Have noticed sometimes when the big two bus drivers are under pressure eg running late/big queues, drivers stop people from using the scanners,just rushing them along the bus.
Is this company policy,and i suppose revenue loss
Not sure about that but have noticed Stagecoach's machines regularly don't work sometimes with a sign over the scanner.
Arrivas policy is all passes must be scanned if fitted with the scannable feature as arriva revenue inspectors now have a device in which they can scan a pass themselves when checking the veichle and will tell them wether its been scanned on the ticket machine.
It isn't yet compulsory to scan passes in GM; in GM small operators like stotts, MCT, checkmate, bullocks etc... Don't scan passes at all; they'd have to buy brand new.machines which are very expensive. ATM they get the same amount of money regardless of how the data is inputted
Operators are not paid on an individual concessionary journey basis. There is a pot of money from the local authority, in this case Merseytravel and a top-up pot from central government (from the time of the introduction of the National pass). Merseytravel take a random sample of all journeys with each route being surveyed over a period of time. The joint pot is then shared out to operators in accordance with the results of the surveys.
Thats only untill all passes in merseyside like solo/trio become part of the walrus then operators will only get paid for passes scanned etc.
Some operators certainly in GM have updated ticket machines but choose not to use them. I think both Stotts and MCT have quite modern ticket machines but choose not to use the scanners.
I bigger issue I've noticed is conessionary pass holders boarding before 9.30 on weekday mornings and being waved onto the bus. I've witnessed a number of Drivers at one firm doing at yet on Friday morning a stricter driver made them all pay. Infact two elderly ladies who boarded at roughly 08.45 were quite rude to the driver when he asked them to pay.
Although I can understand their frustration to a point if oap's on the first half of a journey are forced to pay yet one the journey passes 9.30 it's a free for all.
If bus companies get 60% or whatever share of the fare off a concessionary pass than i would have thought it was a must to get every pass scanned
With a new ticket machine costing approx £5000 (according to a supervisor at a small company) if the company has 60buses it is a huge investment small companies just can't afford...
There's no loss of revenue, When a pass is unable to be scanned, you can enter the pass manually like with the older machines, you just have to check the validity for yourself instead of automatically.
It's the same in shops when the chip and pin machines don't work, there's always a manual back-up option