COMMUTERS were left annoyed and frustrated by new bus fares as some tickets have seen a 32 per cent increase.

A ticket overhaul, put in place by First Worcester on Sunday (April 29), has seen a new county-wide ticket introduced leaving many forking out more for their journey.

The bus company has frozen prices on its mTicket app in a bid to encourage more people to pay using their mobile phones.

However, passengers waiting for a bus at Crowngate Shopping Centre found the ticket hike a slap in the face.

Ria Pearson, who catches the bus to Pershore every day, was not happy at the prospect of paying more for her journey.

"If the bus service was excellent I could understand putting the fares up but they just keep asking us to pay more and the service just gets worse," she said.

"I'm happy to pay the money if the bus turns up on time but most mornings it doesn't.

"How can they expect us to keep paying more and more when the service never improves?"

The new county-wide ticket costs £63 a month, an increase of £15.50 on the old Worcester Plus ticket.

Whilst users of the old Wyvern ticket - which covered Worcestershire and Birmingham at a cost of £75 a month - will pay less, Worcester Plus ticket users will be hit much harder by the increase.

Sarah East, head of operations at First Worcester said: "We have introduced some changes to our fare structure to make it more simple for people to find the best ticket to travel.

“Also, for people making longer journeys, we have reduced the cost of travel to make it more accessible and cheaper to travel with the introduction of a county ticket.

“We are also pleased to announce that tickets bought on mobile phones through our mTicket app will be cheaper than the standard fare to encourage more people to switch to a more convenient and cost effective method to pay for bus travel.

“The big change that people will notice is the withdrawal of our Wyvern ticket which has been merged with our Worcester Plus ticket and is now called the County Ticket covering a wider area within our bus network for people to travel at a lower cost.

“A full revision has been made to fares so we advise customers to check out our website for more details on what fare applies to which journey.”

A city day ticket was also the subject of a 50p increase and a £1 was added to the price of a weekly ticket and the new county weekly ticket is £2 more than the old Worcester Plus weekly ticket.

Whilst the price of a city day ticket froze for young people, a weekly ticket now costs £1 more.