The pains of travelling by Metrolink in Manchester (From Prestwich and Whitefield Guide)

The pains of travelling by Metrolink in Manchester

2:41pm Thursday 26th June 2008

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Tram tickets last week seemed harder to come by than tickets for Leonard Cohen’s sell out shows at the Opera House.

While Metrolink claims to be modern and trailblazing, now using hydroelectric power, yet it is still — in the age of age of chip and pin, self-service supermarket check-outs, and pay and go petrol pumps — unable to provide reliable ticket machines.

After getting rid of my car I was optimistic about a more relaxing, quicker and greener journey to Bury but within three weeks I’m more disappointed than a fan of hard rock in the Hard Rock cafe thanks to the daily stress of getting a ticket.

The machines are more temperamental than a supermodel in an international airport. They generally do not like notes and if it’s sunny — or if it rains — they sometimes don’t like coins either.

They often run out of change and sometimes they just stop working completely.

You need to get to work and the customer services line is engaged because other commuters all over Greater Manchester are in the same situation, so what do you do? On Monday, after the five pound coins I had carefully set aside the night before fell through the machine at Shudehill and I found the customer services line engaged, I got on the tram. I phoned again on board and was told to explain the problem to inspectors.

This I did when they boarded the tram at Besses o’th’ Barn but the inspectors, some of whom seem to think they are working for Blackwater on a security detail in Iraq rather than on a public transport service, were not interested in my explanations, nor in those of the other unfortunate commuters who had been unable to buy tickets.

A high school teacher on his way to work was humiliated in front of a group of his pupils as he tried to explain that a machine had not accepted his £10 note. Another commuter had been unable to buy a ticket because a machine was out of change.

Everyone was made to wait as the inspectors made calls to check their details against the electoral roll. The situation became even more farcical for me when I was told that my address did not exist. I gave my dad’s address instead and apparently that does exist, which is fortunate because it looks like I’ll have to move back there following the mysterious disappearance of my own abode.

Now we all have to pay £15 standard fares. Obviously there will be people who get the tram with no intention of paying — such as the teenager I saw throw himself headfirst over a railing to escape inspectors two days ago. But at the moment honest commuters are being penalised too.

One can’t help thinking that if Metrolink invested the money spent on these operations on purchasing reliable ticket machines then these problems could be avoided. If we’re really expected to build time into our journeys to allow for the temperamental nature of the ticket machines we might as well get the bus — or drive.

The responsibility for the machines is complicated. GMPTE (Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive) is responsible for investment in the Metrolink infrastructure but Stagecoach, which runs Metrolink, is responsible for maintenance. Apparently the option of putting conductors on the trams as is done on Sheffield’s Supertram system has been considered but it was decided that this would be unworkable at peak times because of the volume of commuters packed on the vehicles. Employing extra staff would of course eat into Stagecoach’s profits as well. The float used in the machines has been doubled in recent weeks in a bid to stop them running out of change but that doesn’t help in moments when they don’t accept any money at all. Whatever the solution, until the existing system is sorted out, Metrolink does not appear ready to expand anywhere.

Philip Purdy, GMPTE’s Metrolink director, said: “We are experiencing problems with some of the ticket machines, simply because of their age. We will begin installing new machines next year as part of a £100 million project to improve the network.

“The new machines will accept credit and debit cards, and will be better at recognising notes and coins. In the meantime, we are working closely with Stagecoach – the Metrolink operator – to improve the existing machines.

“We’re experiencing faults with the machines when they run low on change. We are therefore looking into what we need to do to make sure the machines always have enough coins in them.

“Stagecoach tries to send Travel Safe Officers with hand-held ticket machines out to stops when all the machines at a stop are out of order. However, we do not have enough officers or inspectors to have them at every stop, or on every tram, all the time.”

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