I have the occasion to travel using one of the Day Tripper bus passes, pictured right. They’re a good deal, even if you’re just going to and fro. They’re $5 and if you are going to say, Newtown from downtown return, you save $1. And that’s the kind of small change we encourage people to keep.
Even better, although you can only buy the ticket after 9am weekdays, they’re are effective all day. This means you can get about the city as much as you like, and not have to buy repeat tickets. Terrific.
The trouble is, once I’ve bought the ticket, done the return fair, and no longer have need of it, I feel like I’m no longer getting value.
It’s a good thing then that the ticket can be used by anyone, for the entire day.
So to maximise value I give the ticket to someone else at the bus stop where I disembark. That way I get to trade the value of the ticket for a small dose of feel-good (and I extract a guarantee from the recipient they’ll hand it on when they’re finished).
And Go Wellington are none the wiser. They have however made at least two people a little happier with their day.
19 May, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Just as long as you can size them up and judge that they’re unlikely to have long mobile phone conversations once they’re on the bus.
19 May, 2009 at 11:00 pm
mostly i pick people who look like they haven’t showered for a week, and will fall asleep on someone’s shoulder. and then drool through cracked teeth.
20 May, 2009 at 9:34 am
If only I could resist the temptation to defile it by playing tic-tac-toe against myself using a fingernail on the last leg of the freetripness. (What? You’ll all be doing it next time.)
22 May, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Yeah I buy them but then I always misplace the ticket so I have to buy a return fare anyway so the bus costs more in the end. Though I am a bit of a nong when it comes to theses things.