Where do the buses go?
There is an interactive map, but it's rather clunky to use and doesn't give you an easy overview of what goes where. Bus maps do exist, but to find them you have to go to the timetable finder and enter "map" before clicking on 'Search'. You then see links to five maps that between them cover the whole county. Town and city centre enlargements are also provided. These maps are excellent, but the fact they are so difficult to find forces me to dock a point. 4 out of 5.
Timetables
The aforementioned timetable finder makes it easy to find the timetable for any bus route in South Yorkshire, allowing you to search either by location or by route number. 5 out of 5.
Fares
A range of single and multi-operator as well as multi-modal tickets are mentioned, but it's difficult to get an overview, as you need to go through the ticket finder in order to see a filtered list. A better overview of the multi-operator tickets is given on the TravelMaster website, but TSY don't mention this anywhere near as clearly as they ought to. Information about single fares is simply not available. Plusbus isn't mentioned, which is a shame as it is valid countywide. 2 out of 5.
Summary
Good quality maps exist, but aren't easy to find. Timetables are excellent. Fares information could be better organised because the range of tickets is great, it just isn't that easy to see what's available and to find the right one for your needs. Travel South Yorkshire scores a total of 11 out of 15.
Clearly Bus Bugle hasn't tried USING the bus leaflets for making actually journeys. They are some of the worst in the country with unsatisfactory stop names and route lists, unusable route maps and, often, incorrectly presented timetables. Usability 2/10
ReplyDeleteI have copies of two printed maps for South and North Sheffield which have the ticket/fares information included, and both of which have been issued twice this year (that's good compared to some places). But do they issue printed maps for the rest of the SYPTE area?
ReplyDelete