Pricing
Pricing
It's a tough one. Ideally you should ask going by the guidelines but if they say no, then good customer service would be to let them travel anyway so they have a positive experience rather than leave them for the next bus which could have a similar issue.
However, drivers aren't supposed to put themselves in danger and if you tell someone they can't travel due to a ticket machine fault, their reaction could turn a situation with a simple outcome into something more serious.
Surely the free travel should be incentive enough for the company to get the ticket machine changed over?
Slightly unrelated note, what happened to revenue inspection teams? Did these die out with Covid or is it a cost cutting exercise?