Bus Drivers Are The New Fare Dodgers

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In Greater Manchester, bus services are introducing a scheme for drivers to avoid the necessity of giving customers the right change for their journeys. While advising passengers to have the right fare is fine, it is common for drivers to refuse to let passengers board when the drivers have no change though a few drivers do just let passengers ride for free or until later passengers give the driver enough change to be able to give the passengers the change back. The new scheme is to keep all the money offered by the passenger and give the passenger a receipt ticket the passenger can use on future bus rides either to pay for tickets on another bus or get change off the next driver of the next bus. This is so open to abuse it really should not be allowed. Many drivers will give the receipts out from sheer laziness. Actual change might be stolen by bus-officials, after all, it will be known how much a fare was but not necessarily how much additional cash has been paid. Fare dodgers will probably use forged and stolen change-receipts. Receipts could easily be lost or damaged by customers / passengers so their excess fares are never reimbursed. The bus company gets extra profit for nothing. Infrequent travellers may not need future bus rides for months while their change might be needed for other goods and services sooner. If a driver is expected to give change for a ride taken by passengers on other journeys on other buses, his own change supplies will deplete more quickly and passengers could end up accumulating fare receipts for some time before getting to redeem them. Fare receipts are unfair and unworkable. I hope this scheme gets run over by a bus soon. Arthur Chappell