Tuesday 26th November 2019
It’s good to see more and more bus companies playing payment systems catch-up by accepting contactless cards as an alternative to cash. I’m not convinced the transaction time is quicker, and indeed could well be slower in the hands of a proficient and experienced cash handling driver, but it’s the way society has rapidly moved and the bus industry must respond and adapt. I very rarely buy anything with cash these days.
My concern is the potential confusion caused by mixing up the simple substitute of cash with a contactless card to buy a bus ticket from the driver with new systems of tap-on and tap-off being rolled out by some operators linked to daily, weekly or even monthly capping. The former is still very much traditional ticket buying; the latter is ticketless travel and sometimes known colloquially as ‘London style’ (ie previously with Oyster).
Before these tapping trials take off too extensively there’s an urgent need for bus companies to think very carefully about how their marketing is targeted, the terminology used and procedures adopted.
In London it has all worked smoothly since the introduction of Oyster to the Capital’s bus network in 2003 because the flat fare has obviated the need to touch out. One tap as you get on is all that’s needed. Everyone accepts the ticketless concept and the daily cap.
Out in the provinces where flat fares aren’t appropriate it’s not so simple. Tap a ticket machine too early and you could end up paying for a single journey whereas you might have wanted a return ticket or a day ticket from the driver. How are you to know the difference?
For example, Brighton & Hove who accept both contactless to buy traditional tickets, and contactless to tap-on and tap-off are using various marketing messages including “Tap to pay and you’re on your way” while Stagecoach South operating through the city accept contactless on their frequent Coastliner route 700 into the city only for buying traditional tickets and use the marketing message ‘Tap & Go’.
Brighton & Hove also use the message ‘Tap on, tap off. Contactless is even easier’.
I’m not sure what tap-on tap-off is meant to be ‘even easier’ than …. but an uninformed customer would be hard pressed to know there’s a fundamental difference between the two ‘taps’ – a “Tap & Go” is vastly different to a “Tap-on, tap-off” while a “Tap to pay” could mean anything.
Wellglade owned trentbarton and Kinchbus in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire both also offer contactless payments and use the terms ‘travel contactless’ (for tap-on and tap-off) and ‘contactless payments’ for buying traditional paper tickets by contactless. TrentBarton have the added complication of also still using their long standing proprietary mango smartcard which has always operated in tap-on and tap-off mode and indeed was the first such operation in the UK – initially offering an attractive 25% discount compared to cash fares but since those heady days has been scaled back to a more modest 10% saving. Mango now suffers from its limited functionality (limited to three timed caps and not possible to offer area zonal caps) compared to what can be achieved through contactless.
The tap-on/tap-off system introduced by Brighton & Hove and Metrobus a few months ago is a good opportunity for Go-Ahead to trial what happens when passengers travel across two bus companies with a common cap. It’s the kind of thing that could be rolled out in Oxford, for example, across two competing bus companies (Oxford Bus and Stagecoach Oxford) with an integrated ticket scheme where the daily cap would effectively be that city’s Smartzone day ticket at £4.30.
Up until now, as a passenger, once I’d bought my Smartzone day ticket, I would know which operator I’d bought it from, and I have no interest in how the money is shared out between Oxford Bus and Stagecoach Oxford. Why would I need to know about that? But in the new world of tapping on and off, this becomes an issue as I found out on my recent trials travelling with Brighton & Hove and Metrobus.
Brighton & Hove have day tickets/daily caps of £5 (travel across the City network) and £7 (travel beyond the City). There’s also a £7.50 Metrovoyager ticket which includes all B&H and Metrobus routes and is quite a bargain if you use it extensively, but I doubt many folk use both Metrobus and B&H that much. Metrobus also have day tickets within each town served as well as across their network.
I was interested in how it would work by making journeys across both B&H and Metrobus which would be subject to the £7.50 Metrovoyager cap, so last Thursday, 21st November I set off for Brighton to give it a try out.
My first journey was from Hurstpierpoint into Brighton on Metrobus route 273. I tapped in as I boarded and tapped out as I alighted. As you tap out there’s nothing to confirm what you’ve paid (as happens when you tap out with Oyster at an Underground gate) – just an ‘accepted’ message.
I happen to know the single fare for the journey I made is £3.70, but otherwise I’d not have known that’s how much debt I’d incurred.
A little concerning was the pole mounted exit reader had gone to sleep as I came to get off in Brighton with no green light displaying. The driver said to use his cab mounted machine instead but just at that moment the former machine came to life and displayed ‘accepted’ as I placed my contactless card on it.
Normally a passenger making a return journey from Hurstpierpoint to Brighton and back would ask the driver for a return ticket which costs £5.90 – a saving of £1.50 compared to buying two singles (at £3.70 each way) for £7.40.
But for that I’d need to know not to immediately tap on to the ticket machine but instead ask the driver for a return ticket in the traditional way, wait for it to be keyed into the ticket machine and then tap my card for the fixed payment to go through and receive a paper ticket. Tap too soon and I’d be £1.50 worse off as the driver would be unable to cancel the £3.70 lined up to be deducted from my bank account; and when I returned home it would be another £3.70 as the tap-on and tap-off system is not clever enough to cap fares paid from and to the same origin/destination at the return fare. Effectively it’s either singles or day tickets in this new world of contactless – tap-on and tap-off may be ‘even easier’ but it could also be ‘even costlier’.
Once I’d arrived in Brighton I took a short ride on a Brighton & Hove bus through the central area with my tap-on and tap-off card clocking up a fare of £2.20.
My third journey was a return trip to Hurstpierpoint which the tap-on and tap-off would calculate as another £3.70 single but I was expecting the Metrovoyager cap of £7.50 to kick in limiting my payment to £1.60 (£3.70+£2.20+£1.60=£7.50).
I eagerly logged on to the Metrobus website when I got home to see if that is indeed what had happened only to get a message ‘no records found’.
I realised I was probably being premature and left it until the next day (Friday 22nd) and had another try.
Somewhat disconcertingly a similar message of no entries matching my ‘search criteria’ came back both when entering my credit card details on the link for unregistered users and, after registering as a user and trying that way. Still nothing. On the upside no transaction had been recorded against my credit card for the previous day’s travel either.
I tried again 48 hours later (on Saturday 23rd) and still nothing as a registered user.
However by checking as an unregistered user up came an entry showing a deduction of £5.30 for Friday 22nd (the day after I’d made the journeys on Thursday 21st).
This puzzled me at first as I couldn’t see why a daily cap would kick in at £5.30 rather than the £7.50 I was expecting; however, when clicking on the icon for further details I then saw the two entries for my outward journey for £3.70 and return journey shown as £1.60.
That’s when it dawned on me that the missing £2.20 (£7.50 less £5.30) would no doubt be listed on the Brighton & Hove website and sure enough, although nothing was showing at that time, later on during Saturday, it popped up as a record – also showing the incorrect travel date as Friday.
Clicking on the ‘Details” icon brought up that journey on route 49 for £2.20.
I checked my credit card transactions again with my credit card company and the Metrobus entry for £5.30 had been deducted and after another 24 hours (on Sunday 24th) the £2.20 was shown as a deduction for Brighton & Hove.
This all seemed a bit confusing to me, and the lack of information being available for 48 hours giving rise to consternation and not helpful in building trust into the system. One of the key elements of ticketless payment systems of this kind, as TfL always point out with Oyster and their use of contactless, is how absolutely vital it is for passengers to trust the system to charge the best fare. Whilst it did do that for my trips, I’m not convinced the presentation across two bus company websites is the best way to show it. Had I bought a Metrovoyager from the driver of the 273 for £7.50 on my first journey I wouldn’t be knowing B&H got £2.20 of this and Metrobus £5.30; indeed the whole £7.50 would have gone to Metrobus and been retained by them.
Following that expereince, I thought I’d give the system another try and so this morning began my tapping in central Brighton and made four short journeys in quick succession.
The first £2.20 centre-fare journey was on a B&H smart new electric bus on route 5B from Preston Circus down to London Road shops.
Short journey number two, just to add to the confusion, was on a Metrobus route 272 from London Road shops to the Old Steine. Although this journey is charged at £2.20 in line with B&H’s fares, and although Metrobus and B&H are effectively run as one company, this journey wouldn’t have been possible with a Brighton & Hove one day City Saver ticket for £5 – only the Metrovoyager £7.50 ticket includes both Metrobus and B&H buses, so I’m not expecting this journey to count towards the daily B&H cap of £5 when it comes to analysing my contactless tap-on and tap-off journey record.
My third shop hop was on a B&H route 1 from the Old Steine just one stop further on in North Street which counts as a £2 ‘short hop’ rather than the £2.20 centre fare, although I couldn’t find a list online showing where these slightly cheaper fares apply.
The fourth and final short hop was on a B&H route 49 from North Street to Churchill Square, which could be £2 or maybe £2.20, but as the £5 cap should kick in I’ll never know!
I’m expecting the B&H £5 cap to cover my three B&H bus fares and the Metrobus £2.20 to be set against the extra £2.50 to take my cap from £5 to £7.50 for the Metrovoyager ticket leaving 30p still to use.
After my four short hops I headed back from Brighton to Hassocks and Hurstpierpoint on a Metrobus 273 which would normally be £3.70 for the single journey, as explained earlier, so I would expect to pay just the 30p outstanding within the £7.50 cap for that journey.
This evening, I’ve checked both the Metrobus and B&H websites to see if my travels have been recorded yet, and much to my surprise following last week’s posting delays, four of my five journeys have appeared. The fifth, that £2.20 journey on Metrobus 272 seems to have disappeared.
On the B&H website using the non-registered user function, it shows the three journeys I made (on routes 5B, 1 and 49) with the £5 daily cap kicking in. (As you can see my journey on Thursday 21st November is still erroneosly listed as Friday 22nd November).
On the Metrobus website using the non-registered user function, it shows only my journey back to Hurstpierpoint on route 273 valued at £2.50 (the difference between the B&H cap of £5 and the Metrovoyager ticket cap of £7.50. The £2.20 journey on route 272 has disappeared into the ether.
When I click on to My Account to see a record of journeys, it still tells me there are no entries to be found.
Update insert: Wednesday 27th November
Checking my transactions record on the Metrobus website this morning (below) I see the elusive journey I made yesterday on route 272 is now listed but showing a zero value being within the £7.50 cap even though the journey was made sequentially earlier than the later journey on route 273 which is given a value of £2.50. Even more confusingly the date of both journeys has now changed to today’s date rather than yesterday!
Also, this morning (Wednesday) on checking the ‘pending transactions’ with my credit card company on their online website, an entry for “Brighton & Hove Bus An Brihgotn & Hogbr” appeared for 10p and an hour later a similar entry for Metrobus, although with no gobblegook spelling. I’m told on Twitter these are verfication deductions, but it seems odd (a) to have one from both companies; (b) that I had none last week and (c) they’re both still showing this afternoon, seven hours after first appearing with no sign of the actual expenditure appearing.
Update insert: Friday 29th November
The 10p entries highlighted above were deleted from my credit card statement after 24 hours and finally today the entries for my travels on Tuesday 26th November have appeared – dated 28th November, but only appearing this morning, three days after travelling.
I’m pleased to see my former Company in the vanguard of using this new technology and well done to all involved in setting it all up which I can imagine must have entailed a lot of hard work, but it would seem there are teething problems to sort out, especially how the system works across two companies, which will be critical for those areas where pundits want to see “integrated London style ticketing”.
There’s also wider issues for the bus industry as to how paying for travel is going to be communicated and marketed in the future. Are return tickets old hat; will it all be tap-on and tap-off with daily caps? If so, what about all those who don’t have or don’t want to pay with a bank card? Or those bus companies mainly running trunk routes where daily caps are not appropriate? Will maintaining a range of alternative systems and ticket options add to confusion? What is the difference between “Tap to Pay”, “Tap & Go” and “Tap-on and Tap off”?
There’s a lot to think about, and in the meantime there’s a risk confusion leads to passengers giving up.
Good luck to cities and towns with more than one operator like Oxford in sorting this out in ways passengers will understand, and importantly have the trust and confidence to use.
London Oyster style this isn’t.
Roger French
I was wondering whether the pick up point at Ealing Hospital would be by the bus stops for routes 92, 282 and 483 within the hospital grounds and sure enough it came through as at “TfL Bus Stop – Ealing Hospital” but prior to that confirmation it was insisting I was trying to book “from Denman Avenue” which must be an internal hospital road as the icon was definitely in the hospital grounds.
Seeing the photos online I was already hugely impressed by the sheer presence of the magnificent looking Alexander Dennis built Plaxton Panorama tri-axle coaches launched by Scottish Citylink on their AIR branded service between Glasgow and Edinburgh Airport towards the end of last month.
Small independently owned bus companies are a vital part of the industry. They serve small size towns and rural areas which other plc group companies cannot reach.
Go-Coach Hire based in Sevenoaks is another such bus company, although much younger than Safeguard – it was set up by owner Austin Blackburn in 2008 – but over the ensuing eleven years has established itself as a much respected player on the bus scene. This is undoubtedly due to the dedication, enthusiasm and passion that Austin has brought to the business.
It was very impressive to see behind the scenes at Go-Coach’s base in Sevenoaks. Austin is an engineer by profession and has worked for a myriad of bus companies during his long career which led to him establishing his own ‘Bus Doctor’ business in 2001. This led to an interest in the school contract market and acquiring a coach in 2008; then three coaches and soon after the bus business was born in 2009. It’s now a sizeable operation with over fifty vehicles and a PVR of 42.
Austin works a seventy-two hour week starting very early each morning to oversee the runout from the company’s Swanley outstation, then driving a school bus himself before taking the bus on to the Sevenoaks base to begin his day job of attending to the fleet’s engineering needs with his six fitters and two apprentices, purchasing the necessary spare parts, checking in with the operational and administrative team then taking the school bus back out in service in the afternoon.
It’s a busy day but you soon realise Austin’s engineering experience is a vital ingredient to the success of the business. He proudly showed me a 58 plate Optare Versa he’d purchased from RATP for an absolute bargain price which he’d made look as new (both on the outside and ‘under the bonnet’) together with another being cannibalised for spares.
But what was equally impressive for someone with an engineering pedigree was Austin proudly showing me the large sized maps he displays at all the main bus shelters in the town showing his Sevenoaks bus network and fares information as well as describing to me the changes being introduced next month and the positive reasons for each one. And that these had been discussed at a public meeting he’d arranged for passengers to come along to and give their feedback and comments.
Go-Coach’s branding is certainly bright and stands out, not least in Sevenoaks bus station which the company manages and where the information is presented clearly, including a manned travel office with one of the most friendly and helpful members of staff you’ll find anywhere.
Sevenoaks is not an easy town in which to run buses. Austin explains his business is roughly two-thirds commercial and one-third tendered/contracted which is commendable for this part of prosperous England. Key to success is that every vehicle has busy peak school journeys in its schedule.
There was a bit of a skirmish between Go-Coach and Arriva a couple of years ago on local routes and ironically just as Go-Coach backed down, Arriva made the mistake of introducing the completely inappropriate Mercedes Sprinter minibuses on the two routes ending in them abandoning the routes altogether which Go-Coach have now picked up and will shortly be marketing as part of a revitalised town network with routes numbered 1 to 8.
As if all this wasn’t impressive enough, it’s Austin’s plans for a Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) operation for Sevenoaks and part of its hinterland which are really capturing the imagination.
Whilst the Government hints it will be dangling inducement finance for swanky DRT trials and Arriva invest goodness knows how much in Click’s flawed business model, Austin has been quietly beavering away in his ‘spare time’ (in between school runs, engineering, stores, bus stop displays and other duties) to come up with a credible plan to replace an infrequent rural route; add new Special Education Needs (SEN) peak hour transport; take over off-peak commitments for Age UK; and introduce a new bespoke service for wealthy City bound commuters using Sevenoaks station with a fleet of four brand new seven-(leather)-seater taxis under a Private Hire licence rather than an O licence.
The secret financial ingredient to its business success is packaging together statutory and publicly funded work (the SEN contracts), off peak work funded by the third sector (Age UK), replacing a full sized bus with smaller vehicles more appropriate for sparsely loaded subsidised rural routes but running more frequently and taking a commercial risk in developing growth from the commuter market. What a brilliant example of entrepreneurial flare.
There are still lots of refinements yet to come to get the model right such as how much to rely on app based, phone based or turn-up-in-person-in-the-bus-station requests for the DRT elements or whether to use a fixed timetable as well as implications of what fares to charge to keep within taxi type regulations which requires everything to be pre-booked …. but that was the joy of my visit this morning to brainstorm ideas with someone as passionate and committed to delivering a good service as Austin.
Roger French
That team also operated a very small scale public service using pods with a capacity of twelve in Lyon.
The pods are to the same design as those used to connect Heathrow’s Terminal Five with the car park on exclusive guided track. Heathrow Airport are running this trial to test how the technology works on open pathways used by pedestrians and cyclists around the Park. The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park prides itself on being a hub for innovation and may even use such pods to connect people to its various venues in the future.
It already had about four on board who’d almost certainly got on at Morrisons and now had a ten minute wait on their journey home as the driver popped over to the shops. I was beginning to warm to the idea of Click already; I could have been on my way.
…. before the bus finally pulled up at the nearby stop and we were off on the circuit a few minutes late.
From my observations today, the other complication with morphing the 211 into DRT is the average passenger is probably not a smartphone owner or adept at using such technology. To get round this, as with GoSutton in London, passengers can ring up Merseytravel who’ll book the journey for them and provide the algorithm’s pick up details while they’re on the phone.
This does introduce ‘noise’ into the system – will the communications always work and messages be accurately understood? – but the allocation of regular drivers to the dedicated ‘Speke zone’ Click vehicle and managers impressing on them the need to be flexible, especially in the first few weeks, is in hand.
As well as the two times I tried a booking while in Speke and got a 5 minute response time (indicating a vehicle was available nearby), when I actually booked one to take me back to Liverpool South Parkway I was given a pick up within seven minutes; and it was just me travelling. So the evidence is it’s still a struggle to get that all important shared ridership as the pathway to DRT commercial success.
What’s more although I was set down by the Station entrance and Dan, my friendly driver, even told me which platform I needed and how to get there, I understand Merseytravel won’t let Click pick up from the bus station right by the station and you have to walk outside to the road network.
This also happened to me on my last visit – not being picked up in Liverpool One bus station. Come on Merseytravel – if you’re now collaborating with Arriva it makes sense to sort these anomalies out.
PPS Liverpool South Parkway is an impressive airy bus station to wait in with lots of facilities but I was a bit surprised the man in the Travel Centre didn’t know Arriva’s Airport route 500 went to Speke when I enquired.
I sampled zeelo’s new commuter coach service between Newport and Bristol back in the Spring and 
Aspiring bus companies have given the Crawley bus market a competitive try over the years, but none have survived; the well regarded Metrobus has proved unassailable against all upstart new entrants.
I arrived at the Breezehurst Roundabout bus stop on the Horsham Road in good time for my 15:10 departure this afternoon and was pleasantly surprised to be joined soon after by another passenger. She was a student working as an intern at Gatwick Airport for a month and had seen the minibuses on the road over the last few days so booked herself a journey to work “especially as it’s free at the moment”.
This bit of Horsham Road is unserved by Metrobus and the bus stop pole is flag-less but specific stop information available in the zeelo App as well as online reassures that this is exactly the correct place to be waiting, and sure enough, on the dot of 15:10, Peter arrives to pick us up.
The Mercedes mini-coach has a ‘luxurious’ feel to it with comfortable seats, wi-fi and usb sockets. Peter gave us a smooth ride to the Airport. No-one on board alighted at Atlantic House at the South Terminal and we all continued to the bus stop by Jubilee House at the North Terminal – just two to three minutes walk from the Terminal building itself – where we arrived at 15:30. An impressive twenty minute ride. At this time of the day, Metrobus’s route 10 would have taken around thirty minutes travelling through Broadfield and the town centre as well as Manor Royal.
My return journey was the next departure at 16:10 and my driver Tembi again arrived on the dot of that time – it turned out no-one had booked on the incoming journey so he’d started this part of his shift from the North Terminal.
This was the very impressive brand new Indcar 29 seater. Again, nice comfortable seats and a smooth ride; and this time it was just me travelling.
We had a bit of a delay leaving the North Terminal being stuck behind a trio of National Express coaches loading up and there was a hold up by the level crossing in Horsham Road where a badly parked taxi led to alternate working.
Despite this we arrived back at the Breezehurst Roundabout (this time marked with a flag for only the first journey on route 24!) at 16:34 taking just 24 minutes.
It made me wonder though, whether the 27 minute journey time over the next couple of hours of Crawley’s heavy peak hour late afternoon traffic might be a bit tight, especially as the mini-coaches don’t use Crawley’s bus lanes.
Tembi was very friendly and was naturally hoping this new zeelo venture would be a success. He’s been with Passenger Plus+ for some time, having previously worked with Metrobus, and explained that his duty involved working on other contract work Passenger Plus+ have in their portfolio in the Crawley area in the morning switching to the zeelo work in the afternoon. It looks as though zeelo is a perfect fit for Passenger Plus+ and being a quality operator, they’re a perfect fit for zeelo.
TfL’s first foray into the new fangled world of App based Dial-A-Ride (aka Demand Responsive Transport) in Sutton is now in its twelfth week and yesterday a rather impersonal email popped into my inbox announcing an exciting extension of the area served by the swish exec style wishy-washy liveried Mercedes Sprinter minibuses.
A minibus was close by at IKEA dropping a passenger off so I was given a convenient pick up time just five minutes away and the little map showed me where driver Shane would be coming from after that drop off.
During the journey the SatNav gives explicit directions even where the route has the right of way at junctions; eg turn left… on a bend to the left in the main road, if there’s another road off to the right. And every instruction is given twice; once with a precise assessment in feet of how far ahead the manoeuvre is and then at the actual location. It can all get a bit annoying background noise when sitting in the front seats.
We set off on a diagonal route right across the area, avoiding the centre of Sutton and using a number of residential roads not used by standard bus routes.
It’s odd that you can only summon a minibus to appear on the far western side of Costco (at the bottom of the Google aerial shot below) rather than by the more logical and busy Colonnades on the eastern side of the A23 …….
…… as it has to use Purley Way to get to Costco so could easily pick up at the Colonnades too.
…..we headed north taking just fourteen minutes instead of the predicted sixteen and I was dropped off at the official TfL bus stop used by route 463 south of Beddington Lane tram stop – I’ve noticed the algorithm likes dropping you off at official bus stops.
Alexandru then headed off to await his next passenger.
And I wandered up to the tram stop and headed back to East Croydon and home.
It was a gorgeous hot sunny Monday afternoon at the end of last month as I got off the train at Carshalton station and fired up the GoSutton App to order a minibus to take me over to the Royal Marsden Hospital in the south-western corner of the original operating area.
Not only that but I became intrigued as the journey continued that we weren’t deviating from the expected route to the Royal Marsden to drop her off somewhere. It turned out my fellow passenger was also travelling to the Hospital, where she works, and had boarded just a couple of minutes before me up the road in Carshalton.
It was the first time she’d used GoSutton and was understandably impressed with the convenience of only a short wait and then a ten minute direct journey; and what’s more she couldn’t believe as a Freedom Pass holder it had been a completely free ride for her.