h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The buses around our area normally insist on change (or, at least, giving them £10 for a £1.20 fare is enough to result in a Death-Look from the driver).

So, make sure you've got enough change. If you don't, pop into a local shop and buy something cheap, like a stick of chewing-gum, to get the change you need. (Don't just ask them for change if you don't want another Death-Look.)

Our local transport authority used to do something called a saverstrip, where you bought 10 journeys from them in advance. This little strip stayed in your pocket until you wanted to use it, and meant that you never needed the right change. A system so eminently sensible was, of course, liked by the community so much that the transport authority got rid of it.

On West Midlands transport busses, if you don't have the correct change or a pre paid pass you'll pay more. They don't give change on the busses round there

In Hong Kong I have a smart card (not quite sure why it's called "Octopus") that works on buses,trains and the MTR (tube) It will get you to and from the airport. This is a very good system as a)you don't need to fiddle with change, b) it's slightly cheaper than buying single tickets and c) they run the occasional promotion : last month you got a free journey after every 10 on the MTR and this month they're offering very cheap Pokemon toys. Since public transport moves literally millions of people here every day, I'm not quite sure why they need to offer us bribes

As I'm in London, I use public transport a lot, so I use a season ticket. These are currently magnetic stripe cards, but London Transport is supposed to be getting developed a newer contactless system. They don't offer us bribes, but the bus fares have now changed to 70p for any journey outside zone 1 (central area) and £1 for any journey covering part of zone 1. Making it simple. Now they've just got to get more busses to run on time

The carnet tickets that the Tube does are quite useful for this kind of thing. Pay £11 and get 10 tickets (normal price £1.30?) for Zone 1 journeys on the tube.

Another benefit to the "bribe" system -- is that you end up using the metro system more if you have paid in advance and dont see the money leaving your pocket . . .

~Beeblefish