Sheffield bus fare change vouchers

[apelike 10]

Nothing to do with SYPTE driven by the bus companies partially to prevent abuse by passengers.

P.S. its been 3 years since First paid a dividend to its shareholders, wonder why that is?

Could it be that the forthcoming closure of Rotherham Depot is because its making a profit?

Cant beat good old supposition.

 

Me bold.. True but all you have to do to get some correct information on profits is do a little bit of research, that way you will soon come to realise just how much profit First makes. The UK bus division made an operating profit of £51.8 million in 2015 up £7.4 million on 2014 and like for like passenger revenue increased by 2.3%. So profits are increasing not going down.

[Guest busdriver1]

Me bold.. True but all you have to do to get some correct information on profits is do a little bit of research, that way you will soon come to realise just how much profit First makes. The UK bus division made an operating profit of £51.8 million in 2015 up £7.4 million on 2014 and like for like passenger revenue increased by 2.3%. So profits are increasing not going down.

 

I am well aware that the group as a whole is making profits, South Yorkshire is well know as an area that does not hence the forthcoming closure of Rotherham depot. However back to the point, the contract for supply of ticket machines is nowhere near its end so nothing will happen till that happens.

[sheffbag 230]

Be grateful you get change at all. Why not try going to Birmingham and asking for change on a single journey.

[woah 10]

Any bus company when buying ticket machines cost them over a set period of time (normally about 5 years) They are very expensive machines these days.

Stagecoach replaced there machines about 4-5 years ago so are able to look at introducing new machines that may include contactless payment as an option.

First replaced theirs more recently so are further away from a viable date when they can be upgraded.

This is simple good business practice. No business would replace any asset that had not been depreciated.

To give an idea of the costs involved, I have recently bought a car for less than the price of a modern ticket machine.

People have managed to pay by cash for years, why is it suddenly so hard to do so in sheffield yet not a problem elsewhere?

 

Actually Stagecoach have had their machines now for about nine years - First have had theirs about five.

 

The Stagecoach machines were never designed with contactless payment in mind, but according to this article the Almex machines that First use do support contactless payment - and indeed, it should have been available by the end of 2012!

 

I assume there is some sort of technical or financial reason why First haven't implemented it yet - they were still putting the same ticket machines into depots last year so I assume they intend to stick with them for some time longer. It's a shame because contactless payment is very much a mainstream thing these days and I think it would make the lives of passengers and drivers a lot easier.

 

Not enough is done on the smartcard front either. First and Stagecoach have their own but they aren't that popular or well marketed, and if you use a route run by two operators it's pretty useless. There is the TravelMaster card but you have to faff around to get one and faff around to top it up - if it could automatically renew every week/month that would be a lot better.

 

As for change - I really think it's time to implement an exact-change only policy - I think it would force/encourage a lot of the people who expect unreasonable amounts of change to be available to actually use the smartcards instead.

[Jeffrey Shaw 90]

IWhy do buses seem to act in a different way to all other businesses?

 

Hit the nail on the head.

Buses do not 'act'. And a business is just a bus containing sines!

 

But, seriously, for the driver to have at least some change float is reasonable- or, if that's really impossible, to issue 'change' vouchers might be acceptable. To do neither isn't.