This paper explores the reception of the UK Government’s £2 fare scheme, as a recent programme to “get people back on the bus”. Whereas low or no fares for public transport has gained currency in the context of academic and policy contexts, this paper presents some industry perspectives from some English bus operators, and discusses them alongside with media discourses of such scheme. With the focus on English rural bus services, this paper presents some marginalised perspectives of the operations and long-term effects of low or no fares policies. It argues alternatively with a consumption framework instead, from the rather dominant justice and rights frameworks (such as Cresswell, 2010; Sheller, 2018) in understanding the meanings and levels of fares. Major points include comparing with choices in automobilities, to which how paying the expenses of a car has contributed to the status of car travel vis-à-vis that framework being applied on public transport for those willing and able to pay. It also discusses how a planner-driven public transport network potentially further reduce public transport options by exerting fuller control of people’s choices, and how fare-free transport potentially discard efforts made in raising statuses and standards of buses, such as the premium brandings by English bus operators. It aims to cover views from a wider spectrum, and of some under-represented stakeholders that are crucial to the operations and making choices itself, not only justice-minded activists and planners, towards contributing to a fuller discussion of the idea of public transport fares fundamentally.

Kevin K.H. TSANG
Institute from Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship, Goldsmiths, University of London

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ID Abstract: 490