Councillors have found it ‘staggering’ the Floating Bridge still issues debit notes — with a future consideration of making the bridge cashless.
An independent report for the council’s audit committee found 110 debit notes had been issued between April 2018 and May 2019, accounting for £286 of the Floating Bridge’s profit — most however had been paid back.
Debit notes are issued to vehicles who haven’t got the correct money and will have to pay as soon as they can or are travelling on the Floating Bridge next.
Tyndall: “It is unacceptable”
Cllr Brian Tyndall said it may not be a vast amount of money but it is still money owed to the council and suggested putting fines in place for the next time it happens.
He said,
“It is unacceptable. I question why this hasn’t been changed.
“You have cash floating around, you don’t know how much you have taken — we need to update it.”
Kilpatrick: Times have changed
Cllr John Kilpatrick said:
“I find it staggering that we are still issuing debit notes with no infrastructure to collect the money.
“Times have changed and I can’t believe we are still doing it.”
Problems with connectivity
Ticket officers had also been having trouble with the operating system, Trans IQ, with discrepancies in cash takings and sales recorded ranging from an excess of £2,538.81 to a loss of £368.33.
Deemed as a high risk in the audit report, connectivity issues are being rectified for the handheld ticketing devices as they couldn’t connect to the Trans IQ server to record transactions.
Pay by app
Cllr Stuart Hutchinson, cabinet member for finance and resources, says a captial bid has been put forward for an app so customers can easily pay.
“We want to move to contactless payment everywhere possible, making it as easy as possible for people to give us money.”
Check tickets prior to getting on vessel
Alex Minns, assistant director of neighbourhoods, suggested the floating bridge could be made cashless if the capital bid is successful.
“You can already pay by the saver card and contactless.
“We could consider making a cashless operation so anyone arriving by car will have to purchase a ticket from the machine, paying directly which will eradicate many issues and we can then check tickets prior to those getting on the vessel.”
Bridge could be cashless, but not onshore machines
An Isle of Wight Council spokesperson said:
“A capital bid has been submitted to be able to offer contactless as well as cash payments.
“Consideration may be given in the future to making payments on the bridge itself cashless — but cash could still be able to be used for the onshore ticket machines. However, there are no plans for this in the near future.”
Article edit
1.10.2019 9.45am: Comment from IWC added
This article is from the BBC’s LDRS (Local Democracy Reporter Service) scheme, which OnTheWight is taking part in. Some alterations and additions may be been made by OnTheWight. Ed
