Pricing
Pricing
My car has been off the road for the past month (brake failure and mechanic says he can't get the part) and live in a village with 1 bus route - Arriva 24. Being forced to use their pathetic app, I took a glance at Arriva North West ticket prices for comparison and found equivalent North East prices substantially higher!
While I did manage to get about a bit - Whitley Bay, Saltburn, Barnard Castle, Richmond, Loftus.... The big problem I repeatedly stumbled on is that I can only use Arriva's tickets on their services. The travel apps out there are fine for telling me what buses I need for travel to my destination and how long it will take. But not a single one that I'm aware of will tell me what operator runs the journeys. That's fine if I have a concessionary pass ore a bottomless pocket of change. As I had neither, I was limited to Arriva routes.
The alternative is sites like Connect Tees Valley or Durham Interactive map. But they are web sites and a bit fiddly on a phone when desperately trying not to get stuck all night in far flung places. Arriva's app would be fine if it didn't tell me to change buses significantly more times than necessary.
Better competition would be ideal, which as I understand was one of the goals of privatisation but the three major operators generally stick to their own little areas without any comprehensive multi operator ticketing available beyond the Explorer day ticket which would be rather pricey if buying almost daily. Dishing out most of the contracts to Scarlet Band and Gateshead Taxis doesn't to help the situation either.
So after 2 weeks of buses I borrowed my dad's car. I don't have to check, cross reference and check again what buses I can and can't use, I'm not freezing because of either waiting long periods for a connecting bus or all the windows are open with this Coronavirus stuff, nor I'm trying to peer over the top of an ad for drivers which Arriva have stuck to the bottom of a window in every bus (why they can't stick them to the top of the window, still very visible from outside but well away from natural eye shot of passengers trying to look at the passing scenery is beyond me) but I guess that's a different discussion.
Again, the Explorer is brilliant for what it is and I did used to have a bus day out once per week with one. I eventually tired of the constant aguments with Arriva drivers reluctant to accept a Go-Ahead Explorer because they wont scan through thier machines. Go-Ahead drivers (especially Deptford for some reason) didn't like Arriva tickets because they didn't scan through their ticket machines. Stagecoach drivers were generally okay, but the odd one were not happy because it wasn't a Stagecoach ticket. And I never even dared attempt to use one on a Scarlet Band contracted route, which I'm led to believe is possible but not exactly well advertised. Only Metro and Ferry consistantly accepted it without a challenge.
And that's ultimately what generally stops me from being a regular bus user.
