I'm aware of it but monthly or longer tickets are not available - unlike PlusBus tickets or bus companies' own tickets. Only daily and, recently, weekly tickets are available. Therefore, for long-term commuting, buying carnets from each of the bus companies will usually turn out cheaper.
It can be advantageous. If you're going A-C & A-B is one operator and B-C is a different one.
Quite. My local bus company recently took over the operator of another route out of town and a trip to my in-laws has gone from £5.20 to £3.90.
As you will know, the opposite journey with Keighley as the railhead is still an excellent example of where a Plusbus is useful, used as intended (and also for some useful used not as intended).
Ah, so it's less "why are some PlusBus areas so small" and more "why isn't there a ticket that suits my needs perfectly, every time I want to use it"... I'm sure we'd all like that!
Brighton & Hove plusbus covers from Steyning and Shoreham by Sea across to Seaford that's around 25 miles in a coastal strip.
According to the PlusBus website only Bournemouth Interchange (sic) and Poole are designated interchanges, with no mention of Branksome and Christchurch. Perhaps this has changed.
I find that the list of interchange stations on the PlusBus site can be incomplete whilst there may be other interchange stations in the area that aren’t listed. For example, within the Brighton & Hove PlusBus area, whilst not shown as interchange stations on the website, PlusBus add-ons are available from Falmer and Moulsecoomb.
I personally would have used the word local to describe an 8 mile journey between a large or medium sized town and a small village. If I lived in East Grinstead I would call Chelwood Gate a local village.
Plusbus isn't really the same scheme in different areas of the country. In the former PTE areas it usually covers an entire county. In some small and medium sized towns and small cities it covers an arbitrary short distance from the city, but sometimes it also includes adjacent towns just because e.g. York Plusbus goes to Stamford Bridge. In the Peak District, Plusbus covers journeys of more than thirty miles from Matlock or Buxton. And of course, in Greater London, there's no Plusbus.
I'm not sure how I'm not using it as intended in the other direction. As West Yorkshire has useful multi-operator tickets anyway, I often use those at other times.
I think that this is the point. The areas have seen at least some attempt to make them actually useful.
The purpose is more to encourage people to travel sustainably to the railway, and not default to the far more damaging methods of car or taxi. This is the reason why plusbike was also tried.
It's not generally in city centres, although parking is sometimes paid for in city centre cinemas and other similar venues to attract visitors. The free parking in urban areas in places like West Yorkshire has historically been used by people driving in from outside the county to take advantage of cheaper fares as well as free parking, making it particularly difficult to justify any longer.
That's the theory, but the reality is often very different. To take the example of East Midlands Parkway, there's only one single local bus route to the station, which is the 865 between Clifton and Normanton-on-Soar via Kegworth. There are only 9 services per day each way and no service at all on Sundays. Hardly any use for people in Kegworth or the villages to connect with trains from East Midlands Parkway. There's no bus service to East Midlands Parkway at all from East Midlands Airport or the other towns and villages such as Castle Donnington and East Leake.
I also made this error, and corrected it in a subsequent post. perhaps "missing" stations were added to the scheme afterwards?
This may just be a matter of personal distinction, as (obviously) I wouldn't - perhaps the degree or urban/rural defines what you consider local? Google Maps tells me 8 miles from Manchester gets me well beyond Stockport (Stepping Hill Hospital, in fact)... I definitely wouldn't consider that "local"!
As regards PTE areas, see comment below on more general ticketing. Plusbus Peak District seems to be more of the relatively genuine aim of Derbyshire County Council to promote public transport usage. However, for most of those "arbitrary short distances from the city", large or small, it appears to be defined at the edge of what could plausible constitute the town bus network. With large rural expanses between areas, Chelwood Gate can hardly be considered on the town network of either East Grinstead or Haywards Heath, nor can Wimborne be considered part of 'Greater Bournemouth' when it's in a different council area!
The Folkestone PlusBus area conveniently coincides with the Stagecoach Folkestone dayrider area. There may well be lots of benefits, including ease of staff training, to have your area products match.
I agree - I don't want to suggest that PlusBus is a bad idea (provided the bus drivers don't give you the 'can't use a train ticket on a bus' speech), but I think the real concept of the scheme has to be borne in mind... it simply wasn't designed to allow bus travel to or from wherever you like into the rail network, or, as the OP admits to doing, discarding your rail ticket and using it as a cut price bus ticket.
I noted one of the other posters upthread said the rail company gets their full fare, the bus company the add-on only. Assuming that is true (and with no reason not to), your suggestion here would require the railway to forfeit some of "its" portion for a more balanced distribution of costs - and the disinclination to do that may well be the reason why such doesn't exist, or why doing it here may then result in demands for the reallocation of funds in other schemes too. Presumably the DfT, as current purse string holder, would also have to agree with that.
That's also good as well as they can stop people driving into the city centre when there is a price differential in parking.
Here why don't people drive to connect to the train? Isn't there incentive for people to do that (such as free parking with a train ticket)?
A local bus is legally defined as a bus which allows travel within 15 miles, and it roughly corresponds to the radius of Greater London as well, therefore I believe travel up to 15 miles can be considered as local travel.
As the major bus operating groups are all signed up to PlusBus, I don't expect that the fares they receive (or don't receive) are seen as an issue of any significance. It is possible that some smaller operators may see the lower farebox income as an obstacle but hey do have the option of not taking part in the scheme - which is why I am not able to use PlusBus on the service that stops outside my front door!
Indeed.
I think it is indeed personal, because as you correctly guessed the city where I spend the majority of my time, I would still describe the Stepping Hill area as "in Manchester". Of course lots of people certainly wouldn't, but that's a big one to be getting into here eh!
Sorry: I wasnt referring to your travels, rather that Keighley as a Plusbus railhead is a good one for those wishing to go to Hebden Bridge, and for some others with no intention of getting on a train.
Always the way with any integration of transport. However, it's the only real solution. Currently for visitors to Alnwick's historic town, the overwhelming majority of people will be driving. And of course parking right in the town. Unless the recommendations around integration in both the National Bus Strategy and also the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail are taken seriously, we won't get anywhere. For the major groups, being part of a large scheme is usually a little bit easier because they can take some risk of potentially lower yields in exchange for higher volumes. And overall at society level, higher volumes on public transport are highly desirable.
A bit off topic and not directly relevant to be discussed in this thread but I will briefly mention something that has always puzzled me.
Penrhyn Bay has been included in the Colwyn Plusbus as well. It's halfway between the two, but when I lived there I found it more convenient to go via Colwyn Bay, especially for eastbound journeys. I wasn't very happy when it was removed from the Colwyn zone some years back, leaving me with a choice of going via Llandudno and leaving half an hour earlier, or buying a full-price day ticket for a bus to Colwyn. (It may have slipped back in again since, I haven't looked recently.)
Because, at your 5 minute extra, that's 10 minutes on a round trip. That's an extra bus and two extra drivers needed for the same frequency. Something has to give, either it has to be a lesser frequency or the fares have to go up or it has to attract a lot of extra custom. Passengers who would have travelled but are simply going to a different destination won't do! The train service from Nottingham is better. It is more frequent and to more destinations.
I'm pointing out that building a railway station in a location where people have to drive to risks baking car use into the transport mix. That happens with all park and ride, but parking at a station should never be the only source of traffic for a new station. It's an extremely poor use of public funding, which for things like new stations has been in short supply.
The problem is that they can actually encourage more driving. For example, if you live in Furness Vale you could walk to your local station and catch the train to Manchester, a round trip for £13.90. Or, you can get into your car (which you'll realistically have to own if you want to live in Furness Vale) and drive it to Hazel Grove, where parking is free and the same ticket costs £7.20. This is even worse because of the extra money spent on increasing the capacity of the car park.
I think that used to be the case regarding West Yorkshire, but the latest map of PlusBus availability from, for example, Leeds, shows a much reduced area.
This is wrong and you are guilty of selective reading; whilst the map indicates the Huddersfield (or wherever) area, you need to read the words at the top of the page:
Clicking on the word 'zone' takes you to a map for the wider West Yorkshire PlusBus area.
