Great Western Coffee Shop

Yesterday, I caught the train to Axminster. I then had to take the bus to Symondsbury to start a 9 mile walk that would take me to West Bay via Golden Cap.
Whilst on the train I realised I didn't have many coins for the bus and wasn't sure if the bus driver would be keen to be given a £10 note. I looked at the First bus site to see how much the fare would be. No luck there, so decided to download the First bus m-tickets app. Well that was a waste of time as it only offers weekly or monthly tickets on the Jurassic routes. Seems the only way to find out the price is to ask the driver or contact First. I eventually paid the driver £5.50 for a single to Symondsbury and then later the same amount to travel from West Bay back to Axminster. I forgot to ask if a return ticket or day ticket were available.

It's frustrating that there is such a lack of information online. :(

One element of the Bus Services Act is that open data will be available. However, the act was rushed through before the end of the last parliament, and how and when those provisions are applied isn't clear - at least to me.

Fares in Bristol and the West of England are easy to find from First's website. I use the mTickets app whenever I travel by bus, as it's cheaper and I like to keep the purse-strings tight, but it took a long time before it moved from weekly tickets to being generally useful. Maybe next time you go walkabout, it will be available for your trip.

I have the more bus app installed on my phone for when I'm in the Bournemouth area. They do 1 day m-tickets which are cheaper than paying the driver. I guess for First the ticket availability varies by area. I re-checked the First website for Dorset and still can't find stop to stop fares although a google search found a news story from earlier this year about the fare going up to £5.50.

No plans to go back to West Dorset this year or next. My next trip will possibly be to Beaulieu and Bucklers Hard. Seems to be a seasonal route. I'll need to research bus prices from Southampton and how to pay before I get there.  :)

On a slight tangent, Mrs Otter went to PLY today from LOS with the children, and was hoping to buy the plusbus add on with her ticket.  She was told on the train that the new style machines are unable to issue Plus Bus add ons, but it did present her with a 40 lin. cm return ticket.  The only solution apparently was to upgrade the ticket on arrival at Plymouth however as a result of the closure of the concourse she was unable to do that.

Has Plus Bus become a victim of new technology or is this just a hiccup with the new machines ?

Preparing for a day trip this weekend I see that More bus and Bluestar now accept contactless card payments. Perhaps other Go Ahead subsidiaries do also. Hopefully it can speed up boarding times by not having to count out the right fare / counting out change.

Can't do plus bus, can't do tickets involving cross London journeys, gates not equipped go read the bar code things,  another wonderful GWR lash up.