What I used to do in this situation would be to give the customer £7.95 and ask then to get the remaining £10 from me when we get to Paignton. But on the 09:33 run to Paignton it is unlikely that I will take 10 pence never mind £10. The reason is it has just gone 9:30 and the free bus passes* can be used and I am the first bus out of Torquay they can be used on and I know there will be free bus passes* at every stop between here and Paignton and even though I will carry 40 passengers or more the £2.05 will probably be the only fare I will take.
Today was slightly different, as I was counting out the change, I had exhausted the pound coins and the fifty pence pieces and was most of the way through the 20 pence pieces and could see I would have to get down to the ten pence’s, a family of 5 boarded the bus. Mother was holding 3 five pound notes and has seen what was going on and was waving them about, “Are these any use?” She wanted a family day explorer, £16.00. The change was spared. Some times the gods do smile on bus drivers.
The photo is of the Clock Tower on the old Town Hall. It gets wound up every week but the council have discovered holes in the roof that could let rain in that may get in the electrics and the volunteer winder could be electrocuted and might sue the council. So no one may wind the clock up until the holes have been fixed. So the clock will come to a stand still some time this week. A bit like Torquay.
* Not free at all. Some one has to pay for it and it's not Gordon Brown. Mean sod.
10 comments:
Typical though.
Nobody ever gets on at 5:30 asking for a small fare with a £20 - by which time im sure you would love to get rid of some change.
Remember it well, £20 note for a 75p fare first thing. I used to tell them they could collect their change from the depot, they only did it once!
'Unpaid fair vouchers' are issued in these parts [Essex], with the box marked 'by virtue of driver's inability to provide change'. As captain says, people don't tend to come out without change too often after that...
Luckily we can issue a Fare Voucher, it's a glorified ticket with a value printed on it up to £9.99 and can be given to any company driver who will give them the cash in exchange. Most people when confronted with this option soon find enough loose change, strange that!
Thats quite clever.
Mind you, I suppose if someone was getting on a bus later that day it would be fine.
Just a mess for you when your paying your cash in and you have handed a few out and maybe recieved one or two!
I hope we use something similar. People round here are stubborn and prefer to use notes AM for some reason.
On the passenger's side I normally try to have exact money with me, where possible. Before leaving home I'll pick the bus fare in exact money from my change pile. However it is annoying when you present (say) a 50p coin for a 40p fare, it's all you've got, and the driver starts yelling at you for 'using all his change up'. In one instance I was given change twice in 1p and 2p coins by two different drivers, so on boarding the bus later in the day gave the 20p of coppers I'd amassed as part of my fare. "What the f&%# is that?" came the response - "It's what your colleagues gave me earlier today. If it's good enough for them to give me, it's good enough for me to give you".
Some bus drivers are quite pathological about change, getting upset at any minor problem and expect everyone to board the bus with the exact fare. But if this happened we wouldn’t be able to carry our cash trays from the bus to the pay-in room at the end of the day. Swipe Cards are the answer; or free bus passes for everyone.
First Aberdeen are exact change only. It requires quite some organisation to be sure of having the right change every morning, planning ahead as to whether I'll be using the park and ride or the normal bus.
One question I have - do you take Scottish notes? I held up a Stagecoach bus one day in Chesterfield as the driver rang up the depot to ask if he could accept my Bank of Scotland fiver.
Unfortunately they must accept that not everybody does have exact change, and that they will have to give out change from time to time. An exact fare system would disadvantage several driver's "earn-a-bit-on-the-side" scheme.
yes sarah we do take Scottish notes even though they are not legal tender. Not even in Scotland where they came from, poor things. They are a bit of a nuisance as they don't go in the cash machines. We have to make out an extra waybill and find a plastic bag and drop them in the hole in the top of the safe.
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