Bus ticket acceptance on trains

[enginedin]

A couple of weeks ago, there was a crash on the A9, between Perth and Dalwhinnie, which closed the road for nearly 10 hours (I was caught up in the delays...). For those of you don't have the pleasure of knowing Scotland, the diversion routes for closures on this section of the A9 are *long* - either via Fort William or Ballater, both of which will add more than an extra 100 miles to the journey (and more than 2 hours). For HGVs / coaches that are coming from Inverness, the preferred diversion will be via Aberdeen.

On a closed Facebook group discussing the closure, there was a suggestion that Scotrail were accepting Megabus / CityLink tickets between Inverness and Perth / Edinburgh / Glasgow. We often hear that there is ticket acceptance of train tickets on buses, but is there much precedent for trains accepting bus tickets like this? I can't imagine there are many other places in the UK where this would be necessary to the same extent as the Highlands.

 

[Buzby]

An interesting concept - but would it work in practice? For a start, the cost of travelling by bus is invariably less, so providing a supposedly superior service (train) for this reduced cost is a moot point. In any case, it would be up to the bus company to arrange this acceptance with ScotRail, but buses can and will detour until the disruption is resolved - something that ScotRail cannot easily do.

Of course, it works better the other way round as buses get ScotRail out of a hole. Also, how would passengers get to the station, and are there ’real’ tickets issued? A PDF might not be enough evidence!

 

[enginedin]

Just to be clear, this facebook post indicated that ticket acceptance was already agreed and in-place, but I couldn't find any other evidence of it so don't know of its veracity...

 

[Buzby]

I’ve checked Stagecoach and Citylink feeds (the only two companies who provide rail-replacement services for ScotRai) and I could find no mention of bus replacement rail services, so it could be just a wind-up!

 

[Mojo]

This regularly happens in London where rail modes (primarily the Underground) accept bus tickets where there is significant disruption to the bus network caused by an event, roadworks, or some incident

 

[Jan Mayen]

I've travelled (just once, around 12 or 13 years ago) from Victoria to Green Park on the Victoria Line as my regular bus (52) wasn't running due to a cycle test event for the 2012 Olympics, using my bus ticket.

 

[Kenny G]

When the Blackwall tunnel is closed bus 108 users are provided with oyster/ contactless charge back after taking a jubilee line train from North Greenwich to Canning Town https://tfl.gov.uk/status-updates/major-works-and-events/blackwall-tunnel-closures

 

[jamesst]

Merseyrail do it for Arriva bus in the event of trouble in either road tunnel. Arriva do it in return in the event of train trouble.

An interesting side note is Merseyrail accept commuter ferry tickers in the event of vessel failure (as has happened over the past week)

 

[DJ_K666]

Brighton and Hove buses do it for southern pretty frequently. Usually with a sarcastic 'They've broken their train set' announcements over the in cab radio.

 

[enginedin]

I’ve checked Stagecoach and Citylink feeds (the only two companies who provide rail-replacement services for ScotRai) and I could find no mention of bus replacement rail services, so it could be just a wind-up!

x.com

twitter.com

The post I saw was correct, there was official ticket acceptance in place (sorry @Buzby, you obviously didn't look very hard! )

Thanks to everyone else for the other examples of bus (and ferry) ticket acceptance on trains! I guess this must surely be the longest one though!

 

[Somewhere]

Southern have been known to accept bus tickets on the Seaford branch when Brighton & Hove cannot get down there

Brighton and Hove buses do it for southern pretty frequently. Usually with a sarcastic 'They've broken their train set' announcements over the in cab radio.

Its the other way round this thread is about - the railway accepting bus tickets

 

[Buzby]

I used all the correct search terms! Interesting how it was only Perth / Inverness. If you joined at Glasgow, what then? Since they only stop at Broxden how would one get to the station? Or did the Inverness bus simply terminate there? So many questions!

 

[DaventryRabbit]

A couple of weeks ago, there was a crash on the A9, between Perth and Dalwhinnie, which closed the road for nearly 10 hours (I was caught up in the delays...). For those of you don't have the pleasure of knowing Scotland, the diversion routes for closures on this section of the A9 are *long* - either via Fort William or Ballater, both of which will add more than an extra 100 miles to the journey (and more than 2 hours). For HGVs / coaches that are coming from Inverness, the preferred diversion will be via Aberdeen.

On a closed Facebook group discussing the closure, there was a suggestion that Scotrail were accepting Megabus / CityLink tickets between Inverness and Perth / Edinburgh / Glasgow. We often hear that there is ticket acceptance of train tickets on buses, but is there much precedent for trains accepting bus tickets like this? I can't imagine there are many other places in the UK where this would be necessary to the same extent as the Highlands.

On the day of this accident I was on the 1626 Inverness - Edinburgh HST and were a large group of Pax on board who had had their Citylink Coach caped and had been directed to the train. It left INV almost Full.

 

[stadler]

At the beginning of June just about a month ago Southern were accepting Stagecoach tickets between Bognor Regis and Littlehampton when there was an accident closing the main road and causing heavy delays for a couple of hours.

Also quite a few years back when the Shoreham airplane crash happened Southern were accepting Stagecoach tickets between Brighton and Worthing for a couple weeks due to the massive traffic caused the main dual carriageway road being closed for a long time.

Bus tickets being accepted on trains is certainly much rarer than train tickets being accepted on buses but it does happen sometimes.

 

[enginedin]

On the day of this accident I was on the 1626 Inverness - Edinburgh HST

ha - the reason I was caught up in it was because I'd been walking in the Ben Alder Munros - I'm pretty sure I saw your train go past just as I got back to my car at Dalwhinnie, wondering how I was going to get south!

So many questions!

I agree! I think it's quite interesting to understand the logistics of how all this happens, especially on a sunday afternoon, and how Scotrail get compensated etc

 

[david1212]

Its the other way round this thread is about - the railway accepting bus tickets

Southern have been known to accept bus tickets on the Seaford branch when Brighton & Hove cannot get down there

Two years ago I was on the Brighton & Hove Coaster 12 from Eastboune to Brighton. Looking back I should have realised there was a major problem. I had come from Hastings on the train. This was late into Eastbourne so by the timetable would have missed the planned bus. As after 6pm the service was reduced I recall to hourly.
However the bus was showing running late. Once arrived, the driver had their break then loaded and departed before Seaford there was a queue. By Seaford station the queue was virtually stationary after those who could had taken another route. It was announced the delay would be long as road ahead totally blocked so for Brighton to leave the bus for the train due in around 10 minutes. Seaford station is of course unstaffed and no guard / supervisor appeared on the train.
At Brighton station I wondered what would happen. I did not even have a specific ticket to show just the Brighton & Hove buses ITSO card. I was first to the barrier, approached the member of staff on duty and explained I had been on the bus then told at Seaford to use the train. There was no request to see a ticket, he simply opened the barrier while I said there are more coming from the train who had been on the bus.

 

[DJ_K666]

Southern have been known to accept bus tickets on the Seaford branch when Brighton & Hove cannot get down there


Its the other way round this thread is about - the railway accepting bus tickets

Southern occasionally did that as well. Usually when there were major delays.

Two years ago I was on the Brighton & Hove Coaster 12 from Eastboune to Brighton. Looking back I should have realised there was a major problem. I had come from Hastings on the train. This was late into Eastbourne so by the timetable would have missed the planned bus. As after 6pm the service was reduced I recall to hourly.
However the bus was showing running late. Once arrived, the driver had their break then loaded and departed before Seaford there was a queue. By Seaford station the queue was virtually stationary after those who could had taken another route. It was announced the delay would be long as road ahead totally blocked so for Brighton to leave the bus for the train due in around 10 minutes. Seaford station is of course unstaffed and no guard / supervisor appeared on the train.
At Brighton station I wondered what would happen. I did not even have a specific ticket to show just the Brighton & Hove buses ITSO card. I was first to the barrier, approached the member of staff on duty and explained I had been on the bus then told at Seaford to use the train. There was no request to see a ticket, he simply opened the barrier while I said there are more coming from the train who had been on the bus.

It does happen. It's all Go-Ahead (or should that be Go-Backwards?) there anyway.

 

[embers25]

A couple of times Southern have accepted 500 tickets between Chichester and Littlehampton if there is a major A27 issue. However, during the chaos this weekend in Portsmouth with buses delayed over 3 hours there was no ticket acceptance on the trains.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

This regularly happens in London where rail modes (primarily the Underground) accept bus tickets where there is significant disruption to the bus network caused by an event, roadworks, or some incident

What bus tickets would those be? As far as I'm aware, TfL buses accept only Oyster/contactless and it's not possible to buy tickets for them. In practice, my experience in London is that if any mode of transport is disrupted, then you simply take whatever alternative is available, paying the Oyster/contactless fare for that alternative.

 

[Mojo]

What bus tickets would those be? As far as I'm aware, TfL buses accept only Oyster/contactless and it's not possible to buy tickets for them. In practice, my experience in London is that if any mode of transport is disrupted, then you simply take whatever alternative is available, paying the Oyster/contactless fare for that alternative.

Primarily this relates to bus passes of weekly and longer durations but can also include bus saver tickets, non-London ENCTS passes, and also for pre planned roadworks occasions such as the Blackwall tunnel closure then special passes may also be issued. In the day before the Hopper fares were introduced and transfer tickets still existed, you would often catch bus drivers issuing transfer tickets which customers would provide to LUL staff on gatelines.

 

[stadler]

What bus tickets would those be? As far as I'm aware, TfL buses accept only Oyster/contactless and it's not possible to buy tickets for them. In practice, my experience in London is that if any mode of transport is disrupted, then you simply take whatever alternative is available, paying the Oyster/contactless fare for that alternative.

You can still buy One Day Bus And Tram Pass tickets from all TVMs at LU and NR stations and from all NR ticket offices and Guards onboard trains. You can also still buy Bus Saver tickets but you can only buy them in bulk (with 25 books of 6 tickets being the minimum order) and they give one single bus journey per ticket. So there are still some bus only tickets for London Buses available.

 

[Belperpete]

There used to be cross-acceptance of tickets between Derby-Matlock trains and the parallel Trent-Barton Transpeak and 6.x bus services, so bus tickets were accepted on the trains, and would get you through the barriers at Derby station (manually). Unfortunately Trent-Barton pulled out, as they got fed up with train-loads of passengers overloading their buses whenever the train service was disrupted.

I have a feeling that at one time there was something similar in place with the Conwy Valley line and the parallel bus services?