London Bus fares rise by 42%. Or become free. (Depending on how you do the sums. Or how old you are)

Not a great day in the media for London's Transport as the annual ritual of the fare increase announcement enjoyed its latest instalment. Punitive rises all round it seems this time round. Well, until you have a careful look at the small print, which has some better news:

• Free travel on buses for all under-16s from September 2005 (probably not such happy news for bus drivers though!)
• Free travel on buses for all under-18s in full time education from the following year
• Off peak Oyster Pre Pay bus fares only increase by 10p - (off peak on the buses is defined as before 0630 and after 0930 on weekdays and all day at weekends)

Of course you can have a lot of fun when you start using percentages to illustrate the changes in very small figures. For example currently my Oyster pre-pay charges me 70p for a bus journey during peak hours, from January next year it will be £1 - a headline busting 42% rise. And who could resist the temptation to quote that ;-)

Posted by Martin Belam, September 21, 2004
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