New value for 'Reading All-Bus' day fares coming to buses in Reading

Passengers in Reading will soon be able to take advantage of the ‘Reading All-Bus’ – a new ‘multi-operator’ day ticket at an introductory lower price – thanks to the council’s successful bid for Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP) funding.

Once purchased - for an initially reduced rate of £3.50 on bus (or £3.40 from any of the bus companies' Apps) - the adult day ticket will allow you to travel on all bus services in the greater Reading area for the rest of the day. It launches from Monday 13 March.

The ticket will be particularly beneficial if you live in areas such as Caversham where three bus companies provide services and ticket holders will always be able to use the next bus that arrives. There will also be discounted day tickets for young people and groups.

The council has now received the first year’s instalment of the overall £26,263,600 million funding from the Department for Transport, initially announced in April last year.

The ‘Reading All-Bus’ day travel ticket, which passengers can use across several bus companies including Reading Buses, Thames Valley Buses, Arriva and Thames Travel, is just one of a range of bus improvements the Council’s programme intends to deliver over the next two years.

The ticket builds on the national £2 single bus fare scheme launched in January. The Reading fares scheme provides a greater benefit for Reading residents where fares for regular travellers were already less than £2.

As well as outlining plans for investment in bus fares which extend beyond borough boundary lines to cover greater Reading, the plan lists a number of future ambitions to make bus services in Reading even better. These include:

• Supporting simpler and even more cost-effective fares, including the new ‘Reading All-Bus’ multi-operator day travel ticket;
• Extensions to the Buzz 42 service and South Reading services;
• Developing the Park & Ride service to the Royal Berkshire Hospital and University, as well as enhancing Mereoak Park & Ride itself;
• Bus information and passenger safety improvements, including better bus shelters and Real-time passenger information displays;
• Significant increases in bus priority and the transformation of the bus networks through bus rapid transit and other measures – such as new bus lanes on Oxford Road, Bath Road, Southampton Street and London Road;
• Further phases of the South Reading MRT scheme on the A33 to speed up journey times between Mereoak P&R and the town centre;
• Giving passengers more of a say through the creation of a ‘Passenger Charter’.

For routes covered in the multi-operator day travel ticket see the network map.

Reading Borough Council was one of 31 local authorities across the country to successfully bid for Department for Transport funding to develop and deliver its Bus Service Improvement Plan (BSIP), which has an integral role to play in helping Reading towards its net-zero carbon target by 2030 by encouraging more people to travel by bus.

Reading received the third highest funding award in the country (per head of population) – with the majority of areas unsuccessful in their bids. Reading’s Bus Service Improvement Plan was drawn up early last year and is a blueprint for improvements and major investment in Reading’s bus services. It has been prepared with the active engagement of all local bus operators, including the council-owned Reading Buses, and all neighbouring local authorities to the greater Reading urban area.