Worzel does public transport

Interestingly, I've been out and about on Route A again today. This time using Velvet bus. I was surprised that a journey that cost me £3.35 on First Bus or £3.40 on Stagecoach cost me £4 on Velvet (and I've kept the tickets to prove it!). The Velvet bus company thus looks a bit expensive by comparison to the others. I think the problem arises because of the way Velvet bases its fares on zones http://tinyurl.com/426rotq , so if you board towards the end of one zone and get off near the beginning of another one, you might be paying too much. The other companies seem to charge more discretely, so their fares are more accurately tailored to the number of stops that you travel. I'll bear this in mind in future, and maybe adjust my travelling habits accordingly. There might, for instance, be advantage in delaying my evening journey by an hour so that I catch the first First Bus of the evening instead of the last Velvet one of the day...!

Thanks for your reply Keith. Yes, both last weekend (when I bought two singles) and yesterday (when I bought a Solent Travelcard), I thought I'd received reasonable value for money. I've no complaints really about the fares. Any criticism I have is confined to the lack of information sometimes, or doubts abut the accuracy of the information, and I still haven't been confident enough in the service to rely on catching the very last bus back. Being stranded outside Fleming Park Leisure Centre at 23:40 on a Saturday evening is not an attractive prospect, but perhaps I'll risk it next week....!

It's reassuring that you are having a positive experience of public transport. It's one of those areas where people are more motivated to complain than praise, and the bad publicity tends to put people off. So well done for going against the grain.

I do think the bus companies could do more to encourage people to make public transport a positive choice for people who might want to leave their car behind once in a while (or on a regular basis) rather than relying on people who have no choice.

Do you think you got value for money?

I've just rolled into Hedge End, on a bus from Eastleigh, at 10pm on a Saturday evening. It is an acceptable service and it does seem to be reliable, with buses turning up when they're supposed to. The other thing I like about the local buses is the Solent Travelcard http://tinyurl.com/3sxs8ro . It allows you to hop on and off virtually any bus from any of the local bus companies and enables you to get around most of southern Hampshire for only £7 per day. I bought mine today on a Bluestar service and travelled out to Eastleigh via Southampton. I came back on the First Bus Service than runs direct from Eastleigh to Hedge End, using the very same ticket that I'd bought earlier in the day. Perfect...!