A BUS company has been attacked for putting up fares during a cost of living crisis but bosses say their customers are getting a better deal.

One resident complained the price of a return from Droitwich to Worcester had risen to £8 which he said was a rise of '100 per cent'. 

Others threatened to travel by train because of the rising cost of their bus fares.

However, leaders from First Worcester say the majority of fares have remained unchanged while some prices have been put up to keep pace with inflation. They have also drawn attention to a new modernised service for customers - the 'Tap On, Tap Off' service.

Customers no longer need to ask for a ticket, just tap their contactless card/ device when they board and tap again when they leave which First say will 'work out the best value fare for you'.

The Worcester News understands that before last week there was not a return ticket option for the Droitwich to Worcester journey - it was either two single tickets or a day ticket to make that journey and was said by a spokesperson to be 'only one out of hundreds of examples of bus journeys that people make on a daily basis across the bus network' with 'the majority of passengers are unaffected by the revision'.

Yet the rising cost of some fares led to some criticism over Twitter.

 

 

One resident said: "First bus Worcester have raised their bus prices by 100 per cent during a cost of living crisis.

"It is now £8 for a return from Droitwich to Worcester. They’ve raised their prices by a considerable amount during a cost of living crisis."

A spokesperson for First Worcester said: ” Along with the introduction of the new Tap on Tap off system which started a week last Sunday and is already proving to be a popular way for our customers to pay for their bus journeys, we did revise some of our fares.

"The majority remain unchanged, some did increase slightly in line with inflation and increased business costs and we also introduced some new ticket options to facilitate people's changing travel patterns with new return tickets available on bus and day ticket bundles now available on the First bus App”.