Southern Plus Bus and Key Card Wrangle

[pat okeeffe]

Hi -

Anybody have any views ideas, on my recent problems, below, with trying to get a plus bus ticket put onto my daughters new key card? It also helps me get this off my chest - so I hope youll bear with me here.

Because of the cheap discount at which plus bus operates compared with the full price of a bus season ticket within my local area, Brighton and Hove, instead of buying my daughter a regular bus season ticket I have been buying her the cheapest available child 3-monthly rail season ticket (Newhaven Town to Newhaven Harbour) within the Brighton and Hove plus bus area combined with a plus bus season ticket for the same period.

Up to now we have been using paper tickets, however she keeps losing these and its not cheap getting a replacement at £20 a time, and her friends all have plastic keycards. So, from the beginning of the spring school term, weve decided to use a plastic rail keycard on which can be uploaded the aforementioned tickets. Brighton and Hove buses run their own keycard system but the rail card is also designed to work on the buses too if plus bus is loaded.

After many phone calls and constant contradictions by members of the rail key card team, I managed to get them to load a plus bus ticket onto the card, and this involved hanging around in Newhaven, a god forsaken place on a wet winter evening, for three hours to validate the ticket at Newhaven Town station. Unfortunately, they loaded the wrong dates into the system and the card wouldnt work on the bus. Several calls and days later (because they had been on training and couldnt deal with queries), I finally get them to load the ticket, my daughter having been unable to use the bus for three days.

Now they tell me that they are only allowing this ticket onto our smart card as a one-off and that in future stations between Newhaven and Seaford cannot be used on a key card in this way, despite their being in the Brighton and Hove plus bus area, and despite the fact that Southern's own on-line system allows you to add Brighton and Hove plus bus in this area, even for key card bookings, although at present all plus bus tickets have to be loaded by members of their team after making a phone call.

The Southern smart card team claim that this is to do with agreeing with Brighton and Hove Bus company over this. I phoned the key card team at Brighton and Hove Buses, and they have no issues with this whatsoever.

 

[yorkie]

http://www.plusbus.info/frequently-asked-questions

12. Can I use PLUSBUS if my train journey is between two stations that are within the same town (or PTE region)?

Sorry, no. At least one station (the origin or destination station) of your train journey must be located outside the towns PLUSBUS travel zone or metropolitan city region (these are: Greater Manchester; South Yorkshire; West Midlands; West Yorkshire).

Is there an exemption for this area, or an exemption for the key?

 

[pat okeeffe]

Thanks Yorkie , yes you seem to be able to get plus bus added to rail tickets when travelling between any of the stations within the plus bus zone (although perhaps you shouldnt!) e.g. London Road Brighton to Brighton, Hove to Aldrington, Moulsecoombe to Falmer etc etc.

Ironically Newhave and Seaford are the only places within the Brighton and Hove plus bus zone where you can't do this (with the rail Key) and they really are seperate towns outside the Brighton/Hove conurbation.

 

[bb21]

No, you should not be allowed to purchase a Brighton & Hove PlusBus if your ticket is Brighton - London Road, for the reason yorkie gave above, and the same applies to any rail ticket entirely within the Brighton & Hove PlusBus area, including the two Newhaven stations and Seaford. Whether Newhaven and Seaford are physically inside the administrative boundary of Brighton is irrelevant.

Seeing that it was Southern doing you a favour by allowing the purchase of a PlusBus, saving you money in the process, I would suggest that you don't really have a case for complaint. Why not just do what everyone else does and purchase a normal bus season ticket from Brighton & Hove on the smartcard?

 

[pat okeeffe]

No, you should not be allowed to purchase a Brighton & Hove PlusBus if your ticket is Brighton - London Road, for the reason yorkie gave above, and the same applies to any rail ticket entirely within the Brighton & Hove PlusBus area, including the two Newhaven stations and Seaford. Whether Newhaven and Seaford are physically inside the administrative boundary of Brighton is irrelevant.

Seeing that it was Southern doing you a favour by allowing the purchase of a PlusBus, saving you money in the process, I would suggest that you don't really have a case for complaint. Why not just do what everyone else does and purchase a normal bus season ticket from Brighton & Hove on the smartcard?

The argument made by Yorkie, which I accept, masks the original problem that all plus bus tickets to or from (not between thats a seperate argument) stations on the line from Newhaven and Seaford have been excluded from the key card plus bus scheme for no apparent reason.

I could also almost as cheaply (and legitimately in your view) easily bought a ticket from Southease, the stop immediately before Newhaven (outside the plus bus area) to the next stop Newhaven town, and done this with paper tickets but not a key card. It doesn make sense

Southern were no more doing me a favour in allowing a plus bus ticket in Newhaven than in any other station within the zone. Also if the restriction that Yorkie pointed to was applied to all tickets within Brighton and Hove plus bus area, you would not, for example be allowed to travel by train from Shoreham to Newhaven/Seaford by train and then get a plus bus ticket at the other end which you might legitimately want to, say to travel onto nearby places only served by bus such as Denton or Peacehaven, which is kind of what the plus bus is intended to help you with.

 

[maniacmartin]

Plusbus isn't allowed if the origin and destination station are both within the same plusbus zone. I'm guessing that this is because of a potential loss of revenue to bus companies by local people just buying rail tickets and plusbus like you have to avoid the higher prices of the bus tickets.

Whether there is an exception in Brighton area due to GoVia being invovled in both the TOC and bus companies, I do not know, but I've not seen anything stating there is.

Sadly the range of tickets on sale is not a direct result of what a passenger might want to do - I can think of many tickts that would help me, but they are not available to buy!

 

[Be3G]

It sounds like there're two separate issues here. One is that Plusbus can't be used if the accompanying rail ticket is entirely covered by the Plusbus zone – which has been discussed/clarified ‘upthread’. The other issue seems to be that the key isn't allowing a Brighton Plusbus ticket to be loaded at all, even if the accompanying rail ticket extends outside the Plusbus zone. Which as we know is contrary to the conditions for the same tickets on paper. If I'm right and that's what Pat is saying, then it is something that sounds like it requires further investigation.

 

[bb21]

The argument made by Yorkie, which I accept, masks the original problem that all plus bus tickets to or from (not between thats a seperate argument) stations on the line from Newhaven and Seaford have been excluded from the key card plus bus scheme for no apparent reason.

I could also almost as cheaply (and legitimately in your view) easily bought a ticket from Southease, the stop immediately before Newhaven (outside the plus bus area) to the next stop Newhaven town, and done this with paper tickets but not a key card. It doesn make sense

It makes perfect sense. There is no mention on the PlusBus website that a PlusBus ticket issued for interchange at either of the Newhaven stations or Seaford is available on smartcard. The smartcard option is only available if using one of the interchange stations in the Brighton, Hove, Falmer, Shoreham & Southwick scheme, even if the two schemes overlap in their validity area.

There may be very good reasons why it is only allowed under one scheme but not another, perhaps for revenue distribution reasons, or perhaps that the system has not yet been set up correctly for the Newhaven & Seaford scheme.

Southern were no more doing me a favour in allowing a plus bus ticket in Newhaven than in any other station within the zone.

They exercised their discretion in selling you a ticket which should not have been sold at all, for the sole purpose of allowing you to save money. If that's not doing you a favour then I don't know what it is.

Also if the restriction that Yorkie pointed to was applied to all tickets within Brighton and Hove plus bus area, you would not, for example be allowed to travel by train from Shoreham to Newhaven/Seaford by train and then get a plus bus ticket at the other end which you might legitimately want to, say to travel onto nearby places only served by bus such as Denton or Peacehaven, which is kind of what the plus bus is intended to help you with.

Some people may want to do that, but that doesn't mean such a ticket must exist. If there really is such great demand then why not make that suggestion to the relevant organisations so that such a ticket can be introduced/an easement introduced? Until then it remains that your ticket is not valid. The correct procedure would be to offer you a full refund on what you have bought (less any usage) and tell you to purchase the correct ticket instead.

 

[Haywain]

I was in general agreement about the availability of the PlusBus ticket, until I looked at the Brighton PlusBus webpage. It says this:

'Brighton & Hove' integrated ticketing

Are you making a local train journey (betwen two stations in the Brighton & Hove area)? Then you can also buy a PLUSBUS ticket for use on buses around Brighton & Hove area.

That is pretty clear that the normal requirement to travel from outside the PlusBus area doesn't apply in this case. I also can't see any reason why the PlusBus ticket can't be loaded on to the smartcard, as the webpage seems pretty clear that it can.

If the OP's problem is that Newhaven station can't load the ticket onto the smartcard, perhaps the solution is to buy both the rail season ticket and PlusBus at Brighton where it may not be so much of a problem.

 

[mattdickinson]

I was in general agreement about the availability of the PlusBus ticket, until I looked at the Brighton PlusBus webpage. It says this:

That is pretty clear that the normal requirement to travel from outside the PlusBus area doesn't apply in this case. I also can't see any reason why the PlusBus ticket can't be loaded on to the smartcard, as the webpage seems pretty clear that it can.

If the OP's problem is that Newhaven station can't load the ticket onto the smartcard, perhaps the solution is to buy both the rail season ticket and PlusBus at Brighton where it may not be so much of a problem.

The problem is that Newhaven is not in the "Brighton & Hove Area". I think the cheapest valid season would be Brighton to London Road Brighton, which would render the combination more expensive than a Bus Saver.

 

[Bishopstone]

The Newhaven and Seaford town bus services, operated by Compass and Cuckmere Community Bus, aren't yet equipped to handle smartcards but can be used with Plus Bus tickets. Could this be a reason why Plus Bus in the area isn't issued on The Key?

 

[pat okeeffe]

The Newhaven and Seaford town bus services, operated by Compass and Cuckmere Community Bus, aren't yet equipped to handle smartcards but can be used with Plus Bus tickets. Could this be a reason why Plus Bus in the area isn't issued on The Key?

With a name like that, Bishopstone is probably the one who is rnearest the truth, although you could say the same about some buses in Shoreham and in Brighton which dont use key cards. Also,why prevent people from outside the area being able to access from the local stations the far more frequent and popular services along the coast around Newhaven and Seaford , the 12, 12A, 12X.

So passengers who want to travel to the Newhave and Seaford area using their key cards can use buses from all of the other stations in the area except the most convenient ones just because a few local buses dont have readers. It still doesnt make sense to me.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

I was in general agreement about the availability of the PlusBus ticket, until I looked at the Brighton PlusBus webpage. It says this:

That is pretty clear that the normal requirement to travel from outside the PlusBus area doesn't apply in this case. I also can't see any reason why the PlusBus ticket can't be loaded on to the smartcard, as the webpage seems pretty clear that it can.

If the OP's problem is that Newhaven station can't load the ticket onto the smartcard, perhaps the solution is to buy both the rail season ticket and PlusBus at Brighton where it may not be so much of a problem.

Yes thanks, Haywain, for clarifying that. I hadnt spotted it.

Here is the latest update on this saga. Relunctantly one of the members of the Smart Card team this morning, although strictly against regulations, agreed to cancel my plus bus journeys that didnt work (because the dates had been set up wrong) set up a new one with the right dates, and very reasonably enabled me to validate the plus bus ticket it on the reader at Falmer which is near where I was this afternoon, rather than having to traipse out to Newhaven

Neither I nor the very helpful staff at Falmer who have always been brilliant, could work out whether the validation had worked. So he phoned up the smart card team again to check, and were bizarreley, but not unsurprisingly in this bureaucratic nightmare, told that the member of staff who had organised all this for me was incorrect, the ticket would not work and was invalid, and I would be written to in 14 days.

So, I had to get the bus back into Brighton anyway, checked my daughters ticket on the bus reader. Success - green light - It worked. Then I rang up the member of the key card team who I had spoken to this morning again, worried that all our work of the previous four days would be undone by someone else. I told him that it seemed to be working. He said fine, but be aware my daughter wont be able to use the ticket in Newhaven (whaaaat?). Also, I would not be able to renew the ticket (against regulations).

If the plus bus key card works on the bus, it works. Why would it suddently stop working at Newhaven? If I'd bought the ticket at Falmer it would take me to Newhaven and Seaford, why would a plus bus ticket bought in Newhaven behave any differently? At which point along the road from Peacehaven would it cease to function - seems highly unlikely?

What I still need to do is get back the threedays bus travel we should have had since the season ticket started. But I think I need a rest now.

 

[John @ home]

It still doesnt make sense to me.

Let me try to make some sense out of it.

There are two general PLUSBUS rules we need to consider:

• you cannot buy PLUSBUS if you're making a local train journey between two stations wholly within the same towns' PLUSBUS travel zone, and
• You can only buy a PLUSBUS season ticket for the towns that are named on your rail season ticket. (FAQs, Q&A 10)

Thanks to Haywain, we now also know that there is a special rule for the Brighton, Hove, Falmer, Shoreham & Southwick PLUSBUS area:

Additional Information:

'Brighton & Hove' integrated ticketing

Are you making a local train journey (betwen two stations in the Brighton & Hove area)? Then you can also buy a PLUSBUS ticket for use on buses around Brighton & Hove area..

These rules, taken together, allow a Brighton, Hove, Falmer, Shoreham or Southwick PLUSBUS ticket to be used with a railway ticket:

• between a station outside the PLUSBUS area and Brighton, Hove, Falmer, Shoreham or Southwick, or
• between any two stations inside this PLUSBUS area (the five stations above, plus five named additional interchange stations of Aldrington, London Rd (Brighton), Moulsecoomb, Portslade, Preston Park).

Detailed examination of the Zone Diagram and the Street Map shows that the PLUSBUS area is bounded by the sea, Shoreham to the west, broadly the A27 and A26 to the north, and Seaford to the east. The Brighton & Hove map contains only the central part of the Zone. Therefore I don't agree that

The problem is that Newhaven is not in the "Brighton & Hove Area".

Newhaven is indeed in the Brighton, Hove, Falmer, Shoreham & Southwick PLUSBUS area. The area contains the ten railway stations named above, plus an additional five National Rail stations within the Zone which are not named interchange stations (Bishopstone, Fishersgate, Newhaven Town, Newhaven Harbour and Seaford).

the smart card team ... told that the member of staff [that] the ticket ... was invalid

That is incorrect. It is clear from the information above published by PLUSBUS that the ticket has been properly purchased and is indeed valid.

He said ... be aware my daughter wont be able to use the ticket in Newhaven (whaaaat?)

The ticket is valid by rail between Newhaven Town and Newhaven Harbour. If the ticket issued as a smartcard causes operational difficulties for the train company, it is their responsibility to arrange replacement in a suitable medium.

I would not be able to renew the ticket (against regulations).

If the information published by PLUSBUS remains the same then you should certainly be able to renew it. But, as far as I know, a PLUSBUS ticket is neither a protected ticket [1] nor a regulated ticket [2]. Therefore, whether the ticket remains available will depend on published information on the date you wish to renew. I am not aware of any regulation which requires train companies to renew tickets which are no longer available for sale.

[1] - A protected ticket is one which the train company is required by their franchise to make available.
[2] - A regulated ticket is one where fare increases and time restrictions are limited by regulation.

 

[bb21]

Newhaven is indeed in the Brighton, Hove, Falmer, Shoreham & Southwick PLUSBUS area. The area contains the ten railway stations named above, plus an additional five National Rail stations within the Zone which are not named interchange stations (Bishopstone, Fishersgate, Newhaven Town, Newhaven Harbour and Seaford).

I beg to differ, John.

Neither of the Newhaven stations are within the Brighton, Hove, Falmer, Shoreham & Southwick PlusBus scheme. The Newhaven stations can indeed be used as interchange stations, but only under the Newhaven Town, Newhaven Harbour & Seaford PlusBus scheme, for which there is no special easement permitting a PlusBus ticket to be issued for local journeys, nor any arrangement for PlusBus tickets to be issued on smartcard.

 

[infobleep]

Why is all this stuff so complicated? Is it done on purpose or just because it's impossible for problems like this to not occur.

 

[andrewkeith5]

Why is all this stuff so complicated? Is it done on purpose or just because it's impossible for problems like this to not occur.

It's quite apparent from my experiences with The Key on Southern and my interactions with them that Southern are still at the learning stage with the whole thing.

The rollout is very limited and there are some fairly big limitations in place, which I am beginning to believe is down to the implementation being a massive exercise and one that isn't fully understood by everyone involved - especially considering the number of times my relatively basic questions (e.g. tickets no longer being available) have had to be 'referred'.

If you're in any doubt, just count the number of Southern TVMs where the 'smartcard reader is not ready' - the TVMs at Gatwick haven't been able to write tickets to my card for 4 months now even when the smartcard reader is supposedly working.

What annoys me most is that Southern are one of the most progressed operators of ITSO It seems like whatever project teams Govia have in place are either thin on the ground or not entirely bought into the project. I can't help but think that surely the easiest thing to do would be to have one single smartcard scheme for all Govia/Go-Ahead products, at least that way I wouldn't have to carry around four different The Key cards.

 

[pat okeeffe]

I beg to differ, John.

Neither of the Newhaven stations are within the Brighton, Hove, Falmer, Shoreham & Southwick PlusBus scheme. The Newhaven stations can indeed be used as interchange stations, but only under the Newhaven Town, Newhaven Harbour & Seaford PlusBus scheme, for which there is no special easement permitting a PlusBus ticket to be issued for local journeys, nor any arrangement for PlusBus tickets to be issued on smartcard.

Silly me then - I just looked at the Brighton plus bus map and I assumed naively that the rail staions marked on it, including Newhaven and Seaford (but not several of the others) were all included in the Brighton scheme. Incidentally, even though they are no easements for local journeys within the Newhaven scheme, the southern rail on-line ticket system (as I and others have pointed out already), still lets you buy plus bus tickets in this way.

Oh by the way, my daughters new key card bus ticket works fine in Newhaven - I tested it there on friday.

 

[bb21]

Silly me then - I just looked at the Brighton plus bus map and I assumed naively that the rail staions marked on it, including Newhaven and Seaford (but not several of the others) were all included in the Brighton scheme.

There is a major difference between stations that are included in the validity area of the bus services and those that can be used as interchange stations for the purpose of issuing PlusBus tickets. I have already explained why so I am not going to repeat myself.

Like you, I also wish that they can be aligned so as to make things easier for everyone, but they are not at the moment, so I advise people on that basis. I'm sorry if that's not what you want to hear.

Incidentally, even though they are no easements for local journeys within the Newhaven scheme, the southern rail on-line ticket system (as I and others have pointed out already), still lets you buy plus bus tickets in this way.

That proves nothing. I can get online booking systems to sell me all sorts of silly tickets that should never be valid for the itinerary given. It doesn't mean they should be issued.

If you are able to buy something that is not correctly sold to your advantage then well done. It doesn't change anything however, and certainly doesn't change the fact that they are incorrectly issued, which means that your complaint is in fact null and void technically speaking simply because you cannot buy it from anywhere else.

Oh by the way, my daughters new key card bus ticket works fine in Newhaven - I tested it there on friday.

Why would it not once issued? It is valid in the Newhaven area on operators with the correct machines.

I am not going to get involved in this discussion any further. I have made my understanding based on available publicity clear and there is nothing more I can say about it. Whether others would like to agree with me is neither here nor there. We will have to agree to disagree. You have clearly got what you wanted, so well done.

 

[pat okeeffe]

I tested the card as they guy at the smart card office thought it might not - although I was sure it would. As already pointed out above from the plus bus page on the Brighton and Hove

"Additional Information:

'Brighton & Hove' integrated ticketing

Are you making a local train journey (betwen two stations in the Brighton & Hove area)? Then you can also buy a PLUSBUS ticket for use on buses around Brighton & Hove area."[/I]

It doesnt say all the stations in the area except for those between Newhaven and Seaford. And it can't mean literally those stations within the city council boundary either, because then you would exclude all the stations between Shoreham and Fishersgate.

What I want to know now is why is there a seperate plus bus scheme for Newhaven and Seaford at all?