Petty moan about bus change

PasturesNew

How do you know what a fare is until you get on the bus - and if you didn't expect to get on a bus you wouldn't even know they expected it.

Fire_Fox

PasturesNew wrote: »

How do you know what a fare is until you get on the bus - and if you didn't expect to get on a bus you wouldn't even know they expected it.

I guess it's a mistake you only make once! Presumably needing the right change is posted all over the website and hopefully on the bus stops.

Our local bus company used to run a card system, you could load it up with cash so never needed change. A little like London's Oyster card I think.

bod1467

PasturesNew wrote: »

How do you know what a fare is until you get on the bus - and if you didn't expect to get on a bus you wouldn't even know they expected it.

The fare is noted on the side of the bus. (For the whole route journey anyway - which is what I do if I'm ever taking the bus).

paddyrg

bod1467 wrote: »

Our buses are correct-change-only. So you either have to have the correct change (e.g. £2.75) OR over-pay (e.g. £3.00) as the money goes straight into a coin-collector ... the driver only issues tickets; never touching the money. (This also means that NO notes are accepted).

Horrible system, grossly unfair, but fast and cheap I suppose. The sooner we can 'pay by bonk' like oyster in a real credit card the better

giraffe69

Horrible system, grossly unfair, but fast and cheap I suppose.

Probably but if you haven't got the change and you have got the time you could simply decline to get off the bus and leave it to them to accept your not and give you change or take your name. It wouldn't take many for the "no change" system to become unworkable.

dacouch

Also so much quicker getting on with an Oyster

peachyprice

bod1467 wrote: »

Our buses are correct-change-only. So you either have to have the correct change (e.g. £2.75) OR over-pay (e.g. £3.00) as the money goes straight into a coin-collector ... the driver only issues tickets; never touching the money. (This also means that NO notes are accepted).

So if there are two of you travelling you can't pay with a £5 note and 50p in change? That's outrageous.

paddyrg

giraffe69 wrote: »

Probably but if you haven't got the change and you have got the time you could simply decline to get off the bus and leave it to them to accept your not and give you change or take your name. It wouldn't take many for the "no change" system to become unworkable.

Maybe it made more sense when fares were expressed in terms of a couple of coins, 10p, 12p, etc. Agree that if you've got a note, or £2 coins, frankly you're better of just walking than giving the bus company free money

Abbafan1972

Our buses are correct change only, you have to put the coins in the slot and the driver issues the ticket.

I have a Travelcard, so don't have to worry about carrying change. Although I have to make sure I have change when the kids travel with me. Their fare used to be 90p, so most of the time I had to put £1.00 in if I didn't have change, but from January it was increased to £1.00 anyway.

The thing that gets me is Travelcards, those with adult passes etc have to show the driver (they have your photo on etc and expiry date), but the OAP passes you have to flash it over a machine (face down) and it beeps, so the driver can't see the photo or anything, so someone slightly younger than OAP age could quite easily use someone elses pass when they don't qualify for free travel! :eek:

Moglex

You never got these problems when they had conductors!