Council extends expiry dates on park and ride multi-day tickets
19 April 2023

When Cornwall Council changed the ticketing system for the park and ride in February 2023, one of the changes was that multi-day passes now have to be purchased through a First Bus app on your smartphone (previously cards could be purchased from the ticket offices). In addition, whereas the previous cards had no expiry dates, the new tickets all had tight expiry dates meaning that they might not all be used before they had become unusable. See park and ride multi-day tickets expiry dates.

Cornwall Council has now posted an item on the park and ride page of its website notifying purchasers of the multi-day tickets that the expiry dates will, as from 2 May, be extended to double the previous time limits. The Council says that this action is "Following feedback from our customers”. It may also have been because of pressure that I have been putting on the Council through an FOI request about how they have dealt with this issue.

See below a screenshot showing the relevant information.

As for those people who have already purchased a multi-day ticket and have found that some of the credits have expired before you have been able to use them, I suggest that you email Cornwall Council Transport team and ask for a refund or new replacement credits with longer expiry dates.

Whilst the relaxation on the expiry dates is welcome, it still represents a backward step from the previous park and ride cards which had no expiry dates. It is still unclear what the purpose of these expiry dates is and it is still likely that it will lead to fewer people purchasing tickets in advance and, instead, more passengers will simply pay for each journey as they go, leading to slower loading times on the buses and more hassle for the drivers.