Is Your Journey Really Necessary?

This kinda forms a supplement to my previous entry. That outlined the difficulties posed by having so many different transport operators in South-east Wales, and no overall structure to make ticketing easy and affordable. My friend and I are planning a trip to Caerphilly Castle (weather permitting, of course). Problem: find the cheapest way of doing it. You see, we'd initially have to pay to get from beyond Aberdare to Caerphilly – by bus and/or train – and then pay to get into the castle. Not cheap, as you'll see from the tables below. But luckily for us, I know the area quite well as I've travelled it extensively over the last forty years. I know bus routes have changed – and timetables and fares have certainly changed – but the basic framework is still there. I also get newsletters from the public transport providers, so I get to hear about their special offers. Summer is always a good time for these because it's tourist season. The real trick is to combine as m...

I've spent the past few days travelling around South Wales (and beyond) with a Megarider Gold ticket issued by Stagecoach. It's surprising how much ground you can cover when you put your mind to it. Having been in and out of several county boroughs, I've been able to compare their respective approaches to bus information. It's a fairly uneven picture, unsurprisingly. I went into some detail about Rhondda Cynon Taf's timetable displays (or lack thereof) in Misinformation, Disinformation and Non-Information . My observations were mostly made in and around Aberdare. After spending some time in Pontypridd Bus Station I can report that the situation there is pretty similar. Unless I've missed it, there doesn't seem to be a single at-a-glance notice listing the various destinations and service numbers. Instead, I had to traipse from one end to the other while hunting for the right departure bay. It's far from ideal, especially when there are a large number of ...