Bee Network tap and go: I've tried the fancy new way to pay bus and tram fares across Greater Manchester

Sunday (March 23) is what Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) is calling ‘Change Day’ — as a completely new way to pay for buses and trams is introduced to Greater Manchester.

The new ‘tap and go’ system means passengers can ‘seamlessly’ hop from Metrolink tram to Bee Network bus and only pay one fare at the end of the day, much like London.

It’s a system first introduced to Metrolink in July 2019, but adding the technology to buses is a move transport bosses hope will get more people on public transport.

“It is convenient and easy to use, it removes the need to buy tickets in advance and automatically works out your best value fare over a day or week regardless of how many journeys you make,” said Vernon Everitt, Transport Commissioner for Greater Manchester, ahead of the switch.

“This has gone from strength to strength on Metrolink, with the number of people using it almost doubling in two years.

“When we integrate buses into the system on Sunday, we will have a modern payment system that will enable seamless travel between bus and tram under a single, simple and affordable fare structure.”

While transport chiefs have been talking up the benefits of the system, the Local Democracy Reporting Service has been behind-the-scenes to see exactly how the technology works — and what you need to watch out for when making the transition to tapping.

How do you ‘tap and go’?

Tram passengers will be familiar with how it works, as tap and go has been on Metrolink for years. At its simplest, you hold a bank card, smart phone or smart watch loaded with a card, up to a card reader.

A successful ‘tap in’ is met with a positive beep and green lights. An unsuccessful tap gets a negative beep and red lights.

Metrolink passengers also need to ‘tap out’, following the same process, as they get off their tram at their destination station. But bus passengers do not need to ‘tap out’ at all — their fare is calculated on tapping in at the bus driver’s cab.

A key point is that passengers need to use the same card, phone, or smartwatch to keep track of payments and therefore get the lowest fare. Even using a physical bank card, and then tapping your phone with the same card synced up, counts as two contactless payments.

Who can use it?

Tap and go is only for full-fare-paying adults. Children cannot use the system.

Those with concessionary cards still need to tap it on the same reader on the bus, but this is to check if the pass is valid — not charge them for their journey.

If you don’t want to use tap and go, cash is still being accepted on buses, tickets are available on the Bee Network app, and you can ask for a paper ticket on the bus and pay with a card.

What are the weekly and daily caps?

The big attraction of tap and go is it will only ever charge you the lowest daily or weekly fare, meaning ‘you do not need to work out on Monday if you need a weekly ticket’, according to TfGM’s director of customer, Fran Wilkinson.

Instead, passengers will pay for single fares up until they hit a daily fare cap, and then a weekly cap once they pass the 24-hour threshold. It’s important to remember a weekly cap runs from Monday to Sunday, not for seven days from when you start tapping.

“It will work the same as Metrolink,” added head of ticketing Helen Humble. “You will not get charged at the end of the week, it clears overnight and in the background we keep tally of that.”

The key figures at launch are, for unlimited tram and bus travel anywhere in Greater Manchester, you’ll never pay more than £9.50 per day or £41 per week using tap and go.

Other passes, like the new annual multi-modal tickets, offer the same ability to hop between transport modes at a cheaper rate.

How much will it cost?

The daily and weekly ‘tap and go’ caps, to be introduced from March 23, are as follows:

Who can help me do it?

TfGM is expecting the take-up to be a ‘slow burn’, but hopes around 60pc of bus journeys will be taken using tap and go in two years’ time, mirroring the 64pc of tram rides which use the tech.

To make the transition easier, it is ‘flooding the stops with staff to answer questions’, Fran added. She’s anticipating some newbies might end up forgetting to tap out on the tram, which means they will be charged an adult single fare for a journey from zones 1-4.

But if you make a mistake, help will be at hand, she went on: “We have a team that sits downstairs [in our office] so if someone was incorrectly charged because they forget to tap off, they can phone up and appeal.

“99pc of people do not want to get on and do the wrong thing. We will always be on the side of the customer.”

Will it make journeys quicker?

It could do. Tram journeys will remain the same, as the tap and go is already widely used.

But bus boarding times will ‘improve over time’, according to Helen, as tapping is faster than waiting for a printed ticket.

Why is it being introduced now?

TfGM could not roll out tap and go until it took control of the buses, which it completed on January 5.

It began that process in September 2023, but felt having tap and go in some areas was not the right thing to do, as it would add to the ‘complicated’ array of 150-plus ticket types already available.

“There was no good changing the way people pay if the proposition is complicated,” explained Helen. “This is built on simplicity and trust. Hundreds and hundreds of products would be very difficult for a customer to look at and go yes that’s the right fare.

“We did not want to say you can do it on all the buses apart from some of them.”

As Bee Network buses hit the streets, fares were simplified, and the ‘fare engine’ — the software which works out how much to charge passengers — was reworked for tap and go.