tomment writes about his frustrations with fare details on the First Bus website

It's true, it's very hard to work out what tickets First Bus do in your area. I had to consult their Leeds fare book, a pdf document which goes on for 63 pages. It's confusing getting to grips with their ticket boundaries in relation to weekly and monthly passes. I wonder if this is because they just want you to buyt single tickets so they can make more money.

I recently wrote to my MP (via WriteToThem) with my concerns about Firstbus and the outrageous prices they charge. Here is the reply I received:

Public transport in Leeds

Thank you for your email. I have had a great deal of correspondence in the subject of buses in Leeds recently, in particular in light of the Government’s decision to turn down our Supertram bid.

As a result the Council group are currently deciding what may be done with the money set aside to fund part of the Supertram (the local contribution element), and as part of this, you may already be aware, Superbuses have been discussed. Hopefully this would be a slight improvement on the current provisions but by no means is a satisfactory conclusion in my opinion to the transport problems of this city.

I am currently backing the campaign for a re-regulation of bus services, meaning that they transfer out of the control of private companies and into the hands of the local authorities. This would mean Councils could choose routes, fares and could subsidise necessary services where possible. I believe this would make a difference and will be calling for this to be a real option. I have also been liaising with the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Authority on this subject and will continue to do so.

Many thanks for taking the time to highlight your concerns with me, I hope you will feel free to do so in the future about other issues.

Yours Sincerely

Greg Mulholland MP
Member of Parliament for Leeds North West


I must say re-regulation of the buses sounds like an excellent idea. I've always been against privatisation of public transport. Private companies, such as Firstbus, are really only out to make a profit, they don't care about their passengers.

The Manchester Bus Blog - a similar blog to this but about buses in Manchester

Firstbus have this survey to complete about the service they provide. I did have a few problems getting it to load (got a few error messages in French?!) and I couldn't cut and paste the text I'd written in Word but I got there in the end.