To the bus companies though, what difference does it make to accept a plusbus issued on orange train ticket stock, compared to an e ticket on paper or phone? It’s not like they’re currently being validated by machine on-bus, it’s down to the bus driver to deem the ticket acceptable.
ExactlyIt would be rather easy to falsify the e-ticket if it wasn't possible to read the barcode to verify it.
Where just hitting print twice makes it an awful lot easier ???Not that I'm advocating it of course, but as it stands now, it would be pretty simple to forge a plus bus issued on orange rail stock, at least to the extent needed to fool the untrained (compared to rail revenue staff) eye of a bus driver. So, there wouldn't be much more of a risk in e-tickets.
Where just hitting print twice makes it an awful lot easier ???
I was astounded that the Ride Cornwall I bought on a Go Ahead bus in summer in 2018 scanned correctly on a First ticket machine. Both companies were using the Ticketer machine. Of course, the code was not compatible with the scanners on railway ticket gates, so it was inspected visually.
Paper versions of PlusBus tickets are best, I think.
Welwyn Garden City is served by Arriva, Uno and CentreBus, and whilst the first two accept Contactless (and their own m-tickets), CentreBus only accept a thing called cash. I’ve no idea what that is
I think that would require the Government to give up on the dinosaur that is ITSO and embrace the barcode...
I'm not sure why you feel ITSO is a dinosaur.I think that would require the Government to give up on the dinosaur that is ITSO and embrace the barcode...
The ticket on the handset emulates a standard ITSO smartcard and is instantly recognised by ticket validator machines or gates. The smartphone serves as both ticket machine and ticket to provide a modern, end-to-end mobile ticketing solution.
Why? It means you have to go the inconvenience of going to a station to print them rather than using th straight from home.Paper versions of PlusBus tickets are best, I think.
I'm not sure why you feel ITSO is a dinosaur.
[off topic]Allowing people to buy online then enables someone to buy a train ticket with plusbus and use the bus to start their journey, before getting to the train station where they currently need to be to get the plusbus….
Because the booking will always default to a method of fufilment that is available for all the tickets being purchased.I've also noticed that as soon as you add Plusbus, your whole booking becomes paper ticket only.
I don't the passenger really cares about the technical stuff. What they care about is usability.Because storing stuff locally that has to be maintained is so 2005. A reference to a record in a database - a true e-ticket - is the way to go.