What should happen if a driver can't issue the ticket you want?

What do you think should happen if a bus driver is unable to issue the type of ticket you ask for even though it's a type of ticket that you are supposed to be able to buy on that bus?

In particular, let us suppose that you want to buy an all-day ticket that is supposed to be available to purchase on board that operator's buses, but the driver doesn't know how to issue it, especially if they are new to the job or don't very often get asked for that type of ticket.

I suppose there are four obvious solutions in that scenario:

(a) The driver lets you travel for free and trusts you to buy it at the next opportunity.

(b) As above, but the driver gives you a slip of paper (maybe on blank ticket stock) saying you asked for that type of ticket but they didn't know how to issue it or had difficulty doing so, signs it and dates it.

(c) You have to buy a normal single for the first leg of the journey you are making but can exchange your ticket for that leg as part payment for the ticket that you wanted.

(d) You have to pay extra for the first leg of your journey even though you shouldn't have to.

In practice, I would guess that (d) would be the most likely solution, although in that case it would be worth contacting the relevant operator afterwards (or the organisation that administers the day ticket that you were trying to buy, such as the relevant local council or Combined Authority) to complain, and hope that they would reimburse you the extra expense incurred or send you a voucher for a ticket of the type that you were trying to buy (of if it's a ticket type that can be issued as a scratchcard, send you a complimentary scratchcard ticket, although there aren't many tickets that are still issued in that format now).

It happened to me once, about 25 years ago, when I tried to buy a Derbyshire Wayfarer on a bus. In those days, bus drivers in Derbyshire were all supposed to carry stocks of Wayfarer backing sleeves into which they would insert a Wayfarer issued on standard ticket stock, but this driver didn't have any of those sleeves in stock, so I had to pay extra for the first leg of my journey but wrote to Derbyshire County Council afterwards and, sure enough, they sent me a complimentary scratchcard Wayfarer.

Drivers might get into trouble for doing (a), especially if a ticket inspector got on the bus. In that case it would probably be advisable to approach the inspector or attract their attention as soon as you saw them getting on and not wait for them to approach you.

In my experience, (a) has been the most common outcome, usually when attempting to buy the multi-operator 'Devon Day' ticket.

I had this last year when I tried to buy a 'My Bus Oxfordshire' day ticket from Carousel buses. The driver was nice about it but insisted that I couldn't buy one on the bus (their website says you can) and made me download their app and buy it on there. I suspect he had never been asked for one before and simply didn't know where to find it on the ticket machine.

The way I deal with this, and the way I’ve always encouraged colleagues to deal with it, is to allow free travel and then ask the traffic office at the earliest opportunity to be shown how to issue the ticket. As this is generally only an issue with things like day tickets, the passenger will pay on the next bus they come to, so no revenue is lost in the grand scheme of things.

It saves the risk of any complaints coming in, and provides a satisfactory resolution for everyone - the driver knows how to do it for next time, the passenger gets where they’re going, and the company won’t get any negative press for having either denied someone travel or charged someone an additional fare which they shouldn’t have needed to pay.

In the rare event it happens with a single fare (which has only ever happened once to me, when someone presented a very obscure pass which I’d heard of, but had long since forgotten how to issue, so rare was it that one was presented), I ask the passenger how much they usually pay, and then find the nearest priced ticket (charging less if needs be, but never more), and issue that.

An exception to all of the above is if the bus is either at its start point and has spare time before it’s due out, or if at an intermediate stop if the driver isn’t short on time, then the way to do things is to hop out the cab, ring in and ask how to issue the ticket in question.

I've had this happen except on the train, I had to pay for my portion of the journey into the ranger area anyways, but he said when I arrived there to just continue travelling on the same train and just to purchase my day ranger at the station when I get off the train

I had a dreadful experience a few years back attempting to buy some sort of multi-operator ticket (I forget the name) in Oxford. It was one of those that had to be issued to an ITSO card. I had a Stagecoach branded card.

The driver on my Stagecoach bus spent several minutes looking through the ticket machine, delaying the bus for several other passengers, but couldn't work out how to issue the ticket and also wouldn't let me travel without a ticket.

Once I finally got into central Oxford I went to the Go-Ahead bus office at Gloucester Green, who knew how to issue the ticket but refused to do so because the branding on the card was Stagecoach - even though the whole point of ITSO cards is that they are inter-compatible between operators!

I think the correct situation in that case would just have been to simplify the mess of a ticketing system. There were effectively three separate ticket ranges - one for Stagecoach, one for Go-Ahead, and a multi-operator one - all with slightly different prices, availability and validity. No idea if this has improved since, but it was very confusing for me and apparently also for the staff!

In Lancashire there is a multi operator ticket from Lancashire County Council which would be very useful if only more drivers knew how to issue it. Also despite it being multi operator it almost never scans on a bus service run by an operator other than the one you buy it on. The response to that has been varied from being allowed to travel to having to buy new tickets.

When I worked on local bus if there was a problem with the machine and we couldn't issue a weekly ticket, day ticket or whatever I would get them to buy it on the next bus

Happened to me on Stagecoach buses a number of times in Sheffield where the driver couldn’t find the ticket, often on journeys run from Ecclesfield depot.

On one I was asking for a Gold DayRider, the driver told me to get it on the next bus, got an X17 after & the driver found it straight away, same with a Connect+. Never had any problems with First drivers finding tickets on their machines