(27 Jun 2023, 12:38 pm)Drifter60 wrote Ah interesting I never knew that, it’s probably correct that no contracted services should accept commercial operators tickets as 1) the LA are the one funding the service, not bus companies 2) it make it difficult when things change operators, such as the 99/939 you mention. 3) Bus operators shouldn’t be able to appear to have a more extensive network by utilising council contracts. Therefore making their own commercial tickets look more appealing and value for money.
Having said all that, I do think it’s pretty confusing that the 99 and 939 which to a customer perspective are just ‘Stagecoach’ buses but don’t accept those day/megarider tickets. Does a customer really know which buses are local authority contracts and what’s a commercial operation? I’ve seen a few comments before on social media when routes have been cut by the big three operators and people suggest that ‘Gateshead Central’ could take on the route, failing to understand that they don’t actually have any commercial services (happy to be corrected!) and the majority of buses they run are council contacts, many routes of which just happen to be ones that the big three have given up on.
A standard livery - for council/nexus contracted services - should make a comeback across the board. There’s the grey area though with partly subsidised sections/evening runs etc. We’ve talked before about the transparency issue about this, and it’s still an issue really.
A prefix character like a S for Secured or a N for Nexus etc… should be put in front of the service number, Along with the evening bus services that are secured, with the daytime service commercially ran by private commercial bus company.
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