On board ticket sales and operating speed

[TheGrandWazoo]

Obviously hardly any developed countries uses single door buses!

I don't believe that's correct. They use them on less intensive services - Malta and Slovenia are instances off the top of my head. Here's a a pair of Italian ones (my photos) with a single door vehicle but the other one shows how you can take multiple doors to the extreme.







The reasons why the UK has fewer dual or multi door vehicles has been covered many, many times on this forum. You have a different commercial model across most of the UK and always have had, compared to mainland Europe, where operators bare the cost of purchase and ongoing maintenance of vehicles. They cost more to buy, more to maintain, and they have a lower capacity. Operators have done the sums and worked out that dwell time improvements DON'T outweigh the costs of maintenance. Or that speed improvements to reduce PVR are negated by loss of capacity. Then there's the hidden cost of fare evasion - not an issue if all you're contracted to do is provide a managed service (such as in London or Manchester).

TOTO can be employed in the UK successfully and is in some places. The issue is consistency - not all operators have moved at the same time so you have it on one operator in a town but not on others so it's not ingrained. Certainly, I see no argument for widespread introduction of roadside ticket machines. Apart from getting trashed, it's another expense in both installation and ongoing maintenance.

I had a spell travelling into Bristol in the peaks about 6 years ago. It was noticeable how many regular punters used pre-paid tickets on smartphones, simply scanning in. The number of cash fares was really small, with m-tickets being pushed and discounted by First under the leadership of James Freeman. Operators don't like cash - it's a headache to deal with (for admin and security reasons) and they like pre-paid tickets as it massively improves cashflow. The £2 fare has actually led to a regression in some respects as it's anecdotally attracted in ad-hoc users who might not have used the bus regularly (so never had weekly passes). However, I'd ask posters to consider this... What would happen NOW if a major city tried to follow London in dispensing with cash. I'd suggest we'd probably see the disciples of Piers Corbyn throw their foil hats in the air, whilst those of Jeremy talk about social exclusion and depriving the poorest of the means of travel.

I know that @Bletchleyite will state that bus companies should minimise the dwell time that is within their control, and I do think that some definitely could. However, I travel on a lot of firms and there are relatively few protracted passenger/driver discussions (and they're often about other things like where does the bus stop, or what time are the return journeys?). Again, my Bristol experience showed me that there's a reason why my peak time journey took 23% longer and it wasn't to do with passenger dwell times/driver interactions (and that was with a dual door bus, I might add).

 

[AlastairFraser]

And that everyone else is stuck behind the person fumbling to tap off.

Indeed.

 

[Ghostbus]

I'm just baffled how anyone's seeing significant delays now pre-paid app tickets and smart card based concessions are widely used. Both are as quick as tapping, the latter because it is tapping, barely a second on average, the former because you just wave your phone at the driver without even breaking stride, maybe 2 seconds?

Certainly if ignoring the probably soon to be dumped £2 scheme, direct purchase (contactless or cash) already surely form a small proportion, under a third I'd say. They're not as quick as tapping, but in the vast majority of cases, they aren't slow:

5 seconds to state your destination
5 seconds to select the appropriate ticket
5 seconds to pay
5 seconds to print the ticket

Hopefully people can see I've been quite generous in the above estimates. If you're seeing longer durations even in ideal conditions, the model passenger, then your bus operator is probably to blame for making poor choices in procurement or training. So maybe don't trust them with an even bigger change in how passengers interface with the bus?

So to fully load a standard 78 seat double decker, assuming a third for each type, you're looking at....

26 seconds (26 passengers times 1s) for concessions
52 seconds (2s) for apps tickets
130 seconds (5s) for on board purchasing

That's a mere 3 and a half minutes. As a one time delay on peak time journeys, it's debatable any passenger even notices it. Because it's a bus, not a blue light flashing personal limousine. And to echo a recent post, it's debatable whether the costs in eliminating it can ever be recouped in savings.

Obviously it takes longer in practice. But why?

1. The differently-abled requiring more time, such as wheelchair users and prams, the infirm, etc.
2. Passengers just not being ready with their pass, phone, card or cash.
3. Passengers who aren't socially conditioned to board as fast as possible (kids, the ignorant, the lonely).
4. Nervous/unsure/first time users of a route/technology or even the bus at all.

Clearly those aren't delays that removing the third type of boarding, direct purchasing, can fix. As others are pointing out, tap off systems might even make these delays longer.

But there is still undeniably sometimes a lot of chat involved in this type of boarding not covered by the above reasons. What's that about? I would argue that it is, ironically, a result of recent efforts to make buses "easier" to use. Forcing operators to accept each other's tickets. Forcing operators to offer multi-modal tickets.

I think that was a huge mistake. It ballooned the number of possible tickets, and dumped all the delay for their selection on the vehicle that is usually the first used in that multi-operator or multi-mode journey. The morning peak bus.

It is clearly confusing passengers, and even motivating them to use the bus driver as a travel agent, aiming, understandably, for the cheapest ticket. Why? Does it save any time downstream? Not that I can tell. Especially when drivers aren't well trained.

It's most assuredly not a significant delay of either the passenger or the mode, to have to later buy tram or train ticket even if you started your journey on a bus. But for those who do find it inconvenient, what's more attractive? A geographically tethered prepayment tap system they might never have even used, or an app purchase? I know what works for me. And if I don't have any phone battery, I know I can still pay the bus driver and still get the benefits.

There is a way to get the cost benefits of multi-operator or even multi-mode ticketing without burdening the bus system with unnecessary delays. Quite obviously that is not best achieved by forcing all purchases off-bus, and probably has the opposite effect.

The time to consider whether forcing purchasing off bus, will be if or when you can no longer pay for a tram/train with cash or contactless at the stop/station. Basically, when all the ticket machines have gone, because tickets have gone. By that time, hopefully something more sophisticated than tapping will have been developed, or a system of tapping on but not off that works with both smartphones and smart cards, will have been adopted and made mandatory for all modes in all areas.

 

[johncrossley]

Certainly if ignoring the probably soon to be dumped £2 scheme, direct purchase (contactless or cash) already surely form a small proportion, under a third I'd say. They're not as quick as tapping, but in the vast majority of cases, they aren't slow:

Anyone, like me, who is used to how quickly buses in London board knows how slow driver payment is. Other people in this thread have said much the same. The experience in Cambridge described above reminded me of my own recent bus ride, just from Cambridge city centre to the rail station. The bus couldn't leave the stop because passengers kept arriving while the driver was issuing tickets. That's how it was like in London before Oyster.

But there is still undeniably sometimes a lot of chat involved in this type of boarding not covered by the above reasons. What's that about? I would argue that it is, ironically, a result of recent efforts to make buses "easier" to use. Forcing operators to accept each other's tickets. Forcing operators to offer multi-modal tickets.

I agree, there should only be one range of tickets, instead of each operator having their own single company tickets. There's no need for any driver interaction for multi-modal tickets. In London, drivers don't sell any tickets, yet most people effectively travel with a multi-modal ticket. Oyster cards and contactless bank cards are valid on all modes of transport in London. Obviously in many cities in the world, there is no separate bus, tram or metro ticket. The usual situation is for a single ticket to be valid for a set period of time (for example 60 minutes) on all modes of transport.

 

[kkong]

and it depends on whether there are stops when you have lots of both boarding and alighting, which UK urban bus routes mostly don't - you mostly have boarding towards the bus station and alighting away from it.

That is a bit of a generalisation - many UK cities [1] don't have a "bus station" for most of their urban services and as such, the boarding and alighting patterns are not as you describe.

1. In my neck of the woods: Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh are good examples.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That is a bit of a generalisation - many UK cities [1] don't have a "bus station" for most of their urban services and as such, the boarding and alighting patterns are not as you describe.

1. In my neck of the woods: Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh are good examples.

Places where operation is mostly "cross city" with multiple central stops (Mllton Keynes being one, Central London being another, and yes, Edinburgh, I'm less familiar with the others) indeed benefit more from dual-door. This model is becoming more common because large central bus stations tie up premium real-estate, but the Northern and Midlands combined authorities (places that traditionally had Passenger Transport Executives) seem to still prefer large central bus stations as objects of civic pride, and TfL has quite a few in their smaller constituent towns, mostly for interchange with the Tube.

 

[johncrossley]

Most of the major conurbations, obviously including London, but also including Greater Manchester, West Midlands etc. have a lot of routes where you go from one town centre to another. For example, Wolverhampton to Walsall, Walsall to Birmingham, Bolton to Bury etc. You would expect boarding and alighting throughout these sorts of routes.

 

[londonteacher]

1. The differently-abled requiring more time, such as wheelchair users and prams, the infirm, etc.
2. Passengers just not being ready with their pass, phone, card or cash.
3. Passengers who aren't socially conditioned to board as fast as possible (kids, the ignorant, the lonely).
4. Nervous/unsure/first time users of a route/technology or even the bus at all.

5. Software issue. Freezing or other software related issue.
6. Passengers trying to use a ticket that is not available on that operator.
7. The driver having to scroll through a list of stops to find the right one on a long route.


Easy to rectify though with one fare for all journey lengths but then the question is how much should it cost? Off topic, so will not go into it here.

 

[johncrossley]

Even if the operator is unwilling to remove cash or indeed driver payment, they could easily ramp up the price of driver sold tickets to encourage alternatives. Tap in tap off and/or apps have to offer a significant discount. Obviously the £2 offer being the same price in cash is a major problem. But even aside from that, the premium for day tickets bought from the driver isn't huge, if it exists at all. The Bee Network bus only day ticket is £5 from the driver, or £5 in the app. No discount.

TfL raised the bus cash fare dramatically and after a few years they were able to say that hardly anyone uses cash, therefore they could remove cash altogether. In other countries where they still allow cash and/or driver payment, this is usually very expensive so most people don't do it. This has been the case for years, long before bank cards, smartcards and apps. Germany is of course famous for their love of cash, so bus drivers in Germany still usually accept cash and may not even accept bank cards. But bus drivers in German cities don't sell many tickets, because driver sold tickets are expensive.

 

[urban]

Most of the major conurbations, obviously including London, but also including Greater Manchester, West Midlands etc. have a lot of routes where you go from one town centre to another. For example, Wolverhampton to Walsall, Walsall to Birmingham, Bolton to Bury etc. You would expect boarding and alighting throughout these sorts of routes.

Nearly every urban bus route I can think of in Liverpool & Manchester passes through multiple high streets, schools, stations, shops & amenities and so on. Definitely lots of people getting on and off at many stops - yet both authorities have specified single door buses for their franchises operations. It's baffling really.

 

[WM Bus]

Even if the operator is unwilling to remove cash or indeed driver payment, they could easily ramp up the price of driver sold tickets to encourage alternatives. Tap in tap off and/or apps have to offer a significant discount. Obviously the £2 offer being the same price in cash is a major problem. But even aside from that, the premium for day tickets bought from the driver isn't huge, if it exists at all. The Bee Network bus only day ticket is £5 from the driver, or £5 in the app. No discount.

TfL raised the bus cash fare dramatically and after a few years they were able to say that hardly anyone uses cash, therefore they could remove cash altogether. In other countries where they still allow cash and/or driver payment, this is usually very expensive so most people don't do it. This has been the case for years, long before bank cards, smartcards and apps. Germany is of course famous for their love of cash, so bus drivers in Germany still usually accept cash and may not even accept bank cards. But bus drivers in German cities don't sell many tickets, because driver sold tickets are expensive.

£5 note for a day ticket ready and put in the fare box, or handed to the driver could probably be quicker than someone coming on and spending ages trying to scan a QR code from what I’ve seen.

I don’t think there needs to be a premium fare for different methods of payment. The main thing I see that slows buses down is roadworks and congestion.

 

[LiviCrazy]

One of the things I notice has significantly slowed boarding has been influenced by hybrid working. Where previously only Monday journeys were particularly slow as everyone bought their on-bus week ticket now people pay on every journey. Where I live, West Lothian, this is particularly prevalent as the operator doesn’t do week tickets and doesn’t even do return tickets which means single transactions both ways at all times of day too. Makes boarding times incredibly slow. Our previous main operator did incentivise very good value day ticket bundles on their app which did help, but the current operators isn’t so good for that and I’ve not noticed a massive amount of use of them, most instead paying by card.

 

[johncrossley]

£5 note for a day ticket ready and put in the fare box, or handed to the driver could probably be quicker than someone coming on and spending ages trying to scan a QR code from what I’ve seen.

The driver has to issue the ticket, which is the problem that has been highlighted in this thread. Contactless bank cards and smartcards are the quickest options, aside from free boarding of course.

I don’t think there needs to be a premium fare for different methods of payment. The main thing I see that slows buses down is roadworks and congestion.

As mentioned earlier, roadworks and congestion are out of the control of the operator. If the operator wants bus priority then it should get its own house in order first.

 

[WM Bus]

As mentioned earlier, roadworks and congestion are out of the control of the operator. If the operator wants bus priority then it should get its own house in order first.

So pressing the button on the Init/ticketer machine that normally seems to takes a fracture of a second? What do you mean by they should get their own house in order?

In terms of traffic congestion & roadworks/temporary lights, you could be getting of delays of 15-20+ minutes in it in some cases.


And then there some recently introduced (by Birmingham City Council/TFWM) bus lanes I’ve seen that have car parking spaces painted in them. Making them a bit pointless.

 

[johncrossley]

So pressing the button on the Init/ticketer machine that normally seems to takes a fracture of a second?

If you travelled regularly in London you would notice the difference compared to most places outside London. I'm guessing you are in the West Midlands, so it isn't as bad as elsewhere, because of the exact fare policy and contactless capping.

In terms of traffic congestion, you could be getting of delays of 15-20 minutes in it in some cases.

Just because you can't fix everything doesn't mean you can't fix what is in your control. London has the worst traffic in the UK yet TfL cares about boarding times.

 

[WM Bus]

If you travelled regularly in London you would notice the difference compared to most places outside London. I'm guessing you are in the West Midlands, so it isn't as bad as elsewhere, because of the exact fare policy and contactless capping.

As well as the 14/94/95 in Birmingham which I travel on everyday.

I also travel regularly on the 3/8/15 in Kidderminster. And I’ve never noticed much of a difference in boarding times there. The 3 can get busy at times, often I see B7RLEs with full loads

A lot of cash payers just put a simple £2 on the cash tray from what I’ve noticed. I think having simple fares like that helps though.

 

[Ghostbus]

If you travelled regularly in London you would notice the difference compared to most places outside London.

I don't think you're paying enough attention to be able to judge, by the sounds of it.

With modern machines, it takes mere seconds to push a button and print a ticket. Paying the driver is already rare, I would say barely a third of all boarding. For which contactless payment is already ubiquitous. Most cash fares are simple and routes now have few fare stages, sometimes only matching the zone boundaries. So these are easily remembered by frequent travellers. This is why £2 is so popular, as most people already know if this is cheaper or indeed more expensive than their required cash single.

Multiples of 5p or 10p are avoided unless doing so would lose more passengers than the time saved could compensate for, so people are already giving the exact change quite frequently. Riding the bus is one of the few ways left these days that people can get rid of their spare change without causing the kind of delay and thus social embarrassment that comes with trying to pay for things most people now use contacless for.

That only leaves a tiny proportion of transactions requiring change, maybe as low as 5% of all boarding. A well trained driver can complete such a transaction in well under 10 seconds. Part of this speed is the sixth sense that develops where drivers are watching your movements and counting your coins before you have even stated your destination. Skills presumably already lost in London.

The delays you're observing are far more likely to be things that have nothing to do with the boarding method per se, such as people not being ready with their card, or other things that occur outside London precisely because we're not Londoners. Like saying hello to the driver. The social conditioning of Londoners to not waste the Mayor's time (or he will punish you with higher fares) is probably extreme. We're lucky we don't need to live like that. Not even in our largest cities, where exact fare policies, while annoying, at least made sense. Perhaps less so now, I would imagine.

Other delays are down to things which London doesn't have but which make little sense outside of London. Flat fares, hopper fares, simple zones, tap off, multimodal tickets, they all come with pretty large downsides that so far, no funding model has been invented to fully mitigate against. London can afford to piss off 5% of it's customers, since it's unlikely any of them have any other alternative. We are price conscious and unwilling to give others a free ride for the collective good.

My bus is a six minute headway, always full at the peak. Still loads quite easily. It would take a massive amount of money to put more buses on. Far more than any savings due, if any, from more rapid boarding. I can bike the 20 minute (off peak) fully urban bus journey into town on completely segregated and extremely pleasant cycle paths, in 30 minutes. So what do you think I'm going to do if you tell me I have to faff around to take a bus? I'm already doing my bit, purchasing a day ticket in the app beforehand. My selfish side appreciates the discount, my social conscience is horrified.

That bus travels all the way from the city boundary, and out to the boundary at the other side. Others on the same corridor, terminate centrally, but start far off into the sticks, deep into other counties. Some even cross three counties. This is normal. There are multiple zones and multiple operators. There will always be customer queries. There will always be delays as passengers select the best ticket for them.

Many of whom are the very people who, if confronted with a network that requires you to faff in a way that goes beyond a simple app download and purchase, just to even get onto the first mode that then gets you to the place where you can switch modes, will probably ask themselves if it's really worth the bother. We're surrounded by motorways and fast A roads, because this isn't London. You can still park in town.

BRT and more, is oft promised and never delivered. Franchising is years away, and will clearly at best be an exercise in picking winners and losers, rather than jam for all, since this isn't London. My ward doesn't vote Labour, but every decision affecting transport is in Labour's hands. So I'm guessing I'm not due for cheaper fares. Our buses were already the newest and most frequent. To attract car drivers I suspect. I'm actually expecting less choice of route within walking distance, as buses are rightfully re-redeployed to under-served areas. The areas of town and isolated villages where cash is still King and driving licenses are optional.

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

Just because you can't fix everything doesn't mean you can't fix what is in your control. London has the worst traffic in the UK yet TfL cares about boarding times.

Isn't that the problem? TfL aren't facing into the fundamental issues. No point in reducing dwell times at a stop by 30 seconds if you're then stuck in gluepot traffic.

I don’t think there needs to be a premium fare for different methods of payment. The main thing I see that slows buses down is roadworks and congestion.

Absolutely.

 

[Snex]

Yes and no. What about bus routes that cross local authority boundaries? There are plenty of buses that run across multiple local authorities, even if you group metro/mayoral areas together. You could end up in a situation where passengers are faced with more expensive journeys if an operator's network ticket is no longer available and they have to buy more tickets because their journey goes across the county line.

While I agree that multi-operator tickets should be introduced across all areas, the last reason I would think of for that is the effect on boarding times.

It's some fair points, but personally I'm in the mind that operators should be completely irrelevant. Buses would be much better if they're a bus and who operates is completely irrelevant when it comes to day/weekly/monthly tickets and you can just use them on anything.

How you fix the local authority problem, I'm not too sure, but for most punters they just want a bus ticket. In the North East, there's so many tickets nowadays that even the drivers don't have a clue what they are half the time which results in hunting through menus looking for some of the more obscure ones. That's where the effect on boarding times are.

Why there's Transport North East (now dissolved), Network One and Pop tickets all still going is complete incompetence imo, just picking out the North East.