(07 Sep 2021, 9:16 am)Ambassador wrote For me flexible ticketing is key to this as hybrid working becomes the norm and none of the operators here seem to have got it quite right yet. The options -

GNE - Flexi 5 - 5 individual tickets (usage within one month of first ticket) plus limited PAYG on Voltra 53/54.

Arriva - 3 Day Flexi - 3 individual tickets (usage within 7 days of first ticket)

Stagecoach Flexi5 - 5 day riders for the price of 4 (12 month validity) - currently only in Sunderland 

Metro - Existing PAYG option

Network One  - Still under the impression its 1999 - as forward thinking as a reversing Streetlite

Nexus Bus - Making Network One look like Apple

Stagecoach has the best deal purely as the 12 month validity is a real vote winner, though its limited rollout is disappointing (unsure whether its just testing in Sunderland)

Although I will be returning around 2 days a week next year it won't necessarily be every week and the extremely limited validity offered by Arriva and GNE is disappointing and I'd be loathed to invest in a ticket that I might end up wasting - if I had even 60 days with the GNE I'd be more comfortable, you've got my money - let me choose how I ride. I wouldn't touch the Arriva one with a bargepole unless I was sure I was going in that week

I'm a fan of the GNE Flexi 5 offering, but mainly because I'm saving £2 a day as oppose to needing an All Zones day ticket for a normal commute. It still works out at £5 a day for an All Zones ticket though, despite the daily equivalent of a monthly ticket working out at £3.16. However, if you compare with someone working 5 days a week in the office, with an average of 22 working days in a month (where you're likely to use the ticket), that would work out at £4.31 a day.

It might only be 69p difference, but its still a premium for using flexible ticketing. If you're trying to encourage people working to new hybrid systems to use buses when in the office, charging them up to £2 extra a day is very unlikely to be the answer.

I also feel the 30 day usage is restrictive. I don't know about others, but certainly we aren't running to a system of X days a week in the office, and its very much as and when that I go in (mainly down to personal choice).

I'd like to see larger bundles of flexible tickets available, with a longer validity period. I note Transdev already do this with their ticket offerings, with bundles of 10 on their Daytripper plus and the more local offerings. Bundles of 12 single journeys are also available. However, a bundle of 10 Harrogate tickets for example is £37.60 (£3.76 a day) whereas a standard monthly ticket for the same area is £52.00 (£1.73 a day - or £2.36 if you work to an average of 22 working days per month). This is more significant in price difference to GNE's offering, despite you paying well in advance for your journeys. 

I think its evident that operators are attempting a variety of new things, but at the same time it requires some caution, as to not further over-complicate and already complicated ticketing system. I'd hope operators could work together within NEBus to ensure the same framework for their tickets. So they'd still be separate commercial offerings, but things like bundle sizes, validity periods and methods of purchase are the same.

I totally agree with your comments about Network One. I note they recently created a new offering in the form of a 'plus' weekly ticket - an extension to Northumberland and County Durham. They're probably 30 years too late in doing it though, as I think we're establishing that a large chunk of Mon-Fri commuting will be missing post-pandemic. It's also restrictive, as you cannot mix and match zones (and I'd bet there'd be very few commuters travelling across all three counties), and its expensive. Only a weekly offering is available, meaning to use this annually, it'd cost you £1,768 - or £618 more than the existing annual all zones ticket. This doesn't actually solve a very real problem of shorter journeys that require two operators.