Do most operators in Birmingham not give change?
Given the operator day tickets seem to be only slightly more than the cost of 2 bus journeys I suspect they might be quite popular.
NX don't, but most others do, but NX is very dominant so the majority of buses don't.
An NX-only day ticket costs £3.80 which is 2x £1.90 single journey. I don't *think* any other operators do operator-only day tickets, and instead sell the multi-operator nBus day ticket at £4.00, which NX also sell.
I wonder why? Surely it removes one of the big advantages of using a smartcard... speedier boarding. Boarding times will not be reduced by much if passengers still have to wait for a ticket to be printed.
I suspect most won't bother to take the ticket. Cash paying passengers don't always take their ticket now unless it's a day ticket, and you can end up with a stream of many tickets spewing out of the ticket machine until someone does take theirs. To their credit, the ticket printer on NX buses is positioned to the right of the driver, so the next person can already be dropping money into the chute while you take your ticket.
From my observations existing smart cards (in the form of concessionary passes) have actually slowed boarding down on NX. The readers on NX buses are badly positioned and aren't very reliable or clear when they've read the card (compared to Oyster readers on most London buses), so people leave them on for longer than necessary, and wait for the driver to give the nod that it's worked.
It is the fastest way of paying on the bus in cash, but of course it is not faster than paying for tickets off bus, such as with books of 4/10 tickets, strip tickets and bus stop ticket machines.
None of which currently exist in the West Midlands, although NX do sell date scratch-off day tickets at their travel shops.
