I wouldn’t be surprised if some people from the Hucknall area are now using the buses more instead of the trams. With it now being £5.30 for an adult to make a return journey into the city, that doesn’t compare well with £4 on the bus with the current £2 single fares. Even the train on the Robin Hood Line is far less than the tram at £4.20. It’s just inconvenient that since Covid the trains are now only hourly off peak Mon-Fri.
Passenger numbers from Hucknall must be well down since pre covid lockdown days. The car park used to be full and overflowing well before 9am each morning but now there’s usually plenty of free spaces available all day.
Wouldn't be surprised if people are bussing either, although I suspect the journey time is pretty brutal from Hucknall Vs tram or train. Closer in, the bus becomes much more competitive, especially as they are all NCT!
Will be interesting to see how the train ridership is doing.
I don't know how they expect to grow the network with such high fares, but to be fair they have had such a massive push on season cards with massive reductions in price that I assume they are just trying to get revenue from season tickets instead of singles and day tickets.
Trams remain incredibly busy at peak times, but that's mainly because the one I get every day is the one after a peak extra which is normally cancelled, and it coincides with the end of school at the High School with heavy traffic so its normally up to 10 minutes late so the gap is often around 20 minutes.
The problem I have had is that I'm changing jobs part way through the year and working somewhere with no practical public transport option, hence I chose not to pay for a new pass in January.
Given the cost of the monthly pass, I'm going to be driving into work now and cutting back on tram travel besides the odd trip to town.
The problem NET has is the crushing PFI taken out to build the extensions. I honestly believe they need to get a zonal fare system up and running, otherwise risk becoming uncompetitive for shorter journeys. Future extensions, if funded by government, should allow the system to bring in some extra revenue to offset the PFI scheme and spread the burden more equally.