PlusBus Tickets

[Mike395]

With Cambridge South open today, I naturally marked the occasion with a ticket to Cambridge North.

(North's zone includes the busway up to St Ives, "Central's" doesn't, and South's doesn't exist. Not to mention the extra 2 stops from Hitchin were essentially free.)

Despite the confusing differences I travelled to Fen Drayton Lakes and back on the Stagecoach B without issue (no scans attempted). No quibble on the Whippet U1/U2 either (no scan on the latter) but my scan on the former was rejected; going by Adam's reply to my query via TrainSplit app Whippet are basically doing an Ipswich Buses, i.e. expressing no interest whatsoever in having their Ticketers configured to validate ePlusBus. Ironic given Cambridge was part of the June 2024 trial.

As suggested I'll also send messages to Whippet / Traveline and see what they say.

Things do appear to be moving, albeit slowly, with Whippet in Cambridge. Had this back today:

We have received the sample tickets however; we are waiting on Ticketer support to come back to us to try and rectify!

Hopefully means they'll be online with PlusBus scanning before too long.

 

[81A]

Driver on the Pulhams L service in Cheltenham didn't know what PlusBus was (the response to "I've got PlusBus" was "what?"). She then let me on but yelled back "isn't that a Stagecoach thing"... She didn't question it further after I said "no, Pulhams as well, I've got a print out if you like" though...

Definitely going to continue to carry a print out of the Plusbus website in future, just in case!

The ticket was CCST, from a ticket office. I considered barcode, but was worried about "computer says no" syndrome in the event of a scan failure (possibly for the best in this case as I am convinced the driver would have refused travel if it was scannable and didn't work)...

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Jul 2026 ==

I wonder how an "average" user less confident in their tickets' validity would fare though...

 

[richardderby]

25% increase on my local plusbus in Matlock /Buxton £6 to £8 that will not encourage public transport usage..

 

[Bungle965]

25% increase on my local plusbus in Matlock /Buxton £6 to £8 that will not encourage public transport usage..

Have a look at the increase in the Birmingham PlusBus!

 

[Adam Williams]

Presumably with the new higher pricing, there will be no acceptance issues?

 

[markymark2000]

Have a look at the increase in the Birmingham PlusBus!

Wowsers, £3.80 increase over night. Surely that has to be a mistake. There is no way that they can justify that? And dare I ask what is the point in Plusbus if I can just go and get the multi operator bus tickets for £5.50. Yet another nail in the coffin for Plusbus. This will file nicely alongside the Plusbus team still refusing to update their list of participating bus operators so that customers can be kept fully informed of where the ticket is valid rather than having to keep winging it and hoping for the best.

 

[Watershed]

Wowsers, £3.80 increase over night. Surely that has to be a mistake. There is no way that they can justify that? And dare I ask what is the point in Plusbus if I can just go and get the multi operator bus tickets for £5.50. Yet another nail in the coffin for Plusbus. This will file nicely alongside the Plusbus team still refusing to update their list of participating bus operators so that customers can be kept fully informed of where the ticket is valid rather than having to keep winging it and hoping for the best.

Brum PlusBus is also valid on the tram but yes it's become a remarkably poor value product. Only those with Railcards now get any sort of value out of it.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Brum PlusBus is also valid on the tram but yes it's become a remarkably poor value product. Only those with Railcards now get any sort of value out of it.

Now the most expensive PlusBus Day ticket in the country thanks to that 73% increase.

It does have some use still, given it's 30p cheaper than a 1 day Bus + Metro ticket, but if you're travelling after 0930 it's 10p dearer than a Daytripper and that also includes rail validity.

 

[Mikey C]

Brum PlusBus is also valid on the tram but yes it's become a remarkably poor value product. Only those with Railcards now get any sort of value out of it.

Maybe there should be 2 separate options, PlusBus and PlusBusandTram?

 

[Wolfie]

Have a look at the increase in the Birmingham PlusBus!

While that covers the whole West Midlands county it's still one hell of an increase.

 

[py_megapixel]

Maybe there should be 2 separate options, PlusBus and PlusBusandTram?

Not sure how serious this is, but...no, of course not!

The last thing public transport ticketing needs in this country is more unnecessary distinctions between modes.

 

[blimmo]

I would endorse removing the tram from PlusBus if that would make the PlusBus an actual discount again.

 

[Edvid]

Now it's proven that TransMach TM700s can validate PlusBus eTickets, can their older TM500s do the same?

I boarded a couple of Stephensons services in the Southend unitary authority with a Leigh-on-Sea +Bus yesterday (optical readers were awkward to use) and the scans were rejected. Both drivers accepted it without issue though I confused the second one by accidentally scanning my day return before remembering to switch to the add-on.

Scans worked on Arriva / First services just fine.

 

[smsm1]

Why can't we have a single barcode that covers the whole journey including out, return, covering all modes in the journey, this meaning that we passengers don't need to try and find the right barcode for each ticket part of the journey!

 

[Bungle965]

Scans worked on Arriva

Positive experience in Darlington also, PlusBus accepted on all Arriva Ticketer machines and accepted manually by Stagecoach driver

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Jul 2026 ==

Things do appear to be moving, albeit slowly, with Whippet in Cambridge. Had this back today:



Hopefully means they'll be online with PlusBus scanning before too long.

I am most likely going to be using them today so will let you know if we have got anywhere with them! I hope that the driver is slightly less rude than last time when being faced with them

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Jul 2026 ==

Sadly, still not working on their Ticketer machines, although driver was happy to accept

 

[Adam Williams]

I chased Whippet's status with Ticketer and got told it was being set-up on Thu, 2 Jul 2026.

I will chase again.

Separately, I have been made aware that Brighton & Hove is not working reliably. Ticketer aren't able to investigate further and want the operator to raise the issue with them directly, so if there are any issues experienced with this particular operator they need to go to info@buses.co.uk

 

[Bungle965]

I chased Whippet's status with Ticketer and got told it was being set-up on Thu, 2 Jul 2026.

I will chase again.

I can give accurate scan times if needed

 

[Adam Williams]

Cheers, I'll ask what they think the status is first. If they think it should work, the scan times are useful. If it's not been set-up at all (what I suspect), they just need to .. set it up, and it's kind of to be expected it's not working!

 

[Edvid]

To answer my own question from a week ago - yes, TM500s can validate PlusBus eTickets as well. On Stephensons' ETMs Southend +Bus was already set up but Leigh-on-Sea +Bus wasn't; following Adam's latest communication with TransMach the Leigh-on-Sea and other missing Essex +Bus NLCs where Stephensons participate have now been added, to take effect at some point in the (near?) future.

 

[Dave_D]

Not sure if this is relevant but I a major problem with a plus bus ticket on busses in Oxford.

The ticket was sent to my I-phone as a qr code but every time I put my phone near their reader it activated my apple wallet so they couldn’t scan it.

Drivers were fine with it and let me travel, except one.

We had a bit of a standoff and I rufused to back down, had anyone else had a similar problem?

Apologies if this has already been discussed.

 

[James H]

If the rail ticket retailer provides the option to add your rail ticket and plusbus to the Apple Wallet, that is the best way of preventing card clash

If you are scanning a PDF on your phone, turn off Express Travel Card in your Wallet settings to avoid triggering tap on tap off

 

[Edvid]

The ticket was sent to my I-phone as a qr code but every time I put my phone near their reader it activated my apple wallet so they couldn’t scan it.

A design flaw of Ticketer machines is that barcode scans and NFC scans happen in the same spot, so you have to use an app (preferably Apple Wallet as suggested) that suppresses your iPhone's NFC signal.

Also note that Oxford Bus Company have a Tap On Tap Off scheme so your Apple Pay card(s) were probably charged as well.

Go to https://mytrips.littlepay.com/go-oxford and review your journey history for any Apple Pay cards you have, then request a refund from OBC with a copy of your PlusBus ticket attached.

 

[Dave_D]

James H I tried that, but it didn’t seem to work.

I believe I have a solution that should resolve the issue but have yet to test it.

There is an app that allows a qr code to be stored in the apple wallet.

 

[NeilWatson]

25% increase on my local plusbus in Matlock /Buxton £6 to £8 that will not encourage public transport usage..

That’s a 33.3% increase….

 

[Bungle965]

I believe it's been added into the RDG Specification now if that if you're presenting this in the retailers ticket wallet, then it must suppress NFC.

Of course some retailers had been doing this already (before being mandated)

 

[Adam Williams]

Not sure if this is relevant but I a major problem with a plus bus ticket on busses in Oxford.

The ticket was sent to my I-phone as a qr code but every time I put my phone near their reader it activated my apple wallet so they couldn’t scan it.

Display it in the TrainSplit app (for tix purchased from the forum's site), it suppresses NFC when tickets are being displayed.

 

[Fiyero]

Not sure if this is relevant but I a major problem with a plus bus ticket on busses in Oxford.

The ticket was sent to my I-phone as a qr code but every time I put my phone near their reader it activated my apple wallet so they couldn’t scan it.

Drivers were fine with it and let me travel, except one.

We had a bit of a standoff and I rufused to back down, had anyone else had a similar problem?

Apologies if this has already been discussed.

I had this issue with my android, for tickets added to the wallet. I had to turn NFC, not been brave enough to try it again (As it is a right faff explaining to the driver to cancel the tap!)

 

[Adam Williams]

I had this issue with my android, for tickets added to the wallet

Where were the tickets purchased from?

 

[Fiyero]

Where were the tickets purchased from?

TrainPal (so not a surprise if a setting is wrong!)

 

[Bungle965]

Positive experiences on both First and Arriva in Leeds yesterday!