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Coach
and Bus Good Practice Guide
1. Before a Journey
2.
Bus Stops and Stations
3.
The Bus
4. Fares and Tickets
5. Punctuality and Reliability
6. Complaints and Suggestions
7.
Consultation
4. FARES AND TICKETS
Affordable fares and innovative fare payment methods and 'rewards'
for regular passengers are necessary
• to make fare payment easier
• to encourage regular bus use
• to ensure that bus travel remains within the reach of all
sections of the community
Fare payment should be as painless as possible for all users. Ease
of use should be the key. While schoolchildren and commuters often
hold season tickets, less frequent but regular passengers often
lose out on such offers, being obliged to pay the full fare. The
development of smartcard ticketing is simplifying payment and developments
in various parts of the country are being closely watched.
While exact fare systems can discourage casual use, and seem to
be geared mainly to regular passengers, we would accept that these
can have distinct operational benefits in certain circumstances.
They can speed up boarding dramatically on busy urban routes, especially
where self-service ticket machines are installed remotely from the
farebox to encourage good passenger flow, and have security advantages
for the driver.
However for exact fare schemes to be acceptable, a very simple fare
structure (ideally flat fare) is essential, using values that can
be made up from a minimum number of coins, and information must
be clearly displayed on every stop, giving the fare values and explaining
clearly that no change is given on the bus. Readily available day
and longer-period tickets and, ideally, an option to buy tickets
before boarding at or close to the stop, should be incorporated
into exact fare systems.
Operators also need to take care that, as driver involvement in
farebox transactions is at best minimal, drivers do not ‘lose touch’
with passengers and forget their duty to be welcoming and helpful.
THIS GUIDE welcomes the spread of Day Tickets, sold by the driver,
which allow unlimited use of a local system. For casual users, often
unsure of their journeys, these avoid delays at bus stops when asking
for unfamiliar destinations or searching for change.
Operators are often reluctant to provide opportunities for joint
ticketing with other bus operators, or indeed with rail services;
this partly stems from uncertainty about the response of the competition
authorities. Interavailability of bus tickets between operators
is worth considering, particularly where service frequencies are
poor, or in the evenings and on Sundays. Passengers cannot always
distinguish between operators competing on a common route and cannot
always understand why a ticket bought on one operator’s bus should
not be accepted on another’s.
Fare levels will always be a source of controversy among passengers,
and while THIS GUIDE recognises the importance of viable bus services,
it continues to campaign for affordable fares to ensure that bus
travel remains accessible to all sections of the community. This
is particularly important for those to whom the bus is the only
alternative to not travelling at all..
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