Tyne and Wear Metro ticket price cap for Pop card holders

The discounts will not apply to those buying paper tickets

Trips on the Tyne and Wear Metro will be capped for pay-as-you-go card holders in the new year.

Nexus said it wanted to ease the strain of the cost of living, with the UK seeing its highest inflation for 41 years.

Between 2 January and 31 March, a single ticket will be capped at £2 and all-day travel at £4 for Pop card travellers.

The discounts will not apply to those buying paper tickets.

One in five Metro users, excluding those with season tickets or gold cards, use a Pop card, meaning the vast majority will miss out on the savings if they do not sign up before January, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Fares will be limited for Pop card holders from January to March

The £2 cap will give an adult with a Pop smartcard savings of up to 38% on a single journey, with an all-zone ticket currently costing £3.25.

The daily cap on all-zone travel will come down by 85p, from £4.85 currently.

The £2 cap will also apply to young people with a Pop 19-21 card and to bus services that are contracted by Nexus.

Nexus said that its offer was only being made on Pop, which is already cheaper than paper tickets, in order to "encourage further take up" and cut down on printing tickets costs.

North Tyneside deputy mayor Carl Johnson, who chairs the North East Joint Transport Committee's Tyne and Wear sub-committee, said he hoped the deal could remain beyond March, possibly paid for through funding secured through a new devolution deal for the North East.