As from 6 February 2023, the way that tickets can be purchased for the Truro park and ride service has fundamentally changed. My apologies that I did not bring you this story before it happened, but I only found out about it by chance a week after it happened. See Cornwall Council website, park and ride page.
Since the park and ride service was first introduced, tickets for the service had to be purchased at the ticket offices at each end of the route and could not be purchased from the driver. Multi-day tickets have been purchased through use of a park and ride card that could be topped up with bundles at discounted prices.
As from 6 February, the ticket machines at each terminus have been taken out of service and tickets must now be purchased from the driver (day tickets only) or by using the First Bus app on a smartphone. Existing park and ride cards can continue to be used until the credits on them are all used up, or they will expire anyway in 6 months’ time. It is not clear what will happen if passengers still have credits on their card at the end of the 6 months’ period - it may be that money can be refunded from the Council’s passenger transport unit - I will try to obtain information on this.
This change in system will disadvantage those people who currently use the park and ride card but do not have a smartphone and access to the First Bus app. It is also astonishing that so little notice of this change was given. There does not appear to have been a press release by Cornwall Council on the change. I am told that it was “on Facebook” but how most people are supposed to have seen this is beyond me. Notices were put up in the ticket offices at Langarth and Tregurra just 10 days before the change and so anyone who did not use the park and ride service or who got on at other stops using their park and ride card would not have seen this. I also understand that First staff were only told of the change at the same time, i.e. 10 days before it happened.. The change will involve significant job losses within First as the ticket offices will no longer be staffed.
For those passengers who do wish to buy multi-day tickets using the new system, see apps.
Another point is that passengers can now board the bus and buy a day ticket from the driver at any intermediate stop on the route between Langarth and Tregurra, something that you could not do before the change.
Update
After posting the above story, I thought that I would try purchasing a 5-day park and ride pass via the First Bus app. I managed it successfully. However, I have found that all five tickets have an expiry date of just 30 days from today. This means that, if I do not use them within the 30 days, I will lose them. This is different from the previous park and ride card system where there was no expiry date. Therefore, unless you are absolutely confident that you will use the 5 tickets within the next 30 days, there is no point in purchasing this bundle. I do not know what the expiry terms are on the 20-day or 60-day bundles and I am not prepared to spend £118 (£34 plus £84) finding out! If anyone has any information about what the use-by dates are on these longer multi-day tickets, please let me know.
I have emailed the First South West managing director to ask him to refund me the £9 that I spent as I would not have spent it if I had known about this short window in which I had to use the tickets.