fare, and stay in guest houses in a part of the country they have never visited.
They may be surprised at their own country.