Help and support
Please look at our frequently asked questions below, you should be able to find what you need here.
Alternatively you can use our get in touch section below for more contact options; we are happy to help. We'd also love to hear from if you have any suggestions, or if you have any praise for our staff.
Journey Planning
To help make travelling easier, you can plan your journey and buy tickets using our First Bus App »
If you haven’t got the latest version download it here:
You can plan your journey » easily on our web site; our Journey Planner helps you plan your journey door-to-door using First buses and a selection of other transport options, including any connecting services.
You can also find out when a bus is due at a stop by visiting our Next Bus page » and finding your bus stop easily on the map.
If the times are shown in minutes that’s live time so you know exactly when the bus will come. Otherwise it’s showing the timetable time – so you’ll know when the bus is due.
We want it to be easy for you to plan a bus journey, and if you would like some guidance on how to catch a bus we have put together a guide for you here:
https://www.firstgroup.com/help-and-support/how-catch-bus
Within the guide we explain how to:
Select a region below and then the ticket type you are interested in.
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If you download the First Bus App, you can find the price of your journey and buy the ticket on your phone – you just scan the ticket straight from the app so you won’t need to worry about losing a paper ticket. Many of our mTickets are cheaper than if you buy the ticket on the bus too! If you’d like to know more, take a look at our mTickets information pages »
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Up to two children under five years of age may travel free-of-charge provided that they do not occupy a seat required by an adult passenger and are accompanied by a responsible fare-paying customer. Additional children, or children under five occupying a seat required by an adult, may be charged as if they were aged five or over. Children 16 and above will need to pay a fare; in some cases this will be the adult fare, but in some areas we are able to offer reduced fares for young people. Please select the ticket section of your area for more details.
Where a child may appear older than 15 (the maximum age for a child fare), the driver may ask them to verify their age. We would always seek to avoid any embarrassment, so in such cases it may be helpful for the young person to carry additional photo identification.
mTickets: One of the best ways to buy tickets is to use mTickets on the First Bus App, it’s quick, easy and cash free. Download the app and follow the instructions, it’s that simple.
We encourage customers to switch from cash to mobile payments, following our research which showed that boarding time and average journey times would improve if even just half of customers used mobile ticketing.
Online: You can also buy your tickets here on this website. Select your local area from the drop down menu below to get started.
On-board: You can still buy tickets on the bus, and you can use contactless payments on our buses to make this easier.
To find out more about a specific journey, please select your region below;
We've launched Tap & Cap in Aberdeen and Doncaster - capped contactless payments, however many journeys you make. With Tap & Cap you'll never pay more than our Day or Week fare.
Find out more
Aberdeen customers
Doncaster customers
Yes, our First Bus App has a ticket gifting function, allowing you to purchase a bus ticket and transfer it directly to your child’s phone.
The First Bus App, is quick, easy to use and cash free. Download the app and follow the instructions, it’s that simple.
For more information please visit our ticket gifting page.
On our website Next Bus section and our First Bus App, you can see how far away your bus is in real-time*. The Next Bus information will show you exactly how many minutes away your bus is too.
* Available on many of our routes.
In some areas the local council has installed displays at Bus stops, some will show scheduled timetable information and real time information.
We also provide service disruption updates via Twitter and on our Service Updates pages on the regional sections of this website (please use the drop down menu below to go to one of our regional sections) and on the First Bus App. So if you use Twitter, follow your local First Twitter page to stay informed.
Yes, our day tickets, week tickets, month tickets and longer term tickets provide savings compared to multiple single cash fares.
One of the best ways to buy these tickets is to use mTickets on the First Bus App, it’s quick, easy and cash free. Download the app and follow the instructions, it’s that simple.
For a full range of our ticket options, please select your region below:
You can purchase tickets in advance via mTickets on the First Bus App and on this website, but at the present-time we do not provide the option to reserve a seat. We review demand regularly and our timetables take this into account. Where you are travelling to the airport with us, we recommend that you allow plenty of time for your journey.
Our Airport services have additional space for luggage, please ask the driver for help to load and unload your bags if you require assistance.
We have put procedures in place to make our buses accessible.
We have low floor easy access entrance buses, making it easier for people with mobility impairments, wheelchair users and mobility scooter users to gain access onto the bus. For more information, visit our Bus Accessibility Page.
If you use a mobility scooter, we will need to approve your scooter (because mobility scooters vary in size) and be happy to issue you with a permit for travel before you will be allowed to bring it on board our buses, so please follow the approval steps provided on our Bus Accessibility Page
Our buses are suitable for bringing a buggy on board, but the areas suitable for buggies are shared with wheelchairs, so on occasion you may be asked to fold your buggy. Please check the buggies section on our bus accessibility page for more information.
If you require more assistance when using our buses, you may find our Extra Help to Travel Cards useful as they show the driver what extra help you may require - you can download your own copy to print.
You can download the Extra Help cards here >>
There are several different messages for you to select from, choose the one that best suits your particular needs and then cut out or fold the card so that the message you want is visible.
Please see the Help Section for our Apps, where you can read instructions, FAQs and ways to obtain support if needed.
There are ticket options on some routes that are valid with certain other bus operators. We are also part of PLUSBUS which means you can combine bus and train travel. Select your region below to find out more about combining travel, or feel free to ask your driver when getting on the bus.
Get in touch
We have dedicated pages for our First Bus App so please click here » where you can read our App FAQs, instructions and contact details for our dedicated app support customer service team.
We know we don’t always manage to get it right for our customers and there are occasions when things go wrong and we disappoint you. If you want to give us feedback, you can do it quickly and easily at Tellfirstbus.com . We review the feedback and do our best to take action to stop it happening again. We can’t usually contact you personally when you leave feedback on Tellfirstbus as we don’t capture personal details there but we do share the key themes of feedback we’ve received. You can find out what your local company is doing with your feedback by going to the Tell First Bus page.
If you want to make a formal complaint and get a personal response, we aim to make that as easy as possible for you too. We’ll listen to you and do everything we can to put things right. Please call us on 0345 646 0707. Our lines are open from 7am to 7pm Mon-Fri and 9am-5pm at weekends and on bank holidays. During the week, our quieter times are usually between 11am and 3pm so you may prefer to call then as there will be less of a wait to speak to one of our Customer Support Agents who will be happy to listen to you.
We will always try to make sure that you only need to contact us once to resolve your issue but if we need to investigate, we will work hard to get a response to you within 7 days. If it’s a more complex investigation, this could take us up to 14 days. If we need to investigate, we will always give you a case reference number to quote if you contact us again so that the agent you speak to can quickly find the information they need to update you. You can feel confident that our agents will always be polite and do as much as they can to help you.
If you have experienced an incident with one of our buses, then please make a note of the bus number which is a 5 digit number and can be found on the front and back of our buses and near the driver inside the bus. This will help us to access any CCTV on the bus more quickly which may help with any investigation.
If you prefer, you can fill out the contact form here instead. We will get back to you as soon as we can but please be aware that it could take up to 14 days to look into your complaint and respond to you.
If you’re not happy with our response to your complaint, then our escalations team and our Customer Services Manager will take a look at your complaint and the response we’ve given you to make sure that we’ve done everything we can to resolve it. We always aim to resolve our customer complaints directly but if you’re not happy with our final response under the ‘Alternative Dispute Resolution under the Consumer Rights Act, you can contact Bus Users UK who will try to help you get a satisfactory outcome. Bus Users UK represents bus passengers. They aim to help communication between bus users and the people that provide your bus service. You can contact them by going to www.bususers.org. Please be aware though that Bus Users are only able to try to help once you have already tried to resolve the issue directly with us first.
If you can’t find the information you need within these FAQs, then you can contact us directly and we’ll try to help.
You can call us on 0345 646 0707. Our lines are open from 7am to 7pm Mon-Fri and 9am-5pm at weekends and on bank holidays . During the week, our quieter times are usually between 11am and 3pm so you may prefer to call then as there will be less of a wait then to speak to one of our Customer Support Agents
If you prefer, you can fill out the contact form here instead. We will get back to you as soon as we can but please be aware that for lost property enquiries our response time is usually within 3 working days for all other enquiries this could take up to 14 days.
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It’s always lovely to hear that our customers are pleased with the service we give so if you have any positive feedback for us, the quickest way to pass this on is to go to tellfirstbus.com » and take 2 mins to give us feedback there. We review the feedback regularly and also share it with our drivers and colleagues in our depots.
If you’d prefer to contact us directly, you can call us on the number in the Contact Us section or use the Contact Form ↓ there. Thank you!
Lost Property
We will do our best to make sure that you get your lost property back as quickly as possible.
Hundreds of items are left on our buses every week. Our drivers collect property left on our buses and take it back to the depot to be registered. Our depot teams will do their best to get every item registered on the system the next day, but it can take up to 2 working days for this to happen.
In most cases, we’ll keep any lost property for a month to give you time to claim it. We can’t do this though if the item is perishable (e.g. food) or if it’s a debit or credit card. For bank cards, as soon as the card is handed in at the depot, we’ll contact the issuing bank (if there’s a telephone number on the card) to let them know the card has been lost and then we’ll follow any instructions the bank gives us. If no one claims it within 24 hours of it being taken to the depot, or if the bank asks us to, we will securely destroy it to protect the owner from risk of fraud.
If you’ve left something on one of our buses, the best way to get it back is to complete the contact form at the bottom of this page and select "Lost Property" from the drop-down menu. Please give as much detail as you can about the bus trip and the item to help us track it down for you.
If we find a potential match on the system, we’ll email you to let you know where and when you can collect your item. This will usually be within 2 or 3 days depending on how quickly found items are registered on the system. If you want to check if your item has been found after a couple of days and you haven’t heard from us, then please contact our customer service team on the number listed in the contact us page below.
Glasgow, Essex and Bristol customers:
For Lost Property in Glasgow please see here >
For Lost Property in Essex please see here >
For Lost Property in Bristol please see here >
You’ll need to bring some photo ID with you when you collect your item.
Just to let you know, we may charge a small fee when you collect your item (up to £2 plus VAT) to help towards the cost of handling and storing lost property items from our buses.
If you find lost property on one of our buses:
Please hand anything accidentally left on a bus to your driver.
Problem with your journey?
Our network is designed to provide high quality services wherever there is demand for them. Your route or timetable may change because of a change in demand. We are constantly monitoring/reviewing our network to reflect changing travel patterns and demands from our customers and we never change a route or timetable unnecessarily. Similarly, if we do not currently serve a particular location, it is because there is not sufficient demand to sustain a bus service, or it is simply not possible to run a bus there.
We always publish our changes in advance if a bus route is changing.
Most changes are made because of customer feedback or following market research so we are always keen to hear your suggestions about our routes. Please go to tellfirstbus.com » and give us feedback – it will only take 2 minutes.
We work hard to ensure that our services run as smoothly and efficiently as they can. Some things however are out of our control, and we can’t prepare for unexpected problems such as weather conditions or road accidents. If there are any major issues or planned disruptions, we’ll let you know about them on our website and Twitter.
On our website Next Bus section and our First Bus App, you can see how far away your bus is in real-time*. The Next Bus information will show you exactly how many minutes away your bus is too.
* Available on many of our routes.
We also encourage customers to switch from cash to mobile payments using mTickets on the First Bus App, following our research which showed that boarding time and average journey times would improve if even just half of customers used mobile ticketing.
We're sorry if we missed you or appeared to leave without you. It is possible that the bus you intended to catch was full or that our driver might not have seen you.
Problems with traffic or adverse weather conditions can lead to services being cancelled, meaning the next bus can be overcrowded. We monitor all of our services, and if we notice that one journey is often busy, we will try to provide extra buses.
If this is an ongoing problem then please do let us know by going to tellfirstbus.com » and give us feedback – it will only take 2 minutes.
We provide extra buses at busy times so you may see buses heading to their starting point (or returning to the depot at the end of shift). If we are experiencing delays, we may send buses empty to the other end of a route to ensure that everyone along the route is still provided with a service. Our buses undergo regular maintenance so you may also spot one of our engineers running a test.
Our drivers always try to carry enough change but unfortunately this can be easily exhausted if several passengers pay for low value fares with bank notes.
We encourage customers to switch from cash to mobile payments using mTickets on the First Bus App, as it makes boarding the bus quicker and easier. It’s perfect for buying your tickets in advance. Our research showed that boarding time and average journey times would improve if even just half of customers used mobile ticketing.
We accept contactless payments across all First bus operating companies. There's no need for cash, one tap of your contactless card, Apple Pay or Google Pay and you’re aboard and ready to go, no need to worry about having the right change.
You can make contactless payments for any ticket payment up to £30, using any contactless card displaying the Visa or Mastercard logo.
We've launched Tap & Cap in Aberdeen and Doncaster - capped contactless payments, however many journeys you make. With Tap & Cap you'll never pay more than our Day or Week fare.
Find out more
Aberdeen customers
Doncaster customers
Get in Touch
Privacy of personal information:
We will always store your personal details securely. We’ll use them where they are necessary to provide the products and services that you have requested. We will communicate with you in the way(s) that you have agreed to. Your data may also be used for analysis purposes and personalisation, to help us provide the best service possible to you. We may also, on occasion, still need to send you important service messages. You’ll be able to manage your preferences, for example how often you are contacted. Our Privacy Policy sets out the basis on which any personal data you provide to us will be processed.
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