To travel within a city, bus is the major transportation tool apart from driving. FirstBus is amongst one of the largest bus operators in the UK, and many of you may have been using it on a daily basis without realising that you can save more money on FirstBus.
As I am still trying to earn my driving license, I am currently travelling with FirstBus almost every day. Despite being the cheapest transport available, it is still quite expensive considering that I have to pay over £15 a week. Saving more in bus is critical to increasing our savings overall.
I saw many people that did not care about the bus fare and paid for a single ticket every time when they got onto a bus, and had no idea that they could save more with some research. Are you one of those people? If you are, then this article is well-suited for you as I will discuss more about how to make good use of all the ticket types offered by FirstBus to save more money.
Table of Contents
Understanding the Ticket Types of FirstBus
Have you ever found the process of searching for the appropriate ticket types troublesome and hard to understand? This certainly happens to me when I first used FirstBus. To make things simple, I originally paid single ticket for every single journey, but soon realised that I could save a lot more by exploring other ticket types.
Here, I am going to explain all the FirstBus ticket types in a simple manner for you to pick the most money-saving tickets easily by grouping them into 6 main categories.
P.S.: Note that I am using FirstBus York as an example with the price fare taken in 2024, therefore prices and ticket names/types may slightly vary but should be similar in all regions. For the most updated bus fares, you can search up here.
Single/Return or Two Trips
Single: £2
Return or Two Trips: £4
Single is a no-brainer if you are just taking one trip throughout the whole day. Due to the national cap on bus fare announced by the UK government as a method to combat cost of living crisis, all buses can only charge you at a maximum of £2 per trip, tentatively lasting till Dec 2024.
When you purchase a single ticket on bus, you will typically say “Can I have a single to (destination)?”, the bus driver will adjust the cost according to the distance that you are travelling, making a single ticket more worthwhile when you are travelling short distance.
Return or Two Trips is when you buy two tickets at once, therefore its price is basically just a double of the single ticket. I never see a point of buying a return as you can always just buy two singles separately at the same price, and this saves the hassle when you suddenly change your mind and don’t want to take the bus on your return trip.
Unlimited Travel in a Set Time
FirstDay: £4.8 (Unlimited FirstBus travel in a day)
FirstWeek: £18 (Unlimited FirstBus travel in a week)
First Month: £65 (Unlimited FirstBus travel in a month)
These tickets grant you unlimited travel within a day, a week, or a month by paying a fixed price in a Firstbus service. This is very suitable for people that use buses to travel frequently.
Typically, for the bus fare to be worthy, you need to be travelling more than 2 times a day for FirstDay as 3 trips cost £6 for a single ticket, which exceeds the £4.8 price of FirstDay. For FirstWeek to be worthy, you need to be travelling for more than 9 trips in a week, and for FirstMonth, you need to be travelling for more than 32 trips in a month.
I often buy this type of tickets, as I have to change two buses to reach my destination each day, and I take a total of 4 bus trips daily as a result. Unlimited travel saves me at least 50% compared to buying a single ticket for each trip.
However, this ticket type is only usable in FirstBus services only.
It is wise to calculate the number of trips that you are taking daily, weekly and monthly to see which ticket type suits you most.
Day Bundles
3-in-5 Day Bundle: £13.5 (3 days of unlimited travel within a 5-day period)
5-in-7 Day Bundle: £16.7 (5 days of unlimited travel within a 7-day period)
6-in-20 Day Bundle: £21.7 (6 days of unlimited travel within a 20-day period)
10-in-20 Day Bundle: £31.3 (10 days of unlimited travel within a 20-day period)
12-in-40 Day Bundle: £39.8 (12 days of unlimited travel within a 40-day period)
20-in-40 Day Bundle: £65 (20 days of unlimited travel within a 40-day period)
Day bundles are slightly more complicated than the concept of FirstDay/Week/Month but they actually work very similarly. Taking 3-in-5 day bundle as an example, it means that you can enjoy 3 unlimited bus travel days within a time limit of 5 days, and you don’t have to use them consecutively in 3 days (that means any 3 days are fine as long as they are within the 5-day period).
Other day bundles work almost the same apart from the fact that the numbers are substituted, for example, 5-in-7 day bundle basically means that you have 5 unlimited travel days within a week.
Again, this ticket type is very suitable for people that have a constant need to travel by bus, and the cost can be slightly cheaper than buying FirstDay/Week/Month depending on your usage. For example, if you are just going to school by bus 5 days a week, instead of buying FirstWeek which costs £18, you can save a pound by purchasing 5-in-7 day bundle instead.
The only culprit of this ticket type is that once you buy it, the countdown starts. That means you should only buy a day bundle on the day that you actually start using it. But for FirstDay/Week/Month, they won’t start their countdown until you activate them, so you can bulk purchase quite a few without worrying that they expire.
Group
FirstDay Group: £9 (unlimited FirstBus travel for a day for up to 5 people)
Are you travelling with your family or friends together with FirstBus? Instead of buying individual tickets that end up costing you more, you may want to save some money to buy a group ticket instead.
During the weekends, I often travel with my mum and dad in a group of three, and it makes sense if I buy the group ticket even if we just take two trips each for the day, as 3 person’s singles for 2 trips would have costed us £12 (3 people X £2 single fare X 2 trips = £12), which easily exceeds the cost of a group ticket.
Though the cost of group tickets may vary in different areas, it is often extremely cost-saving as long as you are travelling with 2 or more people. Don’t miss out on that!
Student
Are you a university student? FirstBus operates in many cities with a university, and provides unique student discounts to university student.
In York for example, instead of paying £4.8 for a day ticket, which grants unlimited FirstBus travel within a day, a university student only has to pay £4 for the exact same ticket.
You will have to prove that you are a student by inputting you university address that ends with ac.uk, then clicking a verification link when you receive the email.
Apart from extra discounts on the usual tickets that FirstBus offers, university students also often have special tickets for buses that travel to the university. For instance, university students can travel to the University of York by bus 66/67 at a reduced price by purchasing a 10-trip bundle that costs £13 (that means you just have to pay £1.3 for each single trip) only. However, this discount does not apply to other buses in the city.
Child or Young Persons
Apart from students, younger than 18 also grants you cheaper bus fares. FirstBus further divides this into child (aged 5-11), young person (aged 11-16), and young person (aged 16-18).
A single trip only costs £1 in these age groups, which make travelling desirable when you are taking kids out.
Explore Alternative Payment Methods
In FirstBus, there is a wide variety of payment options, but this may affect how much you spend ultimately.
On Bus
The easiest way to pay if you are not familiar with FirstBus is by paying while onboarding. As you will not be able to visually see the types of tickets available, most people buy the single or return tickets with the bus driver only. This is only worthwhile if you seldom take FirstBus, or if you are travelling in a shorter journey, which may costs you less than £2.
mTickets (FirstBus App)
The other type that I use frequently is by paying on the bus app, then scanning the QR code while onboarding the bus. The most obvious benefit is that you can check out all ticket types available and quickly pick out the one that suits you most, while saving the time to buy a ticket manually from the bus driver.
Some ticket types are also only available in the app, and you can’t buy those from the driver directly. The Day Bundle tickets, for example, are only available in the FirstBus app.
In addition to convenience of purchase and more ticket options, the app also offers a real-time tracking of where the bus currently is. I normally use that to estimate how long it will take for me to wait, and it is also useful when I’m heading to an unfamiliar place and that tells me which station the bus that I am taking is up to.
Tap On Tap Off (TOTO)
This is a new service that starts at around 2023, which confuses a lot of people when it was first introduced. But more and more people are starting to use this payment method due to its flexibility.
In short, TOTO is a payment method which you pay by tapping your debit card or phone if you are using apple or google pay at the driver’s reader when you onboard, then tap off by tapping the same card or phone onto a dedicated reader next to the exit when you take off.
By doing so, it automatically calculates the distance you travelled and charge you on that, which means that you can be paying less than £2 for a single trip if you travel in a shorter distance.
If you accidentally forget to tap off when you take off the bus, it will automatically deduct £2 by the end of the day, assuming that you are heading to the final station of the bus service.
Apart from saving you the time to purchase tickets manually from the bus driver, it also acts just like a FirstDay or FirstWeek ticket by capping the maximum amount of money that you pay each day and each week, so that you are not paying more than you are supposed to.
| Days Using TOTO | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
| Price Cap | £4.8 | £9.6 | £13.5 | £15 | £16 | £17 | £18 |
If you still remember from our previous explanation of a FirstDay ticket which allows unlimited travel within a day, it costs £4.8 which is just the same as the price cap of TOTO. Similarly, a FirstWeek ticket costs £18, which is also priced the same as the price cap of TOTO if you use it for 7 days.
Ultimately, it means that TOTO is best if you don’t want to calculate yourself which tickets save you most money, as the TOTO price cap does it for you! That’s why I’ve seen a lot more people using this service.
Think Outside the Bus
While FirstBus is a reliable workhorse, sometimes thinking outside the box can unlock even greater savings and convenience.
For short distances, ditch the bus and embrace the benefits of walking. It’s free, healthy, and environmentally friendly!
If you want to do even more exercise and commute quicker than walking, invest in a bicycle and cycle your way to your destination. Most cities in the UK are cycling friendly and have a lot of cycle routes.
Wrap Up
When travelling with FirstBus, don’t limit yourself to just single tickets because that often results in losing extra money. Learn the common ticket types and unleash their potential to save you extra if you travel frequently with FirstBus!
Consider using Tap On Tap Off (TOTO) too as it is a great initiative for people who don’t want to compare which ticket types offer the most savings.
While travelling in the UK is expensive, investing some time into exploring ways to save. Just like saving money for trains, saving in bus fares enables you to save a lot more in the long run.
