The route 465 quandary

[southernyoshi]

Hello I have a bit of a question about how you're meant to pay for a London area bus fare from outside London. Those who know buses in Sussex/Surrey will know of the extremely useful Discovery ticket - I'm planning a ride round with one. But, the problem is it involves a trip on the 465 from Dorking to Kingston as it's the third part of the easiest link from Worthing to Kingston. My question is quite simply - how are you supposed to get a ticket? The 465 is TFL, so doesn't take the Discovery ticket (or any other non-TFL ticket systems), I don't have an Oyster card as I'm in Worthing & if the trains are ever in a fit state for me to go to London I get a Travelcard combined with the train ticket, & surely you need a TFL facility to get an Oyster card - which wouldn't be in Dorking as it's in the wilds of mid-Surrey. Given that you can't do the usual thing of just buying a single from the driver as London buses are cashless, how do you go about doing it? I'm flummoxed - & given that the 465 is one of the main routes in that bit of Surrey, not to mention other TFL routes that leave London (& not everyone is going outbound), I can't be the only one this has confused. Thanks

 

[EM2]

According to Mole Valley Council, Oyster cards can be bought at Dorking Library.
http://www.molevalley.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=16868

Oyster
Oyster is a smartcard which can hold pay as you go credit, Travelcard and Bus & Tram Pass season tickets. Use it to travel on bus, Tube, Tram, DLR, London Overground and most National Rail services in London. See Transport for London's website for more information.

Oyster cards can be purchased from Dorking library.

But otherwise, buy a single with a contactless debit or credit card? Apple or Android Pay?

 

[Robertj21a]

Hello I have a bit of a question about how you're meant to pay for a London area bus fare from outside London. Those who know buses in Sussex/Surrey will know of the extremely useful Discovery ticket - I'm planning a ride round with one. But, the problem is it involves a trip on the 465 from Dorking to Kingston as it's the third part of the easiest link from Worthing to Kingston. My question is quite simply - how are you supposed to get a ticket? The 465 is TFL, so doesn't take the Discovery ticket (or any other non-TFL ticket systems), I don't have an Oyster card as I'm in Worthing & if the trains are ever in a fit state for me to go to London I get a Travelcard combined with the train ticket, & surely you need a TFL facility to get an Oyster card - which wouldn't be in Dorking as it's in the wilds of mid-Surrey. Given that you can't do the usual thing of just buying a single from the driver as London buses are cashless, how do you go about doing it? I'm flummoxed - & given that the 465 is one of the main routes in that bit of Surrey, not to mention other TFL routes that leave London (& not everyone is going outbound), I can't be the only one this has confused. Thanks

Don't TfL buses take contactless cards ?

 

[Deerfold]

According to Mole Valley Council, Oyster cards can be bought at Dorking Library.
http://www.molevalley.gov.uk/index.cfm?articleid=16868

Also according to the TfL website. You can also get Oyster cards at a newsagent in Leatherhead along the route.

 

[Busaholic]

All the way from Dorking to Kingston for a fare that probably wouldn't get you from West to East Worthing!

 

[TrenHotel]

You can order them by post: https://oyster.tfl.gov.uk/oyster/entry.do

 

[southernyoshi]

I have a contactless enabled card - but how would they know I've only taken a single? Do you need to touch out off the bus at Kingston as though it's a tube trip?

 

[matt_world2004]

I have a contactless enabled card - but how would they know I've only taken a single? Do you need to touch out off the bus at Kingston as though it's a tube trip?

No you only touch once . It will not allow you to touch twice so you wont get charged more than a single

 

[radamfi]

I have a contactless enabled card - but how would they know I've only taken a single? Do you need to touch out off the bus at Kingston as though it's a tube trip?

London buses are flat fare so you only need to touch in on entry. Your card will be charged £1.50 regardless of length of journey. You can even change to another bus within an hour without extra charge. When you touch in, details of your trip are sent over the mobile network and you can see it on your phone if you like by logging into the Oyster/contactless part of the TfL website.

 

[southernyoshi]

Does that mean you need to log in or register before first using a contactless card?

 

[matt_world2004]

Does that mean you need to log in or register before first using a contactless card?

No, it should work just fine, TfL will charge you at the end of the day based on journeys made,

 

[ashworth]

All the way from Dorking to Kingston for a fare that probably wouldn't get you from West to East Worthing!

Do the people of Dorking and passengers on other longer distance Tfl routes realise how lucky they are? £1.50 from Dorking to Kingston which is a journey of about 15 miles. It costs me £3.70 to travel just 7 miles from my village into Nottingham. I would imagine the fares I pay are similar to those in many areas. Also we have no buses after 6pm weekdays and no busses at all on Sundays and Bank Holidays.

 

[JonathanH]

Do the people of Dorking and passengers on other longer distance Tfl routes realise how lucky they are?

Given they use relatively small single deck buses on the route, probably not many people of Dorking are as appreciative of this as they should be.

The route has been secured for a further five years by Surrey County Council having been threatened with a split in Leatherhead.

http://m.surreymirror.co.uk/bus-ser...eal-with-tfl/story-30219481-detail/story.html

The introduction of the hopper fare makes it even more generous - from Redhill I can get to Heathrow, Wimbledon, Sutton, Elephant & Castle, Bromley and many other places in South London with a change in Croydon for £1.50, well over 15 miles.

It will be interesting to see whether TfL budget cuts one day lead to a move away from a flat fare / a need to touch on and off to record the distance travelled.

 

[Busaholic]

Given they use relatively small single deck buses on the route, probably not many people of Dorking are as appreciative of this as they should be.

The route has been secured for a further five years by Surrey County Council having been threatened with a split in Leatherhead.

http://m.surreymirror.co.uk/bus-ser...eal-with-tfl/story-30219481-detail/story.html



It will be interesting to see whether TfL budget cuts one day lead to a move away from a flat fare / a need to touch on and off to record the distance travelled.

Never say never, but if everyone had to touch out as they got off the bus then you'd be back to the situation where every opo bus held up all the traffic behind, running times would have to be increased and more passengers would desert the buses for private cars. Much more likely that routes get shortened further, once again leading to abstraction from bus travel. What should happen imo is that a single fare should rise by at least 20% from its present price, ameliorated by Hopper and the 3 journey price cap.

 

[radamfi]

Never say never, but if everyone had to touch out as they got off the bus then you'd be back to the situation where every opo bus held up all the traffic behind, running times would have to be increased and more passengers would desert the buses for private cars. Much more likely that routes get shortened further, once again leading to abstraction from bus travel. What should happen imo is that a single fare should rise by at least 20% from its present price, ameliorated by Hopper and the 3 journey price cap.

Touch out wouldn't significantly increase running times. They use touch out in Denmark and the Netherlands, even on trams. Alighting passengers can touch out any time after the last stop. So in practice a large proportion of alighting passengers touch out before the bus stops. If there are boarding passengers at the same time then there is virtually no difference.

An alternative to touch out is to press a button on boarding after touching in to signify the destination zone. For a single zone trip, no button is pressed.

 

[Busaholic]

Touch out wouldn't significantly increase running times. They use touch out in Denmark and the Netherlands, even on trams. Alighting passengers can touch out any time after the last stop. So in practice a large proportion of alighting passengers touch out before the bus stops. If there are boarding passengers at the same time then there is virtually no difference.

An alternative to touch out is to press a button on boarding after touching in to signify the destination zone. For a single zone trip, no button is pressed.

You're not comparing like with like: Londoners have been inculcated with the idea of only touching in on buses for so many years. In any case, most London buses are double deckers, on which the vast majority of seats are upstairs. If every passenger coming down the stairs had to touch out it would take an age, A bendy bus might be a different matter.

 

[radamfi]

You're not comparing like with like: Londoners have been inculcated with the idea of only touching in on buses for so many years. In any case, most London buses are double deckers, on which the vast majority of seats are upstairs. If every passenger coming down the stairs had to touch out it would take an age, A bendy bus might be a different matter.

If touch out is introduced, then you could have additional validators at the top of the stairs.

 

[Harbouring]

If touch out is introduced, then you could have additional validators at the top of the stairs.

What would stop people validating and not getting off? Yeah you might have inspectors in plain clothes but if it's quiet up there people will take a chance.

 

[radamfi]

What would stop people validating and not getting off? Yeah you might have inspectors in plain clothes but if it's quiet up there people will take a chance.

People touching out early is a disadvantage of the touch in touch out system. Inspections are required just like when using open boarding.

 

[Busaholic]

Touching out is not going to happen on London buses: when the decision was taken to abandon the two-tier zoning system it was known to be a point of no return for the foreseeable future, for good or ill. I seriously doubt that even if a Mayor got elected who'd campaigned on abandoning the flat fare (unlikely, as it would only lead to substantially increased fares for some) that it would be implemented.