not helped by the basket seller

Further to the unhelpful complications of the Post Office Travel Card.

Another aspie and ELAS member reports that he found you are not allowed to do something that is common sense and anyone would expect to do, and which he was not informed of at time of buying the card. This confirms that its info and directions are incomplete to the buyer and it is sneakily far more complicated than it advertises as being.

Consider that you need THREE numbers to use it, and a online account password too! You need an "access code", to quote to them like an identiy number, as well as having the actual card number and its PIN.

You can't pay in any other currency than the pound to top it up. Even though the whole point of the card is to hold balances of other currencies on it, and to top them up, you can only do it by conversion from pounds. After returning from a holiday in the Eurozone he went to the Post Office and tried to pay his leftover euros onto his card. It would have been a good way to solve the problem of the unexchangeable coins too. The Post Office said no.

Bureaucratic nonsense like that, upsetting your common sense planning, throws you. Throws a logical aspie mind especially. This is not an aspie friendly product, tricky, full of petty barriers and potential pitfalls, and not greatly consumer friendly at all. Not what it is claimed to be on bright billboards in post offices. Be wary using it. But yes, use it to save on bank currency exchange fees: and if you have cause sometimes to pay for things online in foreign currencies then that is how you can use up leftover balances between your travels.

Straight answer?

Consider whether you find the following at all constructive or committal as an answer. Whether you think it will change anything. Then consider election promises by parties, on public transport, that are always about promotinmg its use or making it cheaper: never about forcing bus companies to give straight answers to actually make passengers' lives more sensible.

Apr 2 email by me:

It has never made any sense that the 0915 service from Dalgety Bay is an X53. At that time of day it gains nothing from the omission of stops and that causes aggro which makes life harder for both drivers and passengers. Unnecessarily uncomfortable passengers, e.g. told they can't get off at the secondary West End stop (Drumsheugh Gardens) in Edinburgh, is uncomfortable for drivers too. It is a significant city destination stop. Being required to sweep past it when passengers want it, makes drivers' job more difficult. This is thinking of them too.

This is particularly so in the conditions now with the west end diversions, when folks are trying to find their way using common sense. There is no common sense, no practicality, no consideration, in an off-peak service like this one arbitrarily refusing to stop at the stop mentioned. Why is this journey being kept X?

Apr 20:
Thank you for your enquiry regarding service X53.

We endeavour to provide a mix of "all stops" and "limited stops" services along the corridor between Ferrytoll and Edinburgh. The vast majority of passengers prefer the quicker journeys offered by the X services, and we have tried to provide a suitable balance within the limited stopping pattern. However we appreciate that whilst this suits most of our passengers, there will always be a small number that find the stopping pattern of a particular service inconvenient.

I trust this helps to answer your query.
Regards
.. Commercial Manager
Stagecoach East Scotland