Yourbus and National Express have joined forced to give long-distance coach passengers through travel on local bus routes in Nottingham. The Nottingham Post explains how bus journeys on Yourbus are now free for National Express coach ticket holders. This seems to be the first scheme of its kind in the country, but makes absolute sense. Rail passengers have Plusbus tickets with which to gain discounts on onward local bus travel, so it's only right that coach passengers have something similar. After all, coach passengers are probably more likely to need to use a local bus to complete their journey and with coaches often stopping at bus stations, such an interchange is often easier than rail to bus. This blog calls for a national Coach-Plus-Bus scheme. Local bus travel wouldn't necessarily have to be free everywhere, but should at least be discounted, say a flat fare of £1, in order to encourage bus-coach-bus journeys.
Given YourBus are a major National Express contractor I suspect this is a case of them trying to offer National Express something extra as part of the contract to help keep their work. If you want this to be a more extensive national scheme it would need to work like Plus Bus does, which means a sensible price for the ticket (most Plus Buses are a £2-£4 extra price) and of-course a voluntary scheme that operators choose to join. The most sensible solution if National Express actually wanted this would be to approach Journey Solutions (who run the PlusBus scheme) & just ask them about adding coaches to the scheme. No extra work just treat the coach tickets like the rail ones, I'm sure the approach would be welcomed, the only issue would be how to deal with the myriad different forms a NatEx ticket can be presented in to avoid confusion & complication for the participating drivers.
ReplyDeletePerhaps it's time for Plusbus to evolve into a national travelcard scheme?
ReplyDeleteI suggest Plusbus for coaches to the person who runs Plusbus a few years ago. However he (Jonathan Radley) didn't seem interested, he said revenue sharing would be too complicated.
ReplyDeleteBoth Stagecoach Oxfordshire and the Oxford Bus Co have similar arrangements for those using their respective coach services to/from London
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