refunds if your bus is not ontime

[smiler52]

first Hampshire now will refund tickets if your bus is over 1 minute early or 20 minutes late or if a bus fails to show up www.firstgroup.com/ukbus/hampshire/help_contact/customer_promise/index.php I think a lot of passengers in Southampton will get this with all the traffic around the city thanks

[Deleted]

do not apply to certain delays that are outside our control for example vandalism, security alerts, industrial action, severe weather, heavy traffic conditions, road works and road closures.

The one minute thing is good to stop buses leaving early but 20 minutes seems like a long time unless its in heavy traffic, but the terms say it won't pay out because of this.

[Deleted]

that will be First Hampshire losing money again. But it should be down to the council which contracts the route.

[52000]

Mar 2, 2013 23:44:06 GMT @freebbc said:

that will be First Hampshire losing money again. But it should be down to the council which contracts the route.

AFAIK most of the First Hampshire routes are commercial. (Correct me if i'm wrong)

[smiler52]

Mar 3, 2013 9:27:59 GMT 52000 said:

Mar 2, 2013 23:44:06 GMT @freebbc said:

that will be First Hampshire losing money again. But it should be down to the council which contracts the route.

AFAIK most of the First Hampshire routes are commercial. (Correct me if i'm wrong)

out of all the routes in Southampton only two routes are run for the council s1 rsh hospital to lordshill and the h1/2 hythe local buses think buses after 8pm have help from the council

[snoggle]

Mar 2, 2013 23:44:06 GMT @freebbc said:

that will be First Hampshire losing money again. But it should be down to the council which contracts the route.

Nearly every route in the Southampton area is commercial. Many other First routes in Fareham, Havant and Portsmouth are also commercial. Most of the supported routes are run by smaller operators like Velvet or Xelabus. I think Bluestar has some tendered work in Hampshire. Councils have little to do with bus operation other than providing info and tendering socially necessary services.

This is a genuine attempt by First Group to sharpen up their act and to offer a decent service. There are obviously a load of exceptions to the refund process but it is a start. I hope First Bus do get themselves sorted out and start to run quality services and get more passengers using their services. I am glad they are at least trying some different initiatves rather just letting things rot and decay.

[smiler52]

I just wish they would sort the timetable out on the 2a we have 2mins layover at the end of the route and 2mins to do driver change in the city centre and to get every one on there is no recovery time on that route and the passengers moan all the time about it being late

[Deleted]

Nothing new really. First in South Yorkshire have been doing this since 2007.

[snoggle]

Mar 6, 2013 22:39:54 GMT @cranworth said:

Nothing new really. First in South Yorkshire have been doing this since 2007.

I guess the difference is that South Yorkshire / Sheffield has tried to pull together the bus operators into some form of partnership arrangement at least twice. I think the refund arrangement *might* (not 100% sure) date back to the initial Sheffield Bus Partnership that First later withdrew from because they said the City Council had not done its part.

In some ways South Yorkshire has been a bit of an experimental area for First Group and its development of ideas. Some of those ideas are now spreading elsewhere in the First empire.