hello all, i work for traveline south east in exeter, i discovered this site due to a caller asking me for our local office number which i declined to give her & then during our conversation she told me about this site so i thought id have a look & found this thread.

anyway thats the backround story, the reason i have posted to to explain how traveline works. the councils contract out each area to independant business such as ours in exeter who manage 3 different regions, the way our company earns its money is we get paid per call by the appropriate council which as i understand it, it isnt enough for our business to run itself & generate profit so we must charge for phone calls as well. Now i know that you will think that you shouldnt have to pay for this information but as you also know public transport was privatised along time ago and we are not funded by the goverment so we have to charge for our services.

also fyi if you do manage to get through to our local office number we or any other traveline office we will be unable to help you due to the fact the phone is not located anywhere near the computers that hold the travel information plus also it would probably be answered by our admin who is not trained in using the either using the computer systems which hold the bus/train times or dealing with the general public.

i understand why this site exists but you have to look at the whole picture i mean i have worked for several different call centres BT & EDF Energy to name two. you have to remember these companies are businesses & to run a large call centre the costs of the wages, equipment, electricity & cleaners etc etc ammounts to alot! so where does all this money come from? it has to be generated by the calls doesnt it, companies dont have to provide you with trained staff a phone call away ready to answer your queries.

crazyinlove84 wrote on Jun 20^th, 2008 at 3:09pm:

Evidently you are at the same location as jamieb28 as you have the same IP address as he and you are posting from work as your IP address resolves to Portland House, Exeter, the same as that of your workplace.

Perhaps it's a quiet day in the office at Traveline South East today and the agents are sat around looking on the internet.

I appreciate Jamie's comment but note that other Traveline regions have produced a geographic number, maybe the South East region operates with a different contract?


anonyy's point is my position in that if one is short of funds and trying to get info but only has a mobile phone it can be very expensive. The point is that the public authority who let the contract should require a geographic number to be published alongside the 0871 number.

Calling the poster stupid is unnecessary and offensive, I am grateful to him/her for providing the information.

Maybe the number to try is 01392 20 20 61 which is that given in another message from Dave on March 20th 2008 at 2.19pm as the number for Telephone Information Master, Portland House, Exeter, who is said to be the operator of Traveline South East in another message.

If you have any more up to date information, please post a response, thank you.

crazyinlove84 wrote on Feb 12^th, 2009 at 2:51pm:

This is clearly an issue which concerns you in your work as you have come back and you are posting on this website from your office PC.

We would be most grateful if you could furnish us with the 01392 number for the Traveline services in question. If you don't know them, then the 01392 prefix used in your office will be useful, eg 01392 1234xx.

0871 2002233             01236 634361

this is what it is in the database, but unfortunately they local number no longer works, i think they have cottoned onto me abusing it LOL

crumbs! I dont know its been off for a wee while now, and then you go and jinx-a-fix..

Thank you.

Dave wrote on Jun 27^th, 2009 at 11:59am:


The use of post codes for this sort of application always confuses me - how many people know the post code of anywhere but their own home?   Half the time I'd not be able to tell you the name of the road I was on.. It's a pity that web based applications can't get at the sort of location information that sms/telephone based services seem to be able to draw upon.  Still, it's a step in the right direction... Now if only I had GPRS available on my phone tariff, I'd be able to use it ..

[quote author=CJT-80 link=1157393805/15#28 date=1283266395]I have just accessed the MyTravelin.mobi site via a Blackberry, it offers:

postcode, street and town or stop name.

Will report back how well it works

[/quote]
OK thanks, will look forward to knowing that.