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Tag Archives: Ticketing

Changes that happened while I wasn’t looking

12 Jan

Out of curiosity, I decided to explore the Megabus website for the U.K. and it surprised me to see how low some of their prices were. Apparently, there’s a seat sale on at the moment too so that may explain some of those less than £5. However, it’s easy to see the attraction of what aren’t so infrequent services from Manchester to places such as Leeds, Birmingham, Glasgow and London. With the recent increases in train fares, even a ticket costing less than £20 has to look tempting. Is that why the though of savouring their services to see what they’re like has entered my head?

While checking out express coach services, I also decided to take a look at what Greyhound offers to the U.K. traveller these days and it looks as if things have expanded beyond the London services to the south coast of England with which they started. For instance, regular services between Cardiff and Swansea are now on offer with the frequency making them look like the Welsh version of the Scottish Citylink service between Edinburgh and Glasgow or the National Express one between Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool. It looks a good move forward and I hope that it’s attracting a good level custom. Also coming within the Greyhound fold is the overnight service between London and Scotland (Hamilton, Glasgow, Edinburgh) that First Glasgow took over from Silver Choice. All the while, it’s south of England tally of destinations increases with Winchester being a recent addition to those like Portsmouth, Poole, Southampton, Bournemouth, Fareham, Ringwood (for the New Forest) and the Isle of Wight. All in all, Greyhound is growing in Britain so there must be some success being had somewhere. Maybe the attractive prices might have something to do with it because I did glimpse a few going for £1 plus booking fee.

All in all, it looks as if express coach travel might be on the up and it would not be a bad thing if a decent network built up in England and Wales, even if it meant travelling with different operators on a single journey. The looming increases in train fares are presenting an opportunity and I wonder if anyone is out there waiting to take it. Now mightn’t be a bad time to spend a little longer travelling in order to save a little cash when it is a scarcer commodity than used to be case a few years ago.

 
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Posted by on January 12, 2011 in Coaches, News, Ticketing, Timetables

 

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A circular run

26 Sep

A sunny morning was enough to send ideas of improving on my Buxton photo collection into my head and me off on a spot of local travelling. The pondering carried on and designs on traveling to Bakewell came on steam too. They were strong enough to get me picking up a £10 Wayfarer ticket from Macclesfield’s train station before hailing a very full service 58 to Buxton. Much to my surprise, most stayed on it until Buxton itself because I might have expected most to disembark on the way up Buxton Road before leaving Macclesfield.

The day was largely grey by the time that I reached Buxton so no Buxton photos for me then. Inspection of bus timetables sent the idea of going to Ashbourne into my head. After all, it is a part of Derbyshire where I hadn’t gone before and a cloudy day is a chance to see somewhere new. A lack of sun and a chilly breeze were enough to send me onto the next service 42 (like the 58, also operated by Bowers). Along the way, the day cheered up again and I was surprised to see it leaving the A515 for a narrow lane but this was the deviation that serves the pretty place that is Tissington village. That was the only time that it left the A515 until Ashbourne was reached with the terminus being a collection of stances that passes as a bus station.

After spending an hour around a sunny Ashbourne and sampling a little piece of the Tissington Trail, it was onto the last stage of the journey: the 108 from Ashbourne to Macclesfield operated by Clowes with the support of councils in Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire. That service left with just two passengers on board but more were to join in Leek and near Bosley so it didn’t stay that empty all of the way. The route stuck with the A52 for longer than might be expected and there were some strange twists and turns before it passed Cauldon to join the A523 at Waterhouses. From there, it was all direct through to Leek and Macclesfield though it started to feel before Leek came into view.

All the buses on which I travelled were well used though none was as full as the Optare Solo that took me away from Macclesfield in the first place. That was the one conveying young families along with the now habitual contingent of bus pass holders and others like myself. In fact, all services were used by both young and old alike with the 42 dropping off some Indians in Tissington.

With its YJ05 registration, the Optare was the newest bus that I used and the age profile of the others was such that they dated from the mid/late 1990′s. Both were Mercedes midibuses that once were common around Macclesfield with a P-reg one operating the 42 and an M-reg one working the 108. Ride on all of these, even the older ones, was better than on some recent journeys between Wilmslow and Macclesfield on Arriva’s 130. In fact, the Clowes bus still retains its welcome sign and seat upholstery from its time in Arriva hands.

All buses operated pretty much to time and the timetables made it all work even when things were being worked out on the hoof rather than being planned beforehand. Now that I have seen how to get to Ashbourne, exploring the countryside surrounding the town is more of a possibility. Who knows what might come of that?

 
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Posted by on September 26, 2010 in Buses, Journeys, Observations, Ticketing

 

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On electronic ticketing

30 Jul

Alternative ways of getting travel tickets have become normal for the airline industry over the past decade and I suppose that the approach was bound to be adopted by other modes of transport too. Possibly inspired by Megabus, National Express and Scottish Citylink have been selling electronic tickets over the web for a while now. In my case, quite a number of trips to and around Scotland have made good use of being able to print out the tickets at home rather than waiting for them to arrive by post. In fact, getting things through the ether of the web has made many a last minute escape a reality.

All of the while that I have been enjoying speedy ticket delivery through my PC, others have been making good use of mobile phone ticketing. On a weekend visit to Fort William, I spotted damp weekend explorers wondering if they had enough mobile phone battery power to show the driver the tickets for a return to Glasgow. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe that National Express does likewise though I cannot anyone actually proffering such a thing on alighting one of their coaches.

More recently, Arriva started experimenting with mobile phone tickets on its buses. The initial pilot must have been successful but it has extended to all parts of their network now with Cheshire having them too. To use the facility, it might be best to have a so-called smartphone in order to go down the mobile electronic route. A recent acquisition of a Blackberry in advance of a change of job set me up nicely. Also, that change of working circumstances means that I need to stick with Arriva for the daily commute when I am not using a bicycle to do the honours. With the latter set-up, I was going to work my way through many weekly tickets. They may make useful bookmarks afterwards but there’s only so many of those that anyone needs.

It was the prospect of cutting down on paper detritus that drew me to giving mobile tickets a go. You can choose daily, weekly or monthly tickets and I chose the middle option for a first trial. There is a need for website registration that sends a message to your phone for verification and a PIN for using the service too. That’s a necessity when you are drawing funds from a credit card to pay for any tickets that you buy; just get rid of that original message for more security. An application was added to my phone to do the required ticket acquisition. Unlike buying a ticket on a bus, you can buy ahead of time and activate on first use so there is no need until the day when you need it at all. Mind you, you do need to keep your phone in working order and I wouldn’t like to be stood in an area where mobile phone signal is weak either. Apart from that and a need to have everything set up in good time, it seems to work so far and I might even go for a monthly ticket next time because of the savings, a rare thing in the world of bus travel. If things continue as they are, the era of paper weekly tickets and their red seals might be behind me. Of course, only time will tell if that comes to pass.

Update 2010-08-03: This morning my Blackberry crashed minutes before the bus appeared so a paper ticket was needed; the Opera Mini browser was to blame and reinstallation (bookmarks needed manual restoration, though) was the cure. Otherwise, there have been some frantic moments trying to get the ticket on screen in time but no driver has rejected the electronic item. In summary, the dalliance with mobile ticketing worked well most of the time. From now on, it might be an idea to start closing down applications on the handheld device instead of suspending them in order to avoid problems.

 
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Posted by on July 30, 2010 in Buses, Coaches, Observations, Ticketing

 

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They could have sent a longer bus…

13 Apr

Last weekend, I went walking around Capel Curig. To get there, I went by train to Dolwyddelan before walking over Carnedd Moel Siabod to where I was staying on Saturday night. Because I was travelling back of a Sunday, there were no trains running on the Conwy Valley railway line so it was a matter of catching the X84 from Betws-y-Coed after walking there from Capel Curig. The service accepts train tickets so there’s no more to be paid when you are in possession of one.

That meant finding the bus stop that is called “Platform 2″ in the car park near Betws-y-Coed’s train station and its National Park centre. The choice of name does make you wonder if someone has been using their sense of humour but it seems to be the main hub from which you can catch any of the buses serving the village. It was the 12:20 that I wanted and it turned up on time but the bus could have done with being bigger.

With the summery sunny weather, Arriva should have sent something more than a short wheelbase Dennis Dart but that’s what came and it was well full too, not ideal when you are carrying a hefty rucksack around with you. In fact, it became even cosier at Betws-y-Coed before it set off and stayed that way until it reached Llandudno Junction where most of the passengers, myself included, disembarked. Mercifully, some got off in Llanrwst, leaving space for the others who came on board, and there were no more coming on after that.

Hopefully, drivers of the X84 will get bigger buses for the route as the year wears on and that the May change in the rail timetable brings Sunday trains to the Conwy Valley again, at least for the summer season. After all, Betws-y-Coed is a popular spot and many continue to Blaenau Ffestiniog for the Ffestiniog Railway. As it stands, using undersized buses will encourage people to bring their cars in the belief that public transport is inadequate and the Snowdon Sherpa network needs all the patronage that it can get.

 
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Posted by on April 13, 2010 in Buses, Journeys, Observations, Ticketing, Timetables, Trains

 

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A handy piece of flexibility

05 Apr

Yesterday saw me head into Derbyshire for a spot of exploration in the Peak District National Park. What got me to Baslow for the start of the walk was a two part bus journey. Service 58 took me from Macclesfield to Buxton and service 218 got me from there to Baslow. My trot finished up in Bamford (Hathersage or Grindleford could have been stopping points too if time was tight) and a train to Manchester was put to use.Getting back from there took far, far longer than usual because of rail engineering works between Manchester and Stockport. The 30 minute bus journey wasn’t the bone of contention but rather the 50 minute wait for an onward train connection afterwards. Southbound Virgin and Crosscountry services weren’t available so it was a case of using the 21:52 to Stoke or getting a taxi.

To keep everything within the £10 cost of a GM Wayfarer ticket, I stuck with the train. After all, it was allowing me to mix and match modes of transport as needed to set up a linear walk. Derbyshire has its own Wayfarer but that doesn’t extend beyonds it boundaries to carry you into Greater Manchester and Cheshire like its more useful Greater Manchester equivalent. You need to watch you are getting in order to get the full deal.

The whole point of the day wasn’t to see if how far a GM Wayfarer would carry me. There was a good walk enjoyed under ever clearing skies and my legs are telling me a little about my exertions today. However, having that single ticket made it all the easier, ever if going into a train station to make the purchase and then travelling by bus sounds strange. Well, that’s what is needed in Macclesfield…

 
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Posted by on April 5, 2010 in Buses, Happenings, Journeys, Observations, Ticketing, Trains

 

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