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From Conditions of carriage as above: 4.9 TfGM drivers are not able to accept £50 notes or cheques and may not have change for high value notes.
which is one reason to not accept £20 notes.
Historically, some areas have also banned £20 notes due to high levels of forgeries in circulation.
There is no mention of credit notes.
On a franchised network the mechanism for refunding the note by the operating company would be complex. There aren't many locations that could handle the refund either.
Credit notes have not been usual.
There is no mention of credit notes.
On a franchised network the mechanism for refunding the note by the operating company would be complex. There aren't many locations that could handle the refund either.
Credit notes have not been usual.
Why would it be complex? Transport for Greater Manchester get the fares, not the operator. Credit note being issued on one operators vehicle and being used/refunded on an another doesn't really matter
As a user of country bus routes, trying to pay with a £20 note will usually be frowned upon; I'm not sure how presenting one in an urban environment would be accepted!
As a user of country bus routes, trying to pay with a £20 note will usually be frowned upon; I'm not sure how presenting one in an urban environment would be accepted!
If Bee Buses wants to ape London Buses then it should be cards only.
With little cash used, having change for a £20 note is unlikely. Many buses used to be exact cash only; no change.
Back in the 70's I remember in London a youth presenting a £20 note to the conductor for a 15p fare - He got change, but all in coins and there were no £1 coins back then! He was startled even if some were bagged up.
A £20 note would have been frowned upon a decade ago, these days the driver might not take £20 in cash across the whole shift, hardly anyone pays with cash.
Maybe it's the buses I use, but there's still a lot of people paying cash in my area of Greater Manchester. London had Oyster for a long time before buses went cash free, and also has long had the widely used multi-modal Travelcard. The circumstances for London buses going cash free were quite specific to the capital.
I suspect Greater Manchester will go cash free at some point. and other areas too. But no one is going to force it to happen until the circumstances are right.
I recall back in the 1990s what was then GM Buses (North) / First Manchester had notices saying they did not accept £20 notes due to issues with forgeries, while we did accept them on our First Calderline services into the area. When weekly and particularly monthly tickets became available to buy on the bus, it was pretty much essential.
However, there was no float given to drivers, and I ended up having to maintain one out of my own money to try and make my life a little less stressful, something I continued later at UK North, often setting off with £40 or £50 to hand on a Monday morning when the renewal of £2 weekly tickets with a £20 note was widespread.
Personally, I can't recall the last time I used cash on a bus, urban or rural.
I was a trainee with Go North West but failed on the practical test last month and wasn't kept on and they said in the theory boot camp that they are only obliged to give out change for the next denomination up. So they will accept a 5 quid note for a single, a 10 pound note for a day rider. The reason is, in your first week you get given a 50 quid float as part of your main wage and you are obliged to then sort that out into change once you get signed off. You don't get given a company float with all the change ready. If you continue to take large denominations, you will always end up having to break it up at a shop or using your own money to do it so many drivers resort to only having a 2 tenners, a few fivers and 10 pounds worth of pound coins. Some go to the post office to ask them to sort it out for them.
As many drivers will drop their fares off in the cash office after any duty in which they are able to prevent loss or theft, they keep dwindling down what they could have used to give out change. On national express west midlands, you don't even hand cash to the driver, you put it in a box and you are required to have the exact fare if I recall.
There's little disincentive for paying in cash. In London there was a massive discount for using Oyster. That's not the case in GM. They need to charge at least 50% more for driver payment. Don't forget, London stopped accepting cash in 2014. Yes, it is nearly 12 (yes *TWELVE*!) years ago, yet GM and everywhere else are still messing about with driver payment. Note, I say *driver payment*. Buying a paper ticket by card from the driver is almost as bad.
probably held liable if under instruction not to accept the relevent denomination.
Everywhere I worked staff were only held liable if the note concerned was an obvious forgery.
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Sort of relevant to this thread, 45 years ago when I started bus driving there was a passenger who got on the first bus every morning and tried to pay for a 7p fare with a £5 note. We were issued with a £2 float, so tha chap got a free ride for a period.
However there were only 40 of us at the depot so it did not take long for drivers to become aware of this. H was spoken to but continued to present his fiver.
We decided to teach him a lesson and all the drivers collected their half p coins until we had £4.94 which were presented to him as change, without a bag.
He objected saying that he did not have to accept more than 20p in copper, which is true but it was pointed out to him that the driver did not have to let him on the bus either.
passengerw would very rarely get on the bus with a fiver and if they did 95% of them would apologise, Our maximum fare was 18p
Sometimes passengers have no choice! In Oxford there are two main operators with Zonal tickets covering both, but tap on/off capping only applies to one. So, I do regularly buy a paper ticket with card.
My usual bus to/from work regularly used to run a few minutes late on Monday because there would be a good number of students and sixth formers who would get £20 from Mum and Dad for their bus fare and want a weekly ticket. Easier now it’s all on apps (and in West Yorkshire there’s a reasonable choice, although only First’s Flexi Month undercuts buying singles).
Sometimes passengers have no choice! In Oxford there are two main operators with Zonal tickets covering both, but tap on/off capping only applies to one. So, I do regularly buy a paper ticket with card.
Then they need to change the fare system so that it isn't necessary to pay the driver. There's certainly no excuse in Oxford where the operators are supposed to be in partnership. There are multiple operators in Leicester but capping still works if you use more than one company.
There's little disincentive for paying in cash. In London there was a massive discount for using Oyster. That's not the case in GM. They need to charge at least 50% more for driver payment.
That only works if there is a credible alternative to paying the driver in cash. London has that credible alternative, you can top up an Oyster with cash at thousands of off-licences across the city.
The people who don't have access to apps or contactless bank cards are overwhelmingly the poorest people in society. Charging them more to take the bus isn't really a very good look.
The real solution is to force ATM providers to stock £5 notes in their machines.
Maybe it's the buses I use, but there's still a lot of people paying cash in my area of Greater Manchester. London had Oyster for a long time before buses went cash free, and also has long had the widely used multi-modal Travelcard. The circumstances for London buses going cash free were quite specific to the capital.
I suspect Greater Manchester will go cash free at some point. and other areas too. But no one is going to force it to happen until the circumstances are right.
It may well be a cultural divide. I have a mate who works in a senior role with a northern operator and I was surprised to learn that on some routes, it can be nearly 20% of fares still paid in cash.
Was typing this as @Tetchytyke posted and I think he's right. I don't have much time for the "free thinkers" who think that removing cash is some WEF inspired conspiracy but that cash is something that the poorest tend to rely on, either through a lack of tech or just the ability to budget.
I do wonder where some of these posters actually travel though. You'd think that every other bus passenger would be walking on with a mass of change, and then talk to the driver about solving world hunger and the Straits of Hormuz. A large number of passengers are ENCTS holders in any case and of the rest, the majority of passengers I see (around Bristol and Bath) are paying via card or app.
That only works if there is a credible alternative to paying the driver in cash. London has that credible alternative, you can top up an Oyster with cash at thousands of off-licences across the city.
That goes without saying. Plenty of places went cashless or only allowed driver payment at a huge premium long before contactless bank cards came out. So it is entirely the fault of the operators/authorities that those alternatives don't exist. Technology isn't the issue.
I have a mate who works in a senior role with a northern operator and I was surprised to learn that on some routes, it can be nearly 20% of fares still paid in cash.
I can't remember the last time I voluntarily paid a bus fare in cash (see above), and I don't see many people here paying cash either. And the Isle of Man has very low fares (my route into town is a smudge under three miles and the fare is £1.40 each way) which would lend themselves more towards paying cash.
But I can well imagine that routes in some of the big cities, especially the routes which go around the less affluent areas of the city, would have large cash takings. I've seen it to an extent in Newcastle even on a route such as the Stagecoach 1: people getting on in studenville Heaton have cards or apps, but the people getting on in impoverished Cruddas Park either have ENCTS or are paying cash.
In my experience Transdev just let people on without payment when they have a problem like that (though it might be different if it was lots of machines).
I've seen more people paying on the bus that used to as there's no personal advantage to buying a £2.50 fare in advance and they've removed discounts from some of their packs of tickets on the app - I'd sayit was down below 10% and is now most people.
As a driver in Manchester I’m happy to answer.
Credit notes are not given and the main reason is the potential for anti social behaviour towards the driver.
Also floats are no longer given to drivers, so for me who left one company to work for another, my float I was given before it went to the bee network was taken out of my final pay and when I joined the new company wasn’t given one so have to use my own money for a small float.
With regards to counterfeit notes the company will only accept if the driver reports to the police and has a crime reference number.
We are also regularly told about potential passengers in certain areas trying to pay with dodgy notes and are often advised not to accept any or to check carefully.
From Conditions of carriage as above: 4.9 TfGM drivers are not able to accept £50 notes or cheques and may not have change for high value notes.
which is one reason to not accept £20 notes.
Historically, some areas have also banned £20 notes due to high levels of forgeries in circulation.
There is no mention of credit notes.
On a franchised network the mechanism for refunding the note by the operating company would be complex. There aren't many locations that could handle the refund either.
Credit notes have not been usual.
As a driver in Manchester I’m happy to answer.
Credit notes are not given and the main reason is the potential for anti social behaviour towards the driver.
Also floats are no longer given to drivers, so for me who left one company to work for another, my float I was given before it went to the bee network was taken out of my final pay and when I joined the new company wasn’t given one so have to use my own money for a small float.
With regards to counterfeit notes the company will only accept if the driver reports to the police and has a crime reference number.
We are also regularly told about potential passengers in certain areas trying to pay with dodgy notes and are often advised not to accept any or to check carefully.
I still remember a grumpy bus driver objecting to the £1 coin I tried to pay a 20p fare with as a kid. "It says Yorkshire Rider on the side of this bus, not Yorkshire Bank"
If you could get the various organisations involved to offer the Bristol Freedom travelpass or the Bristol Rider / Avon Rider tickets digitally then I'd maybe concede. But until that happens ill be buying a paper ticket from the driver on a fairly frequent basis.
Sadly for many years Stagecoach had the policy that if the driver didn’t have change the passenger could just have a free ride, this then led to loads of people trying it on with £20 notes.
If it’s the video where the passenger tries to argue that he’s got a disabled son at home and needs to get back then it was filmed at Piccadilly gardens at the 36/37 stop. Directly opposite the stop is a spar shop where the passenger could have gone and got change.
Common sense is lost amongst us these days.
There's little disincentive for paying in cash. In London there was a massive discount for using Oyster. That's not the case in GM. They need to charge at least 50% more for driver payment. Don't forget, London stopped accepting cash in 2014. Yes, it is nearly 12 (yes *TWELVE*!) years ago, yet GM and everywhere else are still messing about with driver payment.
Isn't that a bit perverse? Londoners had a discount for using Oyster over cash, yet elsewhere you'd prefer people to be charged an extra 50% so that you can board three seconds quicker? Isn't it better to offer incentives (slightly lower fares, maybe?) for not paying in cash (or "driver payments")? You also need to give people options for paying other than having to use an app - maybe allow tickets or top-ups to be sold at PayPoints (or equivalents).
Nonsense. The ticket machine takes the same time to read a smart card, whether it's a contactless bank card or a concession card. The delay caused by someone collecting a ticket is negligible in rural areas and non-existent in areas where there's a tap-on, tap-off system.
You Londoners need to slow down a bit. Life doesn't end if you're three minutes behind schedule!
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