Hi , i think the bus from MK to Aylesbury Bus station is about £9..

ouch - is that child fare e/w ?????

Assume they are like our buses here and no change given by driver - so need to be prepared

Try http://www.arrivabus.co.uk/multi-journey-saver-tickets-in-shires-and-essex/ and scroll down to the Shires and Essex All Zones day saver - £7 adult, £3.50 child for a whole day on the routes shown on the linked map.

Why the Red Rose 161? their site implies this is a Sunday only service - tell me you aren't trying to do anything complicated on a Sunday!!! The Arriva S&E 300 serves the Hospital main gate (hopefully you can get through the grounds tot he stadium) and the above day ticket would be valid.

I think we should go back to the beginning - where in the Midlands are you starting and which day of the week?

BKW in the Midlands, and yes it's a Sunday (2nd Aug!!) - don't get any choice in the matter as he needs to be there approx 3pm. We only have one train an hour from our local station to start things off!!!!

Have looked at all sorts of weird connections using trains to Berkhamsted, Leighton buzzard etc or even going via London. Have previously been caught out when transferring lines from London Mid/Virgin (our "local" line) to Chiltern (for Aylesbury) on a Sunday as the connections are poor. A misconnection gives you some lengthy platform times at the likes of Banbury or Leamington (both dead as a grave if you happen to be stranded there for 55 mins on a sunday) so I'd prefer prefer to avoid that routing, but beggars can't be chosers!

Best of it is that it's looking like 3 hrs plus travelling and then I'll be dropping him off and returning on my own so another 3 hrs ish back. Gonna be a looooooong day. The "best" connections in one direction aren't necessarily the best for the return but I also have to consider the cost of doing majorly different routes as a "cheap day" type of return is not much different from a single fare and therefore out on LM and back on Chiltern suddenly becomes quite expensive..............

If it makes much of a difference we have both a family and disabled railcard which will only be of any use on the outward trip and I get free buses (but not coaches!) but to be honest ease of the journey is nearly as important as the cost. Well done for finding the Arriva bus fares - I looked for ages but didn't find where they had hidden them on the website.................

If you thought travelling on a Sunday was hard I've found something worse - the various public transport info sites! I've come to the conclusion that they are made this bad so that the journey seems easy when you do it!!! Buckinghamshire County Council made the mistake of asking whether I'd like to comment on my experience of using theirs - so I have and they won't like it......

Best I can find this evening is from Solihull to Princes Risborough and then direct to the hospital by bus without going into Aylesbury town centre at all. I'll try and refine it tomorow - I need a drink!"!

Thanks Steve - I thought it was just me having difficulty !! Found that many of the links on the Bucks CC site didn't even work, so assume you found the same..............................

I reckon we ought to get the govt transport minister (whoever he/she is) to actually try booking travel using just public transport - and preferably cross-country on a Sunday. They would see why those who are able to simply give up and drive!!!!!

Certainly much harder when you are going to somewhere where you have no local knowledge

BTW getting to solihull on public transport not necessarily easy despite it being my local MBC. We have no buses at all on a Sunday and it PROBABLY means going BKW to New St (22 mins) , walk to Moor St (5 mins) and back down to Solihull (22 mins after whatever sort of wait we have on the connection) - great for a journey of 6 miles. May give up and get a taxi..............................

In his defence - Andrew Adonis, the new Secretary of State for Transport, did a rail tour of Britain about 8 weeks ago (when he was just Junior Minster for Public Transport). he wrote a blog for The Times which is still online. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6116179.ece He does have a hitlist for the railways, buses may be a bit more complicated because there's so many of them!

The most inexcusable part is the poor quality of information - a poor bus service will at least cost less than a high fequency one, but websites cost about the same however bad they are! Just look at this one http://www.fahrplanfelder.ch/index.cfm?uuid=F217B200D9D9424C404A45B238671198&o_lang_id=2 it's a Swiss system. Just type in the yellow box the name of any Swiss town you've heard of (not Zurich or Geneva- they give too many answers!!) and you get an instant list of timetables. And that's for a whole country, why can't a simple county do that?

the bus from Princes Risborough to Stoke Mandeville Hospital is the Arriva 300, map and timetable here http://www.arrivabus.co.uk/serviceInformation.aspx?id=2627 - at least Arriva have a decent site if you know they run the service!!

Thanks