Rural and regional public transport users received another blow to the hip pocket yesterday when the Minister for Transport and the Illawarra David Campbell announced regional and rural bus fares will go up by as much as 8.5 per cent in the new year.The decision follows last week's announcement that train fares would go up rise by an average of 7.5 per cent from January 4 next year, with an increase of 12 per cent plus inflation to follow during the next to four years.The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal recommended earlier this year that fares be increased by 5.5 per cent to match rising operational costs.A spokesman for Mr Campbell said increased spending by regional bus companies made the increase necessary."This has included efforts to raise the standard of service by bringing employees' wages into line with metropolitan bus companies and upgrading their fleets by phasing in air-conditioned buses," the spokesman said.It was announced last week that bus fares in Wollongong would rise by the recommended 5.5 per cent, and Les Dion, of Dion's Bus Service, said he felt the fare increase was reasonable."We actually lowered our fares by 20 per cent last year to bring us in line with other metropolitan fares, so I think this increase is fair," he said.Liberal Member for South Coast Shelley Hancock slammed the increase, saying it would hit the most vulnerable people in the community. "This is definitely going to hurt people," Ms Hancock said. "It is mostly older people who use these buses and there are lots of pensioners who are struggling to live on their fortnightly income."Any increase will mean they will not be able to make the trip to town once a week and often these people don't have family and friends to rely on and the responsibility is going to fall back on to community transport ... and their limited resources are stretched as it is."Wollongong Public Transport Coalition spokesman Tim Dobson condemned the fare rise and said now was not the time to put pressure on public transport users."With the economic crisis and the climate crisis we need public transport to be affordable," he said."To have these fare increases even higher than IPART recommended is frankly bizarre and shows a lack of commitment by the State Government to public transport in regional areas."