Great Western Coffee Shop

From time to time when visiting Bournemouth and the surrounding areas I use the More bus mobile ticket app. It works well and at a discount to the cash fare. It is especially useful on the popular open top route 50 where the driver can sometimes have difficulty giving change on busy days.

On Saturday I went to Eastbourne, downloaded the Brighton and Hove bus company version (It's basically the same app but rebranded and with their own ticketing). Off to Beachy Head and Birling Gap, so far so good. On the return journey however I had no mobile phone signal and the app wouldn't load without an internet connection. Luckily I remembered that these buses have onboard WiFi and the driver let me sit down, log on to the wifi and load the app, showing it to him when he next stopped. If the bus didn't have wifi and most don't, I could have been waiting for a mobile signal for ages and I'm not sure all drivers would have been as patient.

Do the bus companies that use such apps have an official policy when it comes to lack of phone signals?

With the First Bristol app once the ticket is purchased, downloaded and activated a data connection isn't required to show it to a driver. Just need to ensure you have sufficient power on phone.

However, with the First app you only get a small discount on the Monthly tickets, I believe. Day and Week tickets are the same price as those purchased from the bus driver with cash, so the only advantage of the M-ticket is you can use a credit card.

What does the driver do when they look at your phone?  Is there a number for them to check, or a barcode to scan?  Or is it more likely a case of just accepting you have a ticket?

If the latter, then an internet connection may be required to check only one device is displaying the ticket at any time.  (Yes, there are clearly ways round this)

There is a security feature with the First Bus phone app tickets. I'll be buying one next week so I'll see if I can screengrab - redacting where necessary of course!

The First app blocks you from taking screenshots (at least it does on Android). It displays a four letter word which seems to change daily (presumably the drivers know the word for that day) and this text shimmers and switches to display the current time (at least with single journey m-tickets).

My mind is boggling already!  :o

This brings back memories of a database I worked with a few years ago.  The records had indentifers that begain with a number, hyphen then four letters.  It started on 1-AAAA and went right up to beyond 4-ZZZZ.  Every possible combination of four letter words was in the database.  These idenitifers were supposed to be used on order forms when you wanted to order one of the probes they were selling...  ::)

Your description sounds pretty much the same as the two apps I used. Could well be the same developer. I forgot to mention that as well as being able to pay by card, it gives you the option of paying by Barclays Pingit if you have it installed. For me this was perfect, saved having to key in my card no, expiry and CVV (which had changed since the last time I used it)

All of us drivers working for First have been shown what to look out for when being shown an M Ticket from a customer.

We have already seen a few different ways customers will try and scam us such as taking a video of another ticket

 :o ::)

Among a few other ways they try.