Manchester Bus Lane Fines — PCNs & Income

Manchester issues more bus lane penalties than any other authority in this dataset — 772,948 across the four years the council holds, peaking at 229,488 in 2023/24. That peak is the work of two then-new bus gates: Bridge Street West, which alone accounted for 68,399 penalties that year, and Deansgate, which accounted for 27,333. Both have since fallen by roughly half, and the citywide total has come down with them, to 167,956 in 2025/26. The money tells a different story from the volume. The council received £5,493,054 over the four years, which is £7.11 for every penalty issued — around a fifth of the £35 discounted charge, and far below the £22 to £52 per penalty seen at the other authorities here. The pattern within Manchester's own figures points to why: the lowest return per penalty, £5.99, falls in 2023/24, the year those two new bus gates were at their busiest. Cameras newly switched on at a city-centre gate catch very large numbers of drivers who have never met the restriction, and a high share of those penalties are cancelled on challenge or never paid at all. The council holds nothing before 2022/23, which it attributes to a change of system.

Which cameras issue the most fines

Camera-enforced bus lane locations ranked by PCNs issued in 2025/26. The last column is the 4-year total.

Twenty-nine cameras across twenty-two roads. Where a road has more than one camera the penalties are added together here so each row matches one bus lane or bus gate page: Oxford Road has four cameras, Rochdale Road three, and Portland Street and Cheetham Hill Road two each. Oxford Street is the single busiest camera in the city at 177,950 penalties over four years, just ahead of Bridge Street West at 171,662 — though Bridge Street West reached that figure from a standing start in December 2022, while Oxford Street has run throughout. Two of the council's rows have no page on this site: Bury New Road and Wilbraham Road, both of which fall to zero within the period and appear to have gone out of use. Two others are recent additions — Fairfield Street, operational from April 2025, and Whitworth Street West, from August 2025, which issued 15,181 penalties in its first part-year and is already among the busiest in the city. One oddity the council does not explain: Princess Street has been operational since March 2015 but records no penalties at all in 2022/23 before issuing 7,262 the following year. The council notes that its cameras are re-deployable and may move between locations.