Bus Ticket Sales During School Holidays
This analysis focuses on ticket sales during the school holidays in the following time periods:
School Holiday between terms 1 and 2 (27th October - 2nd November). No child ticket promotion.
School Holiday between terms 2 and 3 (22nd December - 2nd January). “Kids Go Free” promotion active.
School Holiday between terms 3 and 4 (16th February - 22nd February). No child ticket promotion.
The “Kids Go Free” promotion was also active during Summer 2025. Unfortunately there is limited ticket sales data available to us for this time period.
Ticket Types
There were almost one hundred different child ticket types sold during the school holiday periods.
Each rectangle in the chart below represents a different ticket type. The size of the rectangles are proportional to the number of sales.
The chart shows the large variety of child non-promotion ticket types. It also demonstrates that the majority of child bus ticket sales were on First buses.
This table confirms that less than 2% of child ticket sales in our data were on buses operated by companies other than First.
The table below show all 98 different ticket types and the number of sales for each across all school holiday periods included in this analysis:
Child Ticket Sales versus Adult Ticket Sales
Compared to the total volume of sales, Child tickets account for a relatively small proportion.
The volume of sales for all tickets is much smaller in the second school holiday period (Christmas/New Year), compared to both the October and February school holidays.
In the charts below, the ticket sales data has been subsetted into 4 different time periods. Each time period covers one week during a school holiday. The middle two time periods (school holiday 2) cover the Christmas/New Year school holiday, which is when the “Kids Go Free” promotion was active.
This chart shows that child ticket sales (light and dark green) account for a low proportion of overall sales. The chart also shows that the total volume of sales is much smaller during the Christmas/New Year school holiday (school holiday 2) compared to the October and February school holidays (school holidays 1 and 3).
The chart below also shows ticket sales in the same school holiday time periods. However, this chart focuses on child ticket sales as a proportion of total ticket sales. The chart confirms that the promotion tickets are mainly sold during school holiday 2 (Christmas/New Year), which is when the “Kids Go Free” promotion was active.
The proportion of child ticket sales is much higher during the Christmas/New Year school holiday (school holiday 2 when the “Kids Go Free” promotion is active) compared to the October and February school holidays (school holidays 1 and 3).
Ticket Sales by Week Day
Chart shows ticket sales by week day for each of the 4 school holiday time periods.
The Saturday and Sunday boarding profiles are similar irrespective of the holiday week.
The weekday boarding profiles have different patterns particularly on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. These days correspond with bank holidays during the Christmas and New Year Holiday period, when either bus services were not operating or there was less demand for local trips.
The boarding profiles for school holiday 2 (Christmas/New Year) show a more even distribution of boardings across the day compared to school holidays 1 and 3 (October and February), which have more pronounced morning and afternoon peaks.