Metrobus introduce 1 hour ticket

[radamfi]

In the Crawley, Horsham and Reigate/Redhill areas, Metrobus are introducing a "60 minute Metrorider" from 16 January, replacing the former single m-ticket.

http://www.metrobus.co.uk/travel-info/272

The one hour fare will be £2.10, whereas the current m-ticket single fare is £2, however there is a general fare rise on that date.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Excellent news. There is no justification for other operators not to follow - after all, the issue of passback doesn't apply to mobile phone tickets in the same way, as it's not as if you're going to flog your phone to someone on the street for a quid.

Arriva, can you do this too please?

 

[radamfi]

Excellent news. There is no justification for other operators not to follow - after all, the issue of passback doesn't apply to mobile phone tickets in the same way, as it's not as if you're going to flog your phone to someone on the street for a quid.

Arriva, can you do this too please?

When they started offering smartcard tickets a few years ago, I suggested to them on their Facebook page that they introduce a 2 journey ticket and they said that they would lose money by people making a return journey for the price of a single. But this is obviously going to be possible with the 60 minute ticket. I'm even more (happily) surprised that this offering is coming at only a small premium over the old single fare, so arguably this should become the "de facto" single ticket for travelling in the area, especially given that the day ticket will be dearer than two 60 minute tickets.

What I find a little surprising is that there is a clear incentive to use the app over the smartcard. They do 5/10/25 multi-journey tickets on the smartcard. The 5 journey ticket will be £2.10 a journey, the same as the 60 minute ticket, but not allowing interchange. However, the 10 and 25 journey tickets will be £2 and £1.90 a journey respectively.

 

[Bletchleyite]

When they started offering smartcard tickets a few years ago, I suggested to them on their Facebook page that they introduce a 2 journey ticket and they said that they would lose money by people making a return journey for the price of a single. But this is obviously going to be possible with the 60 minute ticket.

It is, but only for someone who is travelling two stops, buying a paper and travelling back (who might only do so considering they've got rather a bargain), or someone who is riding for 59 minutes then straight back for the sheer hell of it (who we don't really need to legislate for - who really cares if a basher gets a bit of a cheap bashing session they might not have bothered with otherwise?)

The big risk of this kind of ticket is passback or resale - associating it with a mobile phone or contactless bank card near enough removes this, or at least to the same extent as a day ticket.

It's like day returns. There is no point legislating for someone using a day return twice if ungripped. Almost nobody will ever have cause to do that, and if they do it won't be worth the financial while bothering about it. Indeed, Merseyrail went the whole hog and did away with CDRs - now you get a zonal day ticket which you can legitimately use as much as you like.

 

[dgl]

First have done this in Dorset, tickets around Weymouth/Portland/Dorchester essentially form 3 areas with a single being to anywhere in the destination are even if that involves changes. So you can get a bus from chickerell and use the same single to then travel out to littlemoor even though 2 buses are required. Returns work in the same way, except, they are now day tickets and can be used as many times as required.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Is there a chance of delays causing issues with such tickets?

E.g. Your journey needs two buses. You board the first bus and buy the 60 minute ticket. Your journey is 30 minutes. According to the timetable you have 15 minutes to wait until the second bus. Your second bus is 20 minutes late. You are now 65 minutes after buying the ticket.

 

[MedwayValiant]

Excellent news. There is no justification for other operators not to follow - after all, the issue of passback doesn't apply to mobile phone tickets in the same way, as it's not as if you're going to flog your phone to someone on the street for a quid.

Arriva, can you do this too please?

Arriva does do this in Medway, although the one hour ticket isn't very well known or very much used. It's a lot more than £2.10, though.

The Medway one hour ticket is a paper ticket which costs £4.00. When it was introduced the leaflet said that it was not valid for a return journey on one route, although that restriction no longer appears in the Ts and Cs.

 

[Hophead]

Arriva does do this in Medway, although the one hour ticket isn't very well known or very much used. It's a lot more than £2.10, though.

The Medway one hour ticket is a paper ticket which costs £4.00. When it was introduced the leaflet said that it was not valid for a return journey on one route, although that restriction no longer appears in the Ts and Cs.

Blimey! how much does a one-day ticket cost? Metrobus charge £4.20 for key or m-ticket one-day passes in each of their main towns (or £4.70 as a paper ticket).

 

[MedwayValiant]

The one day ticket in Medway is £6.00. That price is the same for an mticket or a paper ticket; we don't have a smartcard product.

We vie with Warrington for having the most expensive buses in the country - our day ticket is 5p more than theirs, but their weekly ticket is, would you believe, £25.50. (Ours is £20.)

 

[CatfordCat]

A few places have tried this sort of thing on paper.

Potteries offered the 'double up' ticket in the early 90s which could be used either as a return or a transfer single.

Nottingham did try transfer availability a few years back (very useful in Nottingham, where most routes stop on the edge of the city centre with a few services doing the 'city loop' (or whatever it's called now), but gave up - story I heard is there was too much hassling of people getting off buses.

Of course the London County Council managed to offer comprehensive transfer ticketing with bell punch technology...

 

[Bletchleyite]

And TfL don't, even given that they have technology (Oyster) that could do it quite easily.

 

[Busaholic]

And TfL don't, even given that they have technology (Oyster) that could do it quite easily.

The technology is willing, but the will is weak, to paraphrase.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The technology is willing, but the will is weak, to paraphrase.

I do see an issue with it that would need to be overcome - the single fare would need to rise were it to include a transfer. But I do think allowing a bus to bus transfer would make it much fairer, as at present people are penalised once for the inconvenience of their journey not having a direct bus, and again for having to pay twice.

An inclusive Tube to bus transfer would also be welcome, again to avoid people being penalised by not being on the Tube network.

I recognise a full Verbundtarif would price a lot of people out of travel and would cause Tube overcrowding, but I see no fundamental problem with a simple transfer system - if you touch in on a bus you can touch in on another bus within 60 minutes would do the job. Similarly, boarding a bus within something like 10-20 minutes of touching out of a Tube journey being free would also be good.