Bus passengers are calling for a one ticket, pay as you go policy across the city like London’s Oystercard.
Cardiff Bus, Adventure Travel and Stagecoach often share the same routes. But with no integrated ticket option passengers have to buy multiple tickets for one journey.
Currently, passengers travelling from the city centre to Pentwyn may have to buy two separate tickets on two separate bus operators.
Emma Sandrey lives in Pentwyn and uses the bus services to travel across the city. The area is covered by Adventure Travel and Cardiff Bus, and she says an integrated ticket system would be more “flexible but also affordable”.
“The idea would be that the costs would be capped, similarly to Transport for London where you just tap on and tap off. That’s ideally where we need to move towards”.
Not only does Emma think an integrated ticket system would “make it easier for people to use buses in the city”, but she also believes that people would no longer “have to make choices about which providers they use”.
To try and save money on tickets, Emma often feels “tied down as to which operator I have to use on a particular day”. She believes “if you had an integrated ticketing system it wouldn’t matter”.
In 2022, the Welsh Government discussed plans for a ‘One Network, One Timetable, One Ticket’ system. But the proposed “fully integrated connections between different services” has yet to be implemented.
Cardiff Bus, Adventure Travel and Stagecoach have been approached for comment.