As well as price increases on Island Line Trains, all Southern Vectis multi-day bus pass prices will also be subject to rises next week.
With UK inflation at 4.8% [November 2011: source BBC], one reader, who got in touch with VB last week, told us that he was extremely unhappy to see Southern Vectis plan to increase their Freedom Pass prices by around 10%.
As you’ll see from the table below, the increases are well above inflation, ranging between 9.09% to 10.39% on this year’s fares.
| 2011 | 2012 | Increase | %age increase | |
| Freedom 7 Full | £22.00 | £24.00 | £2.00 | 9.09% |
| Freedom 7 Half | £11.00 | £12.00 | £1.00 | 9.09% |
| Freedom 7 Family | £44.00 | £48.00 | £4.00 | 9.09% |
| Freedom 30 Full | £77.00 | £85.00 | £8.00 | 10.39% |
| Freedom 30 Half | £38.50 | £42.50 | £4.00 | 10.39% |
| Freedom 90 Full | £198.00 | £217.00 | £19.00 | 9.60% |
| Freedom 90 Half | £99.00 | £108.50 | £9.50 | 9.60% |
Addendum
We contacted Marc Morgan Hughes (MMH), who is in charge of Southern Vectis, asking for details of the new prices for 2012.
His single-line, un-illuminating response was, “It’s all on our website and facebook.”
So, we took all of the details that were posted on the Facebook page he’d pointed us to – the Freedom Pass 2012 rates (nothing about other fares on there) – made the comparison with the 2011 fares and published the article. We wrote again to MMH, offering him a further chance to comment on the increases.
He replied, “They’re not high across the board. As you’ll see our singles have not risen at all, and have not done so for a while. The freedom prices have risen only once since 2006.”
At a little before 6pm on the 30th Dec he wrote again saying …
“Your article is misleading. You state that our fares have risen by around 10%. All our single fares have changed by 0%, as have our 1 day, e day and Nightrider tickets.
More than 50% of fares have seen no increase. The rise across the board for fare paying customers is 4% average. RPI is currently 5%.
I’d be grateful if you could change your report to reflect this please. “
We don’t think the piece is misleading as the table on VB clearly only shows the details of the Freedom Passes (it’s the only info we’d been pointed to on Facebook). However, to avoid any possible confusion, we have altered the title and intro to explicitly mention the multi-day Freedom Pass and given MMH his say.
Image: TaxBrackets.org under CC BY 2.0
