SWR "Bus Link" tickets - how to buy?

[Dougal2345]

Just looking at the SWR site - it has a page of "Bus Links", saying "In addition to PlusBus we offer combined train and bus tickets to towns and villages without train stations. Details of popular bus links are below."

It also has a large PDF available - Buslinks2203.pdf - although this unhelpfully doesn't detail whether Railcards are available, unlike the main page.

It's not clear where/how to buy them though - if I wanted to buy say Southampton to Ventnor, using the bus Shanklin to Ventnor, I certainly can't type in Ventnor to the online system.

Is it ticket machines and offices only?

Or just ticket offices?

How are they issued, is it a separate ticket like a PlusBus for the bus portion?

Is there any way to find out the prices on-line? Is the bus 'premium' on the ticket generally similar to the cost of a stand-alone bus ticket?

 

[JonathanH]

It's not clear where/how to buy them though - if I wanted to buy say Southampton to Ventnor, using the bus Shanklin to Ventnor, I certainly can't type in Ventnor to the online system.

'Ventnor Bus' only has fares from other stations on the Isle of Wight.

https://www.brfares.com/!locations?dest=H985

Some of the other locations have more fares set - for example Bridport. 'Bridport via First Bus X51/X53' appears on the list of destinations on the mixing deck version of SWR's journey planner.

https://tickets.southwesternrailway.com/sw/en/journeyplanning/mixingdeck

If you look here, you can see what fares are set for any given destination.

https://www.brfares.com/!locations?reverse=on

 

[Dougal2345]

Thanks, that's all useful info.

So (looking at a few places local to me) I've found, say "Bournemouth to Swanage Bus", which is £7.90 for a day return, a nice little saving over the "from the bus driver" return fare which is £9.50.

To purchase that, I'd need to rock up to the ticket office in Bournemouth, show them proof that I'd travelled to Bournemouth by train, and that would do, I'd get one (or two) orange tickets showing Bournemouth to Swanage?

(noticing that the SWR site says "Railcard discounts available", but it seems from brfares that this doesn't include a Network Card).

I think I misunderstood the SWR site, I think it's correct to say then, that only the BusLinks mentioned on the main page can be issued by the railway, the PDF linked to from the page is merely 'useful information on how to get to places by bus', and not a whole load of other discounted rail-bus tickets as I hoped...

 

[JonathanH]

So (looking at a few places local to me) I've found, say "Bournemouth to Swanage Bus", which is £7.90 for a day return, a nice little saving over the "from the bus driver" return fare which is £9.50.

To purchase that, I'd need to rock up to the ticket office in Bournemouth, show them proof that I'd travelled to Bournemouth by train, and that would do, I'd get one (or two) orange tickets showing Bournemouth to Swanage?

I assume you could buy it at your local station as well. Ask for a ticket to Bournemouth and for the bus journey to Swanage as an add on.

 

[[.n]]

Just looking at the SWR site - it has a page of "Bus Links", saying "In addition to PlusBus we offer combined train and bus tickets to towns and villages without train stations. Details of popular bus links are below."

It also has a large PDF available - Buslinks2203.pdf - although this unhelpfully doesn't detail whether Railcards are available, unlike the main page.

It's not clear where/how to buy them though - if I wanted to buy say Southampton to Ventnor, using the bus Shanklin to Ventnor, I certainly can't type in Ventnor to the online system.

Is it ticket machines and offices only?

Or just ticket offices?

How are they issued, is it a separate ticket like a PlusBus for the bus portion?

Is there any way to find out the prices on-line? Is the bus 'premium' on the ticket generally similar to the cost of a stand-alone bus ticket?

So these can be bought (for the destinations I've used);

1) From ticket offices
2) Guards
3) The app / website
4) Ticket machines (reasonably certain about this one - but now can't recall if I've done this)

They do attract the standard railcard discount

They can be bought (maybe not for all variations) as single / return / period return

For the destinations I use most - I just memorise the code to tell a guard / ticket office staff which I'm after

 

[Titfield]

So these can be bought (for the destinations I've used);

1) From ticket offices
2) Guards
3) The app / website
4) Ticket machines (reasonably certain about this one - but now can't recall if I've done this)

They do attract the standard railcard discount

They can be bought (maybe not for all variations) as single / return / period return

For the destinations I use most - I just memorise the code to tell a guard / ticket office staff which I'm after

I do not like the inconsistency in the product offering.

If you want to travel from Woking (an SWR served station) to Heathrow Airport there is the RA2 bus operated by First Bus. (First of course being a joint venture partner in SWR).

However on that service not all railcards are accepted e.g. Network Railcard.

 

[Dougal2345]

Another inconsistency seems to be whether the bus link ticket can be purchased to start from the 'railhead' station.

For example, for the Bournemouth-Swanage bus, the ticket is only available from the 'railhead' where the bus journey starts - ie Bournemouth.

This suits the Network Card holder well enough, as they will buy a discounted rail ticket to Bournemouth and then swallow the full-price (but still cheaper than the buy-on-bus price) for the bus journey.

But for Ventnor, it seems you can't buy the ticket to run from the railhead (Shanklin) to Ventnor - only from the other IoW stations.

So if you're heading over from, say, Winchester, you'll have your Winchester-Shanklin ticket with Network Card discount, but will be unable to buy the 'Bus Link' ticket Shanklin-Ventnor.

The only way around that, I think, is a bit of DIY split-ticketing - buy your 'main' ticket only as far as Lake, then buy the Lake (rail) to Ventnor (bus) return (£6.60 off peak) - this gives you a small saving over the buy-on-bus fare Shanklin-Ventnor which is £7.20 (two singles), but it hardly seems worth the effort...

 

[[.n]]

It probably depends on the "history" of the bus link - the one I use most is I believe a throwback to when they closed stations down, so its been available for years even through a few route / number changes)

At least there is some attempt at multi modal travel being integrated!