Passenger Voice May 2015: Smartcards making bus travel simpler
30 April 2015
Smartcard payment has moved a step closer to transforming services for passengers in Norfolk.
As part of our Smarter Travel series, we looked at the introduction of a new smartcard on park and ride buses in Norfolk.
We interviewed passengers and drivers on the Norfolk Park and Ride scheme. The research provides some important lessons as to what improvements passengers want from smartcards:
- passengers’ experience of the web portal suggests all relevant information and actions should ideally be on the same website rather than split between multiple websites
- passengers say they would like other ways of buying and topping up tickets, including the option of using ticket machines in addition to the online facility
- enabling passengers to use the same smartcard across different bus services/modes of transport in Norfolk is likely to make holdall® more useful to customers.
These findings confirm our previous research findings-that passengers like the idea of smarter ticketing making travel better value, more convenient and easier to organise. It’s important that passengers’ concerns in Norfolk are addressed and further information is made available when these schemes are introduced.
The report can be found here.
