Bus fares could be capped at £2 per journey in a bid to help Brits hit with soaring bills.
Currently passengers outside London face paying up to £5 for each trip – and the same again on the way back.
But Transport Secretary Grant Shapps today said he was putting forward plans to bring in an upper limit for 12 months.
He pointed out that buses are used “disproportionately by people on lower incomes” – although the proposal comes at a time when hundreds of services are feared to be under threat.
Four Labour mayors have warned a huge number of routes face the axe as operators cut back on costs.
Writing in The Telegraph, Mr Shapps called for a £260 million government subsidy, stating: “I propose that we set a £2 fare cap for every bus journey in England outside London this autumn, lasting 12 months.
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“This would inject some certainty into an unpredictable economic landscape, a spending roof that, unlike energy bills, cannot be breached.
“A simple measure that provides some much-needed reassurance deep into 2023.
“Too expensive? Well, a one-year cap would cost the taxpayer about £260 million, a sum far below those being suggested to soften coming energy price hikes.”
The Department of Transport (DfT) said the policy has yet to be adopted as government policy, meaning it would need to be approved when Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak take the helm.
Bus fares in London are a flat fee of £1.65, but similar journeys cost far more in other parts of England.
Paul Tuohy, chief executive of pressure group Campaign for Better Transport, welcomed the proposal but warned that passengers will not benefit from it if their bus service has been withdrawn.
He said: “Bus fares have risen at more than five times the current rate of inflation in the last decade – an unsustainable increase which has left many households struggling to afford to get around.
“We’ve been calling for more to be done to help with the cost of public transport, so we are glad the Government is listening.
“While this cap will be welcome news for bus passengers, hundreds of bus routes are still under threat of closure from October so, unless addressed, many people may find that they no longer have a bus to use the £2 fare on.”
A DfT spokesperson said: “We’ve already committed to investing £3bn into bus services by 2025, to improve fares, services and infrastructure. We’ve also given nearly £2bn since March 2020 to bus operators and local authorities to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic.
“We continue to look at ways to help people with the pressures of the rising cost of living.”
It is feared that services could be culled if the Bus Service Recovery Grant – set up to help operators through the Covid pandemic – is not renewed in the autumn.
A letter signed by Mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin, Mayor of North of Tyne Jamie Driscoll, Mayor of South Yorkshire Oliver Coppard and Mayor of Liverpool City Region Steve Rotheram, said: “In each of our regions, bus operators have now notified that they intend to withdraw hundreds of bus routes.”
They went on: “Without action, the changes to bus provision will have a devastating effect on the communities affected, add to the cost of living crisis and will compromise the aims of the National Bus Strategy introduced just last year.”