PlusBus Tickets

[Deerfold]

The problem with making PlusBus available from every station within a zone (which also affects Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and South Yorkshire) is that - with how they're currently issued - you need to create a duplicate <station>+Bus location for each one.

Given location codes are in short supply, there was a tidying up exercise to remove locations that saw zero sales.

It's still possible to buy PlusBus in such circumstances, by choosing a different interchange station, but it can't be done online and may need some "shopping around" to get a Ticket Office to do it.

A better idea would be to just create a "West Yorks+Bus" (and similar) destination and price to that from all of the relevant stations.

They didn't just get rid of ones with zero sales, though. I used to use Hebden Bridge several times a year when they were cheaper than an on-bus ticket (with Keighley drivers being very good at accepting them on connections at Keighley). Once Mcard prices came down it was sometimes cheaper to get a ticket to Halifax when coming from the West, and finish short but not often, even with a Railcard.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Aug 2024 ==

I'd go through all the pages but I don't see why I should do it for free when there will be people employed within Plusbus to sort this stuff out. Pay me £50 and I will go through and highlight every single page and say what is incorrect.

I wasn't suggesting you do it. I was suggesting there aren't enough people employed by PlusBus to do it and the official channels that are supposed to tell them of changes don't always do that.

If you'll go through all 300 pages and check every route and operator is correct for 17p a page they may take you up on that.

You don't have to go through regularly, just periodically. Even yearly. The fact TJ Walsh is still showing shows that the page hasn't been looked at in 4 years. Any business that wants to have customers would be reviewing their web pages a lot more often than every 4 years. It's not Wikipedia, it shouldn't rely on other spotting and reporting issues.

That's what happens when it's underfunded. There's nearly 300 PlusBus stations. And presumably no-one whose full-time job is checking all the information is up-to-date.

 

[alistairlees]

There is one PlusBus employee, so far as I know. It's been like that ever since inception.

 

[Julie Gray]

We are a team of 4 at PlusBus centrally. PlusBus participating bus operators, fares, zones and excluded services are managed at local PlusBus scheme level and there are 300+ bus operators that are part of one or more PlusBus schemes. Local Scheme Coordinators are responsible for updating the data that they send to us, which is added to a database which provides content to the PlusBus website.
At a national level, we can react to customer comments where we're told that there's an error and we have to get confirmation from the Local Scheme where a correction is needed, so we have a single source of the truth.

 

[infobleep]

A few reasons: We've only just launched the PB eTicket in trial, so there has been no need for and eTVD until now; we need to prove a business case (or not) for investing in one; unlike rail tickets, but tickets don't retail via a central body such as RDG. Each bus operator /ticket machine manufacturer has its own eTVD for its own network so an PB eTVD would be a complex (but not impossible!) project. We are in the very eearly stages of looking at achieving this at a local level.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Aug 2024 ==


We added a new interactive mapping view to the PlusBus website for each PlusBus zone, and there is a link to the zone from the eTicket, so the zones are much better defined now. This is only a first step, and we hope that when you make your booking you'll eventually see the PlusBus zone as a map where you buy your PlusBus ticket. We can't make this happen though, as train companies and other rail retailers are free to decide whether or not they offer PlusBus at all.

Here's an example of the new mapping format: https://www.plusbus.info/plymouth

I find it interesting that the boundary extends into the sea. As a professional cartographer I would have thought the boundary should only go to the extent of the land.

Of course if the land changed shape, such as a harbour built, then work needed to ammend rhe boundary.

I appreicqte you were aupplied the boundary but it has certainly made me think about boundaries in relation to transport.

I am suggesting is that the PlusBus site is incorrect, because the coverage map is very old and constructed using very coarse polygons.

Notably, both Stagecoach and First have city zone tickets (which match the city boundary) and the multi-operator Grasshopper ticket does the same.

I doubt PlusBus is intended to be any different - it would be almost impossible for the operators to police.

The map as it is makes little sense - e.g. there are two stops at the north east of the city shown as outside the zone, but part of a bus route which passes through them from other stops which are shown as inside the zone.

Yet there are sections of the North Sea shown as included in the zone.

The map *mostly* seems to be trying to follow the city boundary, but doesn't match some parts quite cocorrectly.is

Is it possible the city boundaries or even the city zone boundaries changed but no one give any consideration to PlusBus so the PlusBus boundary is legally accurate?

It's the bus operators that manage the PlusBus scheme in Aberdeen, and this is the map that they have provided to PlusBus to describe the boundary of the PlusBus scheme. If you think this needs revisiting, please contact plusbus@traveline.info and one of the team will pick this up for you.

Do PlusBus manage some schemes?

 

[kkong]

Is it possible the city boundaries or even the city zone boundaries changed but no one give any consideration to PlusBus so the PlusBus boundary is legally accurate?

No, the Aberdeen City boundaries haven't changed since they were introduced in 1996, except for a very minor change (four houses) in Blackburn in 2002.

The bus operators' city zone boundaries refer to the Aberdeen City boundary, so they haven't changed either.

All First Aberdeen services operate fully within the city boundaries.

Only Stagecoach Bluebird have cross-boundary services which operate within Aberdeen City.

 

[Julie Gray]

I find it interesting that the boundary extends into the sea. As a professional cartographer I would have thought the boundary should only go to the extent of the land.

Of course if the land changed shape, such as a harbour built, then work needed to ammend rhe boundary.

I appreicqte you were aupplied the boundary but it has certainly made me think about boundaries in relation to transport.

Is it possible the city boundaries or even the city zone boundaries changed but no one give any consideration to PlusBus so the PlusBus boundary is legally accurate?

Do PlusBus manage some schemes?

No, all schemes are managed locally. They operate under separate multi operator ticketing agreements (one for each scheme), which is a legal agreement regulated by the Competition and Marketing Authority. We provide local PlusBus scheme managers with an online mapping tool which allows them to draw their zones very accurately if they choose to do so.

 

[infobleep]

No, all schemes are managed locally. They operate under separate multi operator ticketing agreements (one for each scheme), which is a legal agreement regulated by the Competition and Marketing Authority. We provide local PlusBus scheme managers with an online mapping tool which allows them to draw their zones very accurately if they choose to do so.

Fascinating. Thanks.

 

[Edvid]

@Julie Gray, any updates on the planned rollout of PlusBus eTickets beyond West Yorkshire & Cambridge?

 

[winks]

I like PlusBus as not many people know about it or bother buying them. I find it incredibly satisfying paying £2.95 for a day bus ticket in Brighton and everyone else is paying a fiver!

 

[MrJeeves]

I like PlusBus as not many people know about it or bother buying them. I find it incredibly satisfying paying £2.95 for a day bus ticket in Brighton and everyone else is paying a fiver!

When I commuted to Crawley, it was similarly very handy with keyGo on Metrobus to get to work and back to the station. £2.70 (or £2.40 as it was then) versus most people I knew paying £4 for two singles! I did, of course, inform them but most didn't seem to care enough!

 

[markymark2000]

I like PlusBus as not many people know about it or bother buying them. I find it incredibly satisfying paying £2.95 for a day bus ticket in Brighton and everyone else is paying a fiver!

I'd use it a lot more if I could use it before my train journey. Until the E-ticket is rolled out more, i struggle to make much use of it.

 

[jon0844]

I like PlusBus as not many people know about it or bother buying them. I find it incredibly satisfying paying £2.95 for a day bus ticket in Brighton and everyone else is paying a fiver!

Fun as that is, imagine people not using the bus because they don't know what you know and then the bus service is cut back due to lack of custom.

You should be telling people.

 

[redreni]

I'd use it a lot more if I could use it before my train journey. Until the E-ticket is rolled out more, i struggle to make much use of it.

Yeah, the facility to have tickets posted to you without paying a hefty fee/P&P charge was withdrawn long before the availability of suitable alternatives such as e-tickets became comprehensive (which it still isn't).

Once 95% or more of tickets become available as e-tickets, the risk is the appetite to do a great deal more work to deal with the last few percent isn't always there - even if people in the industry want to finish the job they may not be resourced to do so - so then you get tickets like these that are difficult to get hold of, so fewer and fewer people buy them, so they represent an ever smaller proportion of ticket sales. Which is a shame.

Hopefully we'll start to see more and more PlusBus tickets available as e-tickets or on a Smartcard, or ideally both.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Jan 2025 ==

Fun as that is, imagine people not using the bus because they don't know what you know and then the bus service is cut back due to lack of custom.

You should be telling people.

Well, maybe. Depends who makes the decision on whether bus services are maintained or cut and whether they look at passenger numbers or revenue. For revenue, 2 people overpaying might be better than 3 people paying the right amount.

It certainly isn't obvious that telling people who do use the bus and are paying more than we are (and therefore cross-subsidising our travel) how to pay less would result in bean-counters seeing said bus service as more, as opposed to less, viable.

 

[Edvid]

Sent an email to the PlusBus team and received a reply the next working day:

Thank you for your email. The ticket is currently only available as a Flash Pass in the trial areas. We are continuing to work with rail retailers and bus Ticket Machine providers to scan/validate the ticket. We hope to announce a national rollout of the scheme later this year.

Would I be correct in saying the rollout is dependent on sufficient progress being made with creating a PlusBus eTVD (mentioned in post #45) beforehand?

 

[Mikey C]

I like PlusBus as not many people know about it or bother buying them. I find it incredibly satisfying paying £2.95 for a day bus ticket in Brighton and everyone else is paying a fiver!

Standard bus fares going from £2 to £3 makes Plusbus more attractive again

 

[Joe Paxton]

Standard bus fares going from £2 to £3 makes Plusbus more attractive again

Worth pointing out that £3 is a cap, so some shorter distance fares may be less than this. Your overall point stands though.

 

[OscarH]

Worth pointing out that £3 is a cap, so some shorter distance fares may be less than this. Your overall point stands though.

Based on the prices the likes of Stagecoach charged most of us outside PTE areas before the cap, that'll be a minority though!

 

[Starmill]

Based on the prices the likes of Stagecoach charged most of us outside PTE areas before the cap, that'll be a minority though!

Even the small town Plusbus boundaries mostly seem to go out further than the operators allow for a fare of sub-£3.

 

[OscarH]

Even the small town Plusbus boundaries mostly seem to go out further than the operators allow for a fare of sub-£3.

Indeed. My old example is Chichester, which is pretty stingy with the PlusBus area, but it's still better than the eye-watering normal bus fares if you aren't going too far

 

[infobleep]

The only town where I found PlusBus to be of poorer value, if staying overnight, was Oxford, they do 24 hour bus passes. If you time it right, can do all your travel within 24 hours.

If it's just for one day though, then PlusBus wins.

 

[philthetube]

Blackpool is the same price as a day ticket, however depending on where you look decides whether you can visit Fleetwood or not.

 

[Vexed]

I'm hearing PlusBus eTickets should be rolled out in early April across all schemes.

 

[MrJeeves]

I'm hearing PlusBus eTickets should be rolled out in early April across all schemes.

It won't be the first rumoured date I've heard. I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[Vexed]

It won't be the first rumoured date I've heard. I'll believe it when I see it.

I'm confident in my source. Should come through RCS (Retail Control Service) data within two weeks, apparently.

I do hope it's true...

 

[Edvid]

On a somewhat-related note, Passenger is coming into the PlusBus fold.

Passenger has been appointed to deliver the next generation of Traveline’s family of digital services.

This project provides a new technology solution for data management, journey planning and real-time information, helping deliver better public transport information for communities, businesses and visitors UK-wide.

[...]

The work also includes the redevelopment of the PlusBus website as part of Traveline’s broader Digital Transformation programme for PlusBus. It is intended to be instrumental in providing information to the large segment of consumers who prefer e-ticketing over paper and for whom PlusBus is not currently attractive.

 

[redreni]

Rumoured dates that are many months away tend not to materialise. When a rumoured date is only days away, it suggests they are actually ready to implement it.

Great if it works.

I hope it does, because if it doesn't, I'd much rather offer a paper ticket for visual inspection and then explain to the driver what it is if they don't know, than have to persuade a driver to accept a ticket that has already been rejected by the scanner.

 

[Wolfie]

Rumoured dates that are many months away tend not to materialise. When a rumoured date is only days away, it suggests they are actually ready to implement it.

Great if it works.

I hope it does, because if it doesn't, I'd much rather offer a paper ticket for visual inspection and then explain to the driver what it is if they don't know, than have to persuade a driver to accept a ticket that has already been rejected by the scanner.

I absolutely agree although l find it deeply frustrating just how often, faced with immediate rejection, l not only have to explain to bus drivers what it is but, when faced with continued rejection, show them the Plusbus signs by the entrance or on their own cab doors....

 

[Jan Mayen]

Is it possible scanners on buses to be programmed to accept PlusBus e-tickets?

 

[Vexed]

Is it possible scanners on buses to be programmed to accept PlusBus e-tickets?

The underlying hardware nearly all bus companies use (Ticketer) does support railway Aztec codes. I expect each operator will have to set up the local scheme(s) they are part of which might not happen particularly quickly.

 

[MrJeeves]

The underlying hardware nearly all bus companies use (Ticketer) does support railway Aztec codes. I expect each operator will have to set up the local scheme(s) they are part of which might not happen particularly quickly.

That's quite the step up from bricking a Ticketer by trying to scan a rail Aztec, which was the last story I heard!

Glad to hear it's seemingly ready-to-go now.