Great Western Coffee Shop

A rather confused article on the Bristol Post about how First Bus in Bristol are introducing a flat fare of £2. Except that reading the whole article reveals it's only £2 if you use the mobile app; buy from the driver and it's £2.50. That's perhaps fair enough (except making the driver deal in 50ps increases dwell time due to change) but it's not even a flat fare, cos they still have the three-stop hop, the day rider, the night rider and several other ticket types. And it's still a ticket and still involves the driver – even if you use the app, you still have to show the driver. I don't think First have really got the idea.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/first-bus-introduce-flat-fare-2153223

https://www.firstgroup.com/bristol-bath-and-west/news-and-service-updates/my-new-ticket

Generating an awful lot of response - mostly negative.   Strikes me as a big increase in the differential between app and pay-on-travel fares.    Comments from others very welcome; I have not fully read in (or been briefed) yet.

Social media feedback
https://www.facebook.com/FirstWestofEngland/photos/a.253298864754938/1908971049187703/

What winds me up as someone who travels a lot is the number of apps I'm collecting in order to keep costs down....why can't each bus company simply have one app? Please?

Also, until they do, will they PLEASE put the (major) town they operate in as part of the app name on its badge - trying to remember which app is for which town/operator is bleeding difficult when all there is in the badge is a logo! Ditto taxi apps in this. They all assume one doesn't travel outside of your local town....

The app doesn’t need to be shown to driver, just scan the QR code on the ticketer machine. It tells the driver on the screen what’s scanned.
Main instruction to us is to observe whether adult or child scanned, as more open to misuse of child tickets. I’ve only found myself challenging one person and he had a proof of child entitlement issued by First bus with an expiry date!

Whilst not ideal, you can edit the name on app badges/tiles on both iPhone and Android.

oooh, instructions for an iphone7 would be welcomed, thanks!

For iPhone you either need to jailbreak your phone or use an icon changing app. Try the 'Iconical' app. It is a paid for app though. There may be free alternatives.

Us Android users have it much easier. Just long press the app icon and then you can edit the app name.

Doesn't seem to work for me. I'm on Android 8 (Oreo).

Apologies. Easy for those of us using Android and with a third party launcher. In my case Nova Launcher.

Yes, the video shows boarding passengers stopping by the driver's cab and pressing their phones to the scanner. This means that only one passenger at a time can scan their ticket, and a passenger buying a ticket from the driver holds the whole queue up – because there still is a queue, even if everyone uses the app.

Most days I stand waiting to board a bus, delayed by people who need to fire up an app so that they can scan a QR code. In that respect, a physical ticket you just take out of your pocket is far quicker.

Or dare I suggest they could use contactless, like shops, pubs, TfL...

An interesting discussion with First Bus at the panel last week - Cash is "worst" but they dislike contactless almost as much as they still have the fuss of chatting with the driver and working out what ticket you actually want, and then issuing it on paper.    I suspect that could be solved by a simple universal fare system!

Contactless can also be by phone. On my one and only bus journey this year (last week*), I witnessed a passenger struggle to unlock his phone, fire up his NFC and tap the right part of his device on the reader.



*£8.10 for a return from Chard to Taunton. EIGHT POUND TEN PEE. The same journey in July 2017, the last time I took it, was £6.80. 28 mile round trip. I worked out the the cost for the car journey would have been around £7.50. That incudes fuel - based on my vehicle's mpg, insurance and road tax (1/365 of their annual costs), and a daily pro rata cost for a generous £350 maintenance spend.

Depending on when you bought your car in its life cycle, the big financial cost is depreciation. The AA figures are quite frightening - an "average" car, doing 10,000 miles per year will have lost around 60% of its value after only 3 years .................. So a new £20,000 car would be costing 40p a mile in depreciation alone over those 3 years ...... :o :o :o  That's another £11 on your Taunton trip costs.   Plus loss of interest on your 20,000 quid - not much with today's interest rates though !!

That's why I am on the train to London tomorrow - the Fiesta takes us to the station only ...

Car was purchased for £550 in May 2017. Estimated value today of £350-400.

And not forgetting, if there were additional person(s) travelling with me (not eligible for free bus travel), the car costs become even more favourable.

Which is where we came in...

Smart man !  I know someone who buys a new car every two years so that:  " I don't get hit with any unexpected big bills" - he really goes think that way !

I actually took a bus yesterday! Only because I'd forgotten about the engineering works and therefore couldn't take the train I'd counted on from Lawrence Hill. I suppose I should have taken the bustitute (would have been cheaper and nearer my destination) but I was tired and had blisters (had walked from Bath  ::) it was a fun day  ;D) and the normal bus arrived so hopped on it. Anyway, paid £2.50 in cash but I did notice the only other person to get on at my stop and most of those at the next few stops all used m-tix. One had some sort of card which she asked the driver to top up. Perhaps(?) this points to most bus users being regulars and therefore both knowing about and finding it worthwhile using the mobile system.

I was glad to not that the supposedly very Bristolian* habit of thanking the driver when you get off is still alive and well.

*But definitely observed elsewhere too.

That card was probably a TravelWest card which can be loaded/topped up at the Metrobus I-Points and which is the subject of my irritations at not having the ability to top up with certain ticket types, see posts on the Metrobus thread.

Although I have a ENCTS card the TravelWest card is convenient for me to top-up with tickets for when I need to travel before 09:00 and I also enjoy from the benefit of the discounted m-tix prices in such circumstances.

(http://i598.photobucket.com/albums/tt68/bignosemac/imgTshirtCheersdrive_1_480x480_zpsapy4aite.jpg)

I have the t-shirt. ;D

That reminds me, I was talking to someone this morning who described the bus service as "gurt bum".  :D

#MeToo!

Here in Cornwall it is definitely the majority that thank us,