news
PLUSBUS online offer
Are you travelling by train in June or July 2012? Then you can get bus travel to/from the station and around town with a PLUSBUS ticket for just £1.50 a day, with our ONLINE OFFER.
Buy your train ticket and PLUSBUS tickets online from 13 participating websites. For full details click here.
PLUSBUS prepares for further growth
Year-on-year growth in the sale of PLUSBUS tickets nationally has increased by around 25%. In the full year 2010/11 we sold 759,370 tickets, in the rail financial year 2011/12 (which ended on 31/3/12) we sold 943,775 PLUSBUS tickets.
From 20th May we will introduce a new PLUSBUS ticketing scheme for Sevenoaks (Kent).
Currently, PLUSBUS is available to be sold with train tickets for 486 stations across Britain.
There are a number of PLUSBUS schemes that have multiple interchange stations in the same zone. e.g in Nottingham PLUSBUS is available through Nottingham station, and also Beeston, Bulwell, Carlton and Netherfield smaller stations. We have identified that some of these smaller stations in each PLUSBUS zone sell very few tickets, so we have decided to withdraw PLUSBUS availability from 81 of these smaller stations from 20th May 2012. Click here for a list.
Part of this process will see PLUSBUS availability removed from 8 small rail-served towns. These are Cowdenbeath (Scotland), Droitwich Spa, Evesham, Gainsborough, Nelson, Pontypool (Wales), Prudhoe and South Woodham Ferrers. These are schemes that sell very, very few tickets (in fact as few as 10 a year).
Like all businesses, we want to concentrate our management effort and limited budget on the further development and promotion of those PLUSBUS schemes that are achieving increased sales and those that have potential to grow further.
We have exciting plans to further develop PLUSBUS ticketing, including online sale of season tickets and programming more self-service ticket vending machines at stations to retail our product.
Buy PLUSBUS season tickets online
Southeastern is the fourth train company website to start selling PLUSBUS season tickets online (alongside renewal of rail season tickets).
Southeastern says that offering online renewal of season tickets makes it very convenient for commuters to buy their replacement ticket, at a time and place that suits them. It also means that there's no more queuing at ticket offices to renew your season ticket - saving commuters valuable time!
PLUSBUS success continues
Recent sales figures released by Journey Solutions (the partnership behind PLUSBUS ticketing) shows that the popularity of Britain's only nation-wide train to bus ticketing scheme continues to grow significantly each year.
This graph illustrates the tremendous growth in sales that has been achieved by PLUSBUS ticketing since 2006.
PLUSBUS improvements from January 2012
From 2 January 2012 Royston (Hertfordshire) will become the 293rd rail-served town covered by PLUSBUS ticketing.
From the same date PLUSBUS season tickets for 7-days, a month, 3-months and a year will be available for Bathgate, Dundee, Falkirk, Larbert, Linlithgow, Livingston and Stirling in Scotland – ideal for rail commuters.
The price of an annual Oxford PLUSBUS season ticket has just been reduced by £80 to £350.
Bus travel 'a third less stressful than driving the car'
New research shows that taking the bus (instead of the car) can reduce mental stress by a third.
The study by Dr David Lewis from The University of Sussex, who coined the term “road rage”, found that motorists face a hidden mental health impact from the stresses of driving, while bus travel can produce long-term health benefits.
For the experiment, the heart rate and EDR (Electro-Dermal Response) of 30 commuters was measured when taking similar journeys by car and bus. The findings reveal a vast difference in EDR, a form of biophysical measurement that Dr Lewis describes as an excellent indicator of mental stress.
When examining the EDR results, the experiment found that taking the car produced significantly greater amounts of stress than taking the bus, which was 33% less stressful.
“EDR can be a hidden stress – it’s not as visible as ‘white knuckle driving’ or audible as road rage. This type of stress can have long-term physiological and emotional implications. Boarding a bus can produce significant long-term health benefits,” said Dr Lewis.
Dr David Lewis says there are three key factors that reduce the attraction and increase the stresses of driving a car.
1. Driving in heavy traffic – especially against a deadline – requires a high level of vigilance, even for experienced motorists. This requires the brain to work especially hard processing a myriad of incoming information and making, often split-second, decisions.
2. Congestion and delays can raise blood pressure and physical tension which may manifest itself as ‘road rage’, a term coined by Dr Lewis in 1985 to describe the explosive outbursts of anger shown by some motorists. Increases in blood pressure can have serious long-term health consequences as well as causing drivers sometimes to take reckless and foolish decisions behind the wheel.
3. A sense of frustration of ‘wasting one’s life’ behind the wheel of the car, unable to do anything more productive than casual conversations or listening to the radio. On a bus it is possible to fill the time more profitably by doing some work or reading.
He also notes that trained, professional bus drivers are skilled in negotiating the challenges of the road, and the relief of trusting someone else to be in charge of the journey, is a key part of what makes taking the bus less stressful.
“This study shows that driving in congested traffic, now outweighs any previous benefits that driving in a private car once gave,” said Dr Lewis.
updated: 25/04/2012
