that bit further. They are hitting the customers with another £1 on the
already overpriced weekly ticket. I think £17 is way too much to be honest
and I'm not just saying that because I work for Stagecoach. Even the drivers
are a little surprised at the increase.
I'm sure they are in for a tough time Monday morning, and I still cannot
understand why you would have a fare that's more expensive than the day
ticket?
We started swiping the concession passes this week. It caused a little
confusion on Monday and some frustration but in time it will work well. I
had 4 drivers approach me this week who had taken out of date passes because
the machine had picked it up.
I'm on a late today on Wilmslow road so I won't finish until midnight and
off tomorrow which is always nice.
GMPTE are to blame, bringing in this crazy conssionary scheme.Next Monday morning will be crazy with everything running late.
ReplyDeleteIm very surprised Stagecoach and First have left it so late to advise passengers about these increases. One week is not long enough, and i think alot of adult fare payers will be caught short next week.
As for the card swiping fiasco. Whats the point. Stagecoach are the only operator doing this and i carnt see that changing anytime soon.
I was on a First bus on Tuesday where some OAP's were getting on and trying to swipe there cards. The driver thought it was highly amusing but its confusing to say the least.
If it aint broke, why fix it!
Arriva are already doing this in the parts of Greater Manchester which they serve, which my friend (with a concessionery pass) thought was quite cool on a recent trip from Westhoughton to Bolton as it printed a ticket with details of her pass on it. I suppose it is handy for data collection, and as our blogger can report, for confiscating out of date passes lol. It will also be handy if they bring in a Megarider smartcard, and way way in the future when every operator has these machines, a System One smartcard lol.
ReplyDelete*concessionary - I do know how to spell lol.
ReplyDeleteIt is a good idea in theory.
ReplyDeleteIm told that alot of drivers mis-treat the concessionary button on there ticket machines, ie they dont accuratly record the number of concessionary passengers travelling on each journey, so this kind of puts an end to this and gives much more precise figures, but it would have been much better to wait until all operators were in the same place.
The problem is GMPTE wont fund the scheme so the chances are 5 years down the line smaller operators will still be using older ticket machines which arn't adaptable.
Lancashire County Council funded the same kind of scheme which saw all operators in there area kitted out with this technology, hence why the X61 has been using the card swipping for some time.
All this has done is add more time to already over strecthed journeys and confused a hell of a lot of OAP's lol.
As for card swiping on X61s now these are operated out of Chorley Depot the Card Swiping is only active for the locally issued NOW Cards, I believe Preston (Frenchwood) is the only Depot with the software fitted and enabled at the moment that enables all ENCTS stickets to be swiped onto the machine and a ticket printed out.
ReplyDeleteAlso slowly but surely operators in Cheshire & Merseyside are getting the new Wayfarer Machines which allow holders to swipe their tickets and automatically issue a ticket to them without the driver doing anything, so far the following operaters have got the system fitted and is in use:
Avon Coaches
Supertravel
Warrington Borough Transport