Sunday 17 August 2014

Council check: Devon County Council

Each Sunday, we gauge how well a local transport authority is promoting the bus services in its territory. This week, we look at Devon County Council.



Where do the buses go?

There's an interactive map of the whole county, which includes detailed town plans. 5 out of 5.

Timetables

All routes are covered by Area Timetable Booklets plus you can also click through to individual route timetables from the interactive county map. 5 out of 5.

Fares

There is a page dedicated to different ticket types, but there's no way to find out the price of a single journey. If you click through to the day tickets page, it looks like you should be able to click on each one to see prices and the validity area, but this does not work. There is however a pdf that provides more information on day tickets, including prices. The only multi-operator ticket, the Dartmoor Sunday Rover, is only valid for one day a week, but the county council has arranged for the Stagecoach Devon Explorer and FirstDay South West tickets to be valid on all county-subsidised routes. Plusbus is mentioned, but only if you look under train fares, and only for Exeter, Newton Abbot and Totnes, missing Barnstaple. 2 out of 5.

Summary

Maps and timetables are nice and easy to find. As has been the case all too often in this survey, fares and tickets are the stumbling point. Devon County Council scores a total of 12 out of 15.

2 comments:

  1. The area timetables can be ordered via their web page and are normally available locally.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think the Cartogold interactive map they use is probably the best way to view a PDF map and individual timetables. A pity more councils don't use them (the only other one I've seen is Essex).

    ReplyDelete

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