A ticket to ride

An innovative flat fare, all day ticket for young people is being launched by Merseytravel which offers more choice, more freedom and greater savings.

The £2 ‘My Ticket’ is a new bus ticket for young people aged 5 to 15. It will be available to buy on bus and be valid on participating operators’ services in Merseyside, allowing all day travel across the Merseyside bus network for a potential market of over 180,000 young people.

Merseytravel has worked with bus operators to introduce ‘My Ticket’ in response to the growing call for a more affordable, fair and consistent deal for young people. The ticket will address current issues including different operator ticket costs and restrictions to travelling times, making it easy to understand and simple to use.

Councillor Ron Abbey, Merseytravel Lead Member for Bus said: “This project is a key part of Merseytravel’s drive to offer more affordable travel for young people and is the first step in working with operators to achieve this.

“A young person at one of our customer forums told us he uses three buses to get to and from school, costing over £6 per day, because his mum doesn’t have the money at the beginning of the week to buy a weekly ticket. The £2 ticket will reduce his travel costs and will mean he can meet up with his friends or go to the local youth club in the evening as well.”       

Launched on Thursday 1 May, ‘My Ticket’ comes ahead of a full review of Merseytravel pre-paid tickets which will look at such things as simplifying the range of products available, applicable age ranges and the hours the tickets are valid for.

Plans for ‘My Ticket’ were first announced in January 2014 when Louise Ellman MP for Liverpool Riverside and Chair of the Commons Transport Select Committee, bus operators, local authority and education leaders pledged to work together with Merseytravel to bring down the cost of travel for young people. Young people list the cost of transport as their number one concern according to the Campaign for Better Transport 2013 and a campaign to ‘make public transport cheaper, better and accessible for all’ was selected by the UK Youth Parliament as the priority campaign for 2011/12.

Further information from www.merseytravel.gov.uk/myticket

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