mTickets

The validity of single tickets varies across each First Bus region. For the most part, single tickets will remain valid for either 5 or 15 minutes once activated. The app will remind you of this before activating one.

The mTickets App supports versions above and including iOS 8 Android 4. Unfortunately, the Windows operating system is no longer supported.

Customers can send tickets to a child or young person by using the sharing feature on child and young person tickets. As it stands, this function is only available for child tickets – adult tickets cannot be shared. The instructions below tell you all you need to know about sharing a ticket once it has been purchased:

1. Select it in the wallet as if you are activating it.
2. On the activation screen press the green 'Share Ticket' button.
3. Select the tickets you want to share and press 'Confirm'
4. Press 'Share Your Tickets'

The messaging apps available on your phone will then open.

5. Select a messaging app and send the link provided to the person you want to receive the ticket(s).
6. The recipient should click the link in the message received

Please note that to claim a ticket successfully, the recipient must be logged into their own separate account with the app installed on their phone.

The mTickets App is only designed to work with one device per account. However should customers purchase a new handset, or lose or damage their current device, they will be able to transfer their tickets over.

To do this:

1. Log off from your mTicket account on your old phone (if possible).
2. Download the app and login to your mTicket account on your new phone
3. Check the wallet Ticket Wallet screen. You should find a pink panel containing a button to start the transfer process.

If the button is not visible, please ensure you have a data connection and refresh the app (on an iPhone tap the screen three times, or on Android select Refresh from the menu button).

Customers are able to complete the above process twice a month but further requests are subject to approval by a member of our mTickets team. Please don’t attempt to share your ticket with anyone else.

To change region on the app, please go to the home page and select the name of the area. This will be at the top of the screen under the title 'First Bus Region'.

If you have GPS location services enabled on your phone and for the app, selecting this will display your closest First Bus areas.

On the 'Nearby Regions' screen, selecting 'Tap to Search' will show a list of our operating areas (ordered by closeness if location services are available). You will be able search by postcode, town or other landmark. For example, searching for RGU (short for Robert Gordon University), will return our Aberdeen area.

Once a ticket is purchased and downloaded, it will appear in the 'purchased' section of the Ticket Wallet in your app. Tickets in this section are listed from the oldest at the top to the newest at the bottom.

When you want to use a ticket, select the one you want and then select 'Activate Now'.

You'll then be informed of how long the ticket will be active for, before confirming that you want to activate this ticket. We would advise reading this carefully to avoid mistakenly activating tickets.

Once activated, the app will generate a moving ticket image on your phone's screen and a QR code. This will stay active for the remainder of the ticket's validity and will include the time and a four letter 'word of the day'.

You'll need to scan the QR when you board the bus or show the ticket to the driver.

You will require an internet connection to use the app, as the app needs to communicate with our server to keep itself up to date when you're out and about.

Opening the app, accessing the ticket catalogue, and accessing account pages will all generate a connection attempt. If the app cannot establish connection to our servers, it will then lock until it can connect.

Please note the app is not designed to work with Wi-Fi only devices such as tablets and iPods.

You will need an active and valid ticket to travel on the bus. If the mTicket is no longer valid, you will need to activate another, or purchase a ticket from the driver paying by contactless or cash.

If an inspector asks to check your ticket, please show them the active ticket in your mTickets wallet as you would do the driver. For those who boarded using a single ticket which has since expired, the inspector will still be able to see this under the 'expired' tab in your wallet.

The mTicket system only allows one ticket of each type to be active at a time on a single device. If you are travelling with friends or family, they will need to purchase mTickets on their own device from their own account, or use contactless or cash to buy a ticket from the driver.

You are able to activate different ticket types at the same time e.g. 1 x Adult FirstDay and 1 x Adult FirstWeek.

The app will allow for one adult and one child ticket to be active at the same time on one device but if you’re travelling with more than one child, paper or tickets purchased by contactless may be more suited to your needs.

You will generally have 90 days to activate and use a ticket, although some day, week and month tickets will be available to use for a year. If your ticket has an expiry date, this will be stated in the ticket's details on the app.

The validity period of mobile tickets is the same as for traditional bus tickets. i.e. a day ticket is not valid for 24 hours - it is valid for the remainder of the day on which it is first used (until the end of service on that day). This is common for most transport tickets in the UK.

For example, typical validities are as follows:

• FirstDay – the remainder of the day the ticket is activated
• FirstWeek – the remainder of the day the ticket is activated plus a further 6 days
• FirstMonth – the remainder of the day the ticket is activated plus a further number of days in the month less one
• First4Week – the remainder of the day the ticket is activated plus a further 27 days

We also include a period of grace past midnight, so if our services end at 2am locally, the period 00:00 to 02:00 forms part of the previous day and the hours & minutes countdown shown on the mTickets screen reflects this.

Please note that any expiry date shown in words on the ticket screen is the last full day of the ticket, and does not reflect the period beyond midnight. This is so customers do not wrongly believe they have an additional full day's travel.