However you book your Megabus seat you will receive a booking reference. It may be e-mailed to you, it may also be sent by text to your mobile if you requested this (10p charge) or, in the case of a telephone booking, read out to you. Before they left the depot the Megabus driver will have been given loading sheets, one for each journey they’re going to drive during their shift. The loading sheets list all the valid booking references for each journey. The loading sheets are updated immediately before each journey by the driver who calls Megabus control for any additional booking references. As passengers board they present their booking reference which is then checked against the loading sheet. A typical megabus booking reference looks like this:-

15-9584-300807-M2-0600-BOU-LON

15- indicates that this was the 15th seat to be booked and is for one passenger. If the booking had been for 2 passegers it would read 15/16-, 3 passengers would read 15/17- and so on.

9584- is a unique computer generated number.

When a passenger presents their booking reference the bus driver looks down the loading sheet for 15- (the list is in numeric order) and checks that the unique number on the loading sheet is the same as the unique number in the booking reference being presented by the passenger. A match … bingo! “Welcome aboard. Enjoy your trip”. No match? That’s where the additional detail in the booking reference comes into play and should identify the problem.

300807- the booked journey date. If it’s not 30th August 2007 today the passenger has come on the wrong day!

M2- the route number.

0600- departure time. They are trying to board an earlier, or later bus.

BOU-LON going from Bournemouth to London. This is not a valid reference for travel from London to Bournemouth or anywhere other than Bournemouth to London!