I've lost faith in the bus industry

[overthewater]

I have lost my faith in the current system, I can;t see how I can get it back.

I've heard how bad the old national way of doing things, but what I've seen of late is beyond idiotic and it's clearly incompetent.

Has anyone else lost faith or did it come back or what?

I'm really starting to think we need to PTE contract system.

 

[Polarbear]

Anything in particular that's causing your angst?

Personally, I also find certain aspects of the bus industry hugely frustrating, and have done so for many years. Don't think anything would make me totally lose faith though.

 

[quarella]

I don't think the problem is with the industry, but with the legislation and political decisions it is expected to operate under.
Local council cutbacks caused by Central government reducing subsidies and payment for old fogey passes.

 

[Blindtraveler]

Sticking my neck out here as I hold one, but the Scottish National Consession Scheme and ENCTS elsewhere system is, to put it quite bluntly, foocked!

Abuse is a major issue, bus services are iether dropping like flies due to poor payments for them or worse still running full with them so no non consession holding pax are able to use it and in fact I have 2 young friends who are iether now driving or learning to drive who say they wouldnt have if bus services wernt chocker with twirly pass holders, some of who stink and others who ride around all day as its cheeper than heating their homes!

The system was designed to let elderly or disabled foalk get to the shops, doctors, library or social activities not for Ida, May and Rosy to get on at 8am, ride round aimlessly all morning and return a different way after having lunch in a cafay with Nelly and Etholl.

i use mine for the purpose it was intended but if going to work, or out for the day bus bashing I will buy a ticket/tickets and this includes iether Citylink or rover tickets.

If passes were administered differently the picture would Im sure be different and rather than cuts cuts cuts bus companys and local authorities would be freer to develop services.

 

[Volvodart]

In Scotland they are supposed to be running a public consultation into the scheme later this year, so the public will be able to comment on the abuse of the current system.

 

[Stan Drews]

The major problem with the industry is the lack of funding, and the fact that the traditional British town centre is dying on its arse! Many people suggest some form of franchising/regulation will solve all the problems, but sadly without any additional funding to match, it would probably become worse because what little money is there would be wasted on politicians whims.
If funding was to be increased significantly you could actually make quite a difference, even with the current deregulated environment. However, that isn't going to happen as they don't like private businesses becoming successful as a result of public money.

 

[Blindtraveler]

Valid point on town centres, however the large out of town retail and increasingly leisure developments are booming. We need to concentrate on making bus travel to such places accessible, affordable, attractive and efficient. This means realistic journey times, running buses right into and through sites either to central station/interchange or multiple stops on say a large retail park over large areas and not just stopping on a main road. It also involves services when needed and at a good price. Get these right and Ida and her pals might go to o?
Also, why do so many railway stations in this country not have a bus stop either on the forecourt or at the end of the access road? Essential we fix this in law so every station where vaguely practical has such.

 

[BestWestern]

Sticking my neck out here as I hold one, but the Scottish National Consession Scheme and ENCTS elsewhere system is, to put it quite bluntly, foocked!

Abuse is a major issue, bus services are iether dropping like flies due to poor payments for them or worse still running full with them so no non consession holding pax are able to use it and in fact I have 2 young friends who are iether now driving or learning to drive who say they wouldnt have if bus services wernt chocker with twirly pass holders, some of who stink and others who ride around all day as its cheeper than heating their homes!

The system was designed to let elderly or disabled foalk get to the shops, doctors, library or social activities not for Ida, May and Rosy to get on at 8am, ride round aimlessly all morning and return a different way after having lunch in a cafay with Nelly and Etholl.

The system was designed to win the grey vote! It's a stupid, cynical and completely unaffordable idea, that was intended from the outset to shaft the bus operators. If it really, really must exist, then it should be means tested. Ideally though, it just shouldn't exist.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

The system was designed to win the grey vote! It's a stupid, cynical and completely unaffordable idea, that was intended from the outset to shaft the bus operators. If it really, really must exist, then it should be means tested. Ideally though, it just shouldn't exist.

How many years will need to pass until you are entitled to such a pass?

Means testing is something that will cost a small fortune to set up and administer.

 

[overthewater]

First off there is no need for a public consultation into the Scottish scheme later this year, It pretty clear where the abuse is, CITYLINK GOLD, get rid of that and your slove half the trouble. ( Fisher tours might be another one on certain routes, you cant take off Citylink because on some routes like the ones in the Highlands its the main- Only bus route in town)

Also lets not turn this thread into a anti Concessionary travel Scheme, it was never a grey vote scheme. Maybe in England but tough cheese for having stupid politicians doon south.

In Scotland, Wales and NI, it does what it was supposed to do, its national funded, locally administered and get people out.

* If people are sitting on the bus because there can't heat their houses, it's not the Concessionary travel Scheme fault.
* If disabled people are traveling on the buses all day because there have nothing else to do its not the Concessionary travel Scheme fault.
* If woman age 60-64 are using it go work because the coalition government took away their state pension it's not the Concessionary travel Scheme fault.

I tell you WHO is to blame The current Government, dont blame the problems on the Concessionary travel Scheme because of fault in Central Government. Also the reason it's a national scheme is because the old Local scheme especially in England, meant people living in centon areas were able to travel 50 miles east but had to pay to travel 1mile west.

Scheme isn't stupid, nor is it cynical and can be affordable if done right. Fife council had a free travel scheme for 25 years since the late 80s, and it worked then during a recession etc I'm sure this was during John MacDougall time as leader of Fife council.

If the English scheme wants to be stupidly administered thats your problem doon south. If people don't want to solve the root cause of the problems fine then but dont start looking for scapegoats. I do agree it should be funded a better, Scottish scheme should be at least 65% or higher.

My lost if faith isn't because of the, Concessionary travel Scheme nor of the lack of funding in the Industry, or the fact British high streets are becoming bread and butter towns with only hairdresser, pound shops and card shops, nor the increased traffic levels on the roads.

Its because it seems the companies are now run but stupid people, there used to care, there at least tried to. However it seems nowadays their idiotic or either that know exactly what they're doing which is worse.

 

[radamfi]

Valid point on town centres, however the large out of town retail and increasingly leisure developments are booming. We need to concentrate on making bus travel to such places accessible, affordable, attractive and efficient. This means realistic journey times, running buses right into and through sites either to central station/interchange or multiple stops on say a large retail park over large areas and not just stopping on a main road. It also involves services when needed and at a good price. Get these right and Ida and her pals might go to o?
Also, why do so many railway stations in this country not have a bus stop either on the forecourt or at the end of the access road? Essential we fix this in law so every station where vaguely practical has such.

A lot of the out-of-town car based development happened in the late 80s/early 90s when planning regulations were laissez-faire. Since then, there have been more car based retail/leisure parks but they are often built close to the town centre. Also it is now fashionable to live in the city centre and there has been a growth in city centre employment and living at the expense of out-of-town factories. A lot of young people no longer drive and don't even have a driving licence. There has also been quite a bit of immigration of young people from other EU countries who mostly don't have cars. So there are some factors that should have improved the situation for buses, yet the decline has continued.

In any case, if you are only interested in the town centre and certain other significant traffic generators, you will never get a big share of the travel market, simply because most travel isn't to the town centre. How else can towns in Switzerland get 30%+ PT market share?

As for railway stations, someone on here will soon tell you that passengers don't want to go there and if they did, the bus companies would be serving them by now. Yes, buses go to the railway station in other European countries but they are all wrong and Britain is the only country who has got it right.

 

[BestWestern]

How many years will need to pass until you are entitled to such a pass?

Means testing is something that will cost a small fortune to set up and administer.

I'm rather certain that the scheme will be long gone by the time I'd reach entitlement. You're probably right about the admin costs, best to just do away with it altogether then and bring back half fare. Worked perfectly well for decades.

 

[Citistar]

I have lost my faith in the current system, I can;t see how I can get it back.

I've heard how bad the old national way of doing things, but what I've seen of late is beyond idiotic and it's clearly incompetent.

Has anyone else lost faith or did it come back or what?

I'm really starting to think we need to PTE contract system.

What makes you think that PTEs and Local Government have the abilities to plan and execute a sustainable bus network? Do you think each area would co-operate with their neighbouring authorities (Clue: They generally don't at the moment)? Do you think they could make subjective decisions with persistent interference from councillors and pressure groups demanding services for passengers who don't exist, whilst the main corridors get robbed of resources and passengers desert the service? Do you think that they would be able to get over petty obsessions such as painting buses the same colour? Would you be happy to see indepdent, tax paying businesses eradicated over night in favour of the big groups and big fake charities like HCT?

 

[BestWestern]

Its because it seems the companies are now run but stupid people, there used to care, there at least tried to. However it seems nowadays their idiotic or either that know exactly what they're doing which is worse.

What on earth are you ranting about? The 'companies' (I assume you mean the bus operators?) have no choice but to accept concessionary pass holders, it's the law. They also have to accept whatever level of reimbursement the authority wishes to throw them, be it adequate or not. This is precisely why the scheme is utterly cynical, the design genius was always that the bus companies would be forced to participate and the local authority given the green light to pay them as little as possible in return. The supposed concept that an operator should be 'no better or worse off' for carrying a pass holder is rubbish; nobody sets up a business with the intention of making precisely zero profit, and no bus company exists with the aim of driving around a busload of passengers who are simply cost-neutral. A bus operator is entitled to make a profit on each journey, if the state would prefer that they didn't then they should renationalise and operate bus services accordingly.

The concessionary pass scheme has caused huge damage to the bus industry, causing destruction both to small operators and to marginal routes. Our high streets up and down the land are awash with the homeless, we have young families forced to visit food banks because they cannot meet the cost of living, and our medical and education infrastructures (not to mentiom transport!) are crumbling. I'm sorry, but providing Mavis and Doris with a free day's entertainment whenever they fancy it is not a priority use of public funds.

 

[Deerfold]

I'm rather certain that the scheme will be long gone by the time I'd reach entitlement. You're probably right about the admin costs, best to just do away with it altogether then and bring back half fare. Worked perfectly well for decades.

Perhaps in your area. The national scheme replaced various local schemes; some were half fare, some were free, some were a fixed fare. In West Yorkshire in the 80s there was a free scheme but then it became a fixed fare. Travel was allowed in West Yorkshire and also in South Yorkshire and Greater Manchester if their fixed fare was also paid (so both were paid for cross-boundary journeys).

 

[northwichcat]

One of my biggest complaints with the current system is you may have:

Route A - Hourly service with PVR of 2 - commercial. Average loading of 18.
Route B - Hourly service with PVR of 1 - subsided. Average loading of 12.

Then the operator of Route A might decide it's not making enough money and reduces it to every 90 minutes with a PVR of 1. Alternatively, they might withdraw it and if no other operator takes it on commercially the local council may look for the cheapest option of keeping the route running - again a service every 90 minutes with a PVR of 1. This means the frequency of routes doesn't match the demand.

 

[overthewater]

Alas I can no longer engage with discussion with the concessionary scheme since most are talking about the awful English system. If it was the Scottish/NI/Wales one thats a different story.

FYI: A bus operator in Scotland refused to take the passes, thus Transport Scotland had to pay another company to run behide the commercial bus and pick up the pass holders, two weeks this went on, the company never got done...

Im sure Mavis and Doris should be stuck at home poor and alone.

 

[Blindtraveler]

Scottish scheme should follow the English in some ways, for a start remove any Citylink travel accept on flows where they are the only opperater of a LOCAL journey. Coachloads of OAPs charging up and down the M90 every day is doing nobody any favours and needs to stop.

IMO the English system as is works well for the passengers but again badly for the opperaters. I do however admit that it would be easier if it was a system of half price travel for OAP's/disabled as opperaters could still take subsidy from councils to pay for the basics and keep what they make in the farebox for themselves.

As reguards Overthewater's thoughts on opperaters I fear that many decisions made are purely and simply based on the market conditions which brings it full circle to pass holders again. An opperater big or small surely wants a situation where they take people to work and school and back in the peeks and during the day transport pensioners, parents and visiters and at nights allow people to go out and socialise. Theres hundreds of suppressed ideas out there that just can't be explored due to the restrictions the market as is places them under.

Some areas and opperaters have innovated amazinly, look at Prentice of Haddinton or the City Zap concept or indeed Gold/Saphire/other premium brands. Lots of scope here so lets make it easy for opperaters shall we?

 

[KendalKing]

I have lost my faith in the current system, I can;t see how I can get it back.

I've heard how bad the old national way of doing things, but what I've seen of late is beyond idiotic and it's clearly incompetent.

Has anyone else lost faith or did it come back or what?

I'm really starting to think we need to PTE contract system.

Sadly, Its not just the bus industry which I lost faith in, its the all country!

The politicians often come-up with good ideas, but fail to back them up with the required resources.

The concessionary pass scheme has caused huge damage to the bus industry, causing destruction both to small operators and to marginal routes. Our high streets up and down the land are awash with the homeless, we have young families forced to visit food banks because they cannot meet the cost of living, and our medical and education infrastructures (not to mentiom transport!) are crumbling. I'm sorry, but providing Mavis and Doris with a free day's entertainment whenever they fancy it is not a priority use of public funds.

I totally agree with you!

When you consider that we are paying more and more in taxes every year, and getting less and less in return.

 

[Observer]

In Scotland they are supposed to be running a public consultation into the scheme later this year, so the public will be able to comment on the abuse of the current system.

And they won't do anything about it because it would cost the ruling party a good load of votes...although their other blunders have already done that anyway.

The system is wrecked there and it's no surprise why so many operators go out of business, the concession card scheme is usually one of the reasons. They may have got ticket machines out of it (although a good load of them have already been replaced now) but what else did they get? Is the reimbursement still just above 50% or has it dropped yet?

The real abuse isn't coming from the pensioners I'd say, but the fact that they are handing out these bus passes to drug addicts and alcoholics. They really need to crack down on all these "disabilities" that are being included in the concession scheme, because I'm sure a good load of them shouldn't be there. Note how you see a lot of young people have these passes too, and I mean the actual concession cards, not the 1/3rd off single fare cards.

 

[F Great Eastern]

Then the operator gets jip because they shut routes despite the fact that people say the buses carried quite a few people and complain the operator is lying about the passenger numbers not being enough, until they realise that 90% of the passengers are not paying.

I was on one bus in Suffolk that is not really frequent last week two ways and there were 43 passengers including both ways. 3 paid a fare and two of them were child fares.

 

[Mugby]

Sticking my neck out here as I hold one, but the Scottish National Consession Scheme and ENCTS elsewhere system is, to put it quite bluntly, foocked!

Abuse is a major issue, bus services are iether dropping like flies due to poor payments for them or worse still running full with them so no non consession holding pax are able to use it and in fact I have 2 young friends who are iether now driving or learning to drive who say they wouldnt have if bus services wernt chocker with twirly pass holders, some of who stink and others who ride around all day as its cheeper than heating their homes!

The system was designed to let elderly or disabled foalk get to the shops, doctors, library or social activities not for Ida, May and Rosy to get on at 8am, ride round aimlessly all morning and return a different way after having lunch in a cafay with Nelly and Etholl.

i use mine for the purpose it was intended but if going to work, or out for the day bus bashing I will buy a ticket/tickets and this includes iether Citylink or rover tickets.

If passes were administered differently the picture would Im sure be different and rather than cuts cuts cuts bus companys and local authorities would be freer to develop services.

Very well put and I'm glad someone has said it.

Bus travel in provincial areas is not a pleasant experience now. The seating capacity of single deckers has become less and less due to access legislation and when you have a genuine reason for needing to get from A to B and can't get a seat because the bus is largely full of people who are riding round simply because it's free, well it's off putting to say the least!

 

[Blindtraveler]

When I used to work a 9 to 5 job I began by using my pass to get there as the Scottish govd said that if disabled workers wanted to do so they could/can! It wasnt long though til other commuters started to resent my doing so as I was getting it free so I started paying, a cost which, given it was a crappilly paid 3rd sector job began to be unviable and was one of over 50 reasons I left said position. Even now I dont like getting on a bus in a suit/shirt and tie as the chuntering from commuters and more angeringly twirly pass holders starts up! Dont know if this is just a narrow minded thing in my very narrow minded judgemental area though.

 

[neilmc]

I'm sorry but I simply do not believe the accusations that free OAP travel is depriving full fare-paying passengers of the opportunity to travel and destroying the bus industry; when I worked as a conductor 30 years ago the vast majority of off-peak passengers were pensioners, plus a smattering of young mums shopping. True, the OAPs paid half-fare but that amounted to 2p or 3p, not £2 as cash fares have way outstripped inflation, so I believe that should the ENCTS scheme be scrapped or replaced bus operators would get virtually NOTHING for off-peak journeys as modern pensioners generally have access to a car and young mums stay at home and do a big shop when the car is available. They simply won't pay the fare levels demanded today.

It's widespread car ownership and fare inflation which has destroyed much of the bus industry, not joyriding pensioners - in cities, the rot can be stopped with strict licensing of flat-fare, high frequency services subsidised centrally and by zone charging as in London, but the rural bus has largely gone the way of the horse and cart, there is no way that anything like a sustainable service can be maintained.

 

[oldman]

Figures for Scotland:

409 million journeys were made by bus in 2015-16. More than a third of these were made under the National Concessionary Travel Scheme.
There were 1.3 million people with National Concessionary Travel cards in Scotland in 2016. (1.1m age, 152k disabled, 12k visually-impaired; Glasgow has particularly large numbers of disabled)
The bus industry received £301 million in funding from Local or Central Government in 2015-16. Passenger revenue in 2015-16 stood at £370 million in Scotland.

I wonder what would be left without the various subsidies.

 

[ivanhoe]

ENCTS passholders are NOT the problem. The comments used by some on here are nothing short of ageist. The scheme is underfunded BUT it is not the fault of the users. We have big issues with bus travel in this country where politicians from both sides are only interested in sexy transport schemes, irrespective of the number of bus users. Deregulation does not work and the lack of inter operator ticket/passes is a big turn off for many potential bus users outside of the City Region areas. I'm not proposing the return of the NBC . A regional regulated system with Local Authority input would be a start. Route competition does not work. Let's get people back on buses with quality bus networks serving as many people as is economically possible. I'm up for reviewing ENCTS . Government either fund it to at least marginal cost level or the passenger pays a small supplement of say 50p per journey.

 

[g4mby]

Post deleted

 

[northwichcat]

ENCTS passholders are NOT the problem. The comments used by some on here are nothing short of ageist. The scheme is underfunded BUT it is not the fault of the users.

There's different types of ENCTS users. Some rarely use a bus and just have an ENCTS pass for emergencies but at the other extreme there's some who try to make as many bus journeys as possible. One lady in her 90s who does that in Cheshire literally travels from one end of the bus route to the other then immediately goes straight back and repeats the process 3 times a day and most days per week - it seems she just likes riding the bus and talking to other passengers. It wouldn't matter to her if that bus route was withdrawn as she could do exactly the same thing on another route. Yet for most people where buses go to does matter.

 

[ModernRailways]

I'm sorry but I simply do not believe the accusations that free OAP travel is depriving full fare-paying passengers of the opportunity to travel and destroying the bus industry; when I worked as a conductor 30 years ago the vast majority of off-peak passengers were pensioners, plus a smattering of young mums shopping. True, the OAPs paid half-fare but that amounted to 2p or 3p, not £2 as cash fares have way outstripped inflation, so I believe that should the ENCTS scheme be scrapped or replaced bus operators would get virtually NOTHING for off-peak journeys as modern pensioners generally have access to a car and young mums stay at home and do a big shop when the car is available. They simply won't pay the fare levels demanded today.

It's widespread car ownership and fare inflation which has destroyed much of the bus industry, not joyriding pensioners - in cities, the rot can be stopped with strict licensing of flat-fare, high frequency services subsidised centrally and by zone charging as in London, but the rural bus has largely gone the way of the horse and cart, there is no way that anything like a sustainable service can be maintained.

I'm in a group on Facebook and there's a similar discussion to this one going on.

You raise a point that multiple people have mentioned in the group basically saying that nothing has changed other than how we, as humans, use public transport and I think that's the key thing here.

I've found that most people I know think the bus takes too long and costs too much so choose against it. If you want to get to the City Centre then we also have the Metro, but instead of taking the bus a couple of stops they'd rather make a 30 minute walk. The bus would take 5 minutes to the Metro or in some cases will also go to the City Centre but will take an exuberant amount of time.

For example, my friend lives in X town, he's 30 minutes walk away from a Metro station, or a 5-10 minute bus ride. It then takes 20 further minutes on the Metro, or he could stay on the bus and it would take another 35 minutes.
So the Bus+Metro would cost £6/7+ with a 30-40 minute journey time.
Walking+Metro would cost £3 with a 40-50 minute journey time.
Bus alone would cost £3/4 with a 45-50 minute journey time.

The bus alone is still one of the highest journey times, and that's because it goes around all of the local area. The bus goes past the Metro line a couple of times and as such a number of people do use it to connect with Metro but from what I've gathered most that do that have a Network One Pass which allows them to use Bus+Metro and is usually because they need to use the bus to reach an out of town business park which are usually quite a distance from Metro stations, oddly.

For me personally, the bus just simply isn't viable because I have the Metro, and the frequency of buses is something that puts me off. I know the Metro is every 12-15 minutes, whereas the bus is more every 15-30 minutes (for most people it's not even that). If I just miss a bus I must wait 30 minutes on an evening, if I just miss the Metro, it's half that time and the Metro is quicker.

 

[SpacePhoenix]

True, the OAPs paid half-fare but that amounted to 2p or 3p, not £2 as cash fares have way outstripped inflation

Bus fares must have been cheap as chips your way, i think the cheapest fare locally would have been around 20-25p for half fare. Some bus services might have had 15 OAPs onboard, that would have been £3-3.75 ish fares that would have been taken before the OAP passes were introduced.