Manchester’s Bee Network has seen more than 10 million ‘tap and go’ journeys since the payment method’s introduction on 24 March.
Over 1.1 million individual passengers have utilised contactless payments in the last four months, with the 10 millionth journey being made on a 143 service from St Mary’s Hospital, Manchester Royal Infirmary.
As of time of writing, more than half (57%) of all journeys made on Bee Network buses are made using tap and go, which allows passengers to travel without a physical ticket.
Fares are calculated automatically up to either the daily or weekly cap under a single fare structure.
Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said:When we launched tap and go, I called on people to get on board with the Bee Network and give it a go, and they certainly have, with a fantastic 10 million tap and go journeys already made by more than one million different passengers.
We want public transport to be everyone’s first choice for getting around Greater Manchester and to make that happen, we need to make it as easy as possible, and that’s what tap and go is about.
This is a huge part of us creating the world-class public transport network Greater Manchester deserves, bringing us in line with other global cities and to anyone that hasn’t had a go and tapped on yet, I’d simply say ‘why not give it a try, get on board with us and back the Bee Network
29 April saw 109,862 taken via the use of the tap and go technology.
Plans are now in place for an expansion of the scheme to include bus, train, tram and bikes by 2030.
