I've lost faith in the bus industry

[175mph]

In North Lincolnshire and Hull, people can use their bus passes any time of the day.

 

[tbtc]

Buses need stability to work.

People don’t like uncertainty, timetable changes… so for buses to work best then they need to be predictable, reliable, straightforward.

Once upon a time, if you could fill your bus at half eight in the morning (rush hour), half five at teatime (rush hour) and quarter past eleven in the evening (last orders) then the marginal cost of keeping the vehicle on the road for the hours in-between was relatively simple.

The problem is, people aren't so "stable" nowadays - working predictable hours in the same buildings - living in the same places year after year - and bus routes struggle to adapt to that demand. Every time you tinker with routes to try to deal with new travel patterns, you end up losing some existing passengers.

People used to work from nine till five in relatively central locations, or did predictable shift work in factories (or pits, foundries etc) large enough to warrant a dedicated bus service.

The pubs shut at eleven in the evening (south of the border at least). Nightclubs finished at two o’clock in the morning, so there were enough people stumbling outside to justify a bus service.

In recent years we’ve seen a lot of change/ uncertainty in the wider economy though.

For example, the pre-loaded drinkers are getting tanked up at home and only going out after ten o’clock (rather than filling buses in the early evening). Pubs don’t close at a uniform time any more. Lots of pubs have closed full stop, as people buy more alcohol in supermarkets than they do in licenced premises. If people can buy half a dozen cans of beer in ASDA and drink them at home compared to paying three quid a pint in a pub then it doesn’t matter how good the bus service is, there’s a certain demographic who just won’t bother to leave the house. And that's a huge chunk of your evening trade decimated - if the pubs aren't economically viable then the buses that relied on taking people to those pubs aren't economically viable.

Dating apps and the like mean that conventional nightclubs that held hundreds of people are becoming a lot rarer. Clubs that survive often do so by catering to niche musical tastes in smaller buildings (for those serious about their particular tunes, rather than just copping off or just continuing their drinking after last orders in the pub), but that’s going to be enough to fill a bus. The days of a massive "Ritzy" in the city centre that contained several double-deckers worth of dancers are over.

In the days of land-lines, ordering a taxi on a night out required either the foresight to book in advance or the patience to queue for ages at a central “rank”. Now we’ve all got a device in our pockets that can order a cab, fewer people are going to spend fifteen minutes huddling in a bus shelter at the end of their evening. Taxis have become much more convenient, which makes buses less attractive.

Most new houses seem to be on estates designed to be impenetrable to a single decker – tightly curved roads and cul-de-sacs.

People work in office-parks (where badly parked cars make it awkward for a full sized bus to negotiate the roads). Flexi-time makes the car more attractive. More people need their car during the working day too – they aren’t just sat in the same building every day. And then you’ve got those who might work from home on a few days, for whom a weekly bus pass is too expensive.

£15 for a weekly ticket is good value if you make five return journeys a week, but a flexible workforce doesn't necessarily do five days - but paying for singles seems expensive.

Then you've got to consider that there are a lot of people out there on Zero Hours Contracts who don't know whether they'll be working tomorrow, so shelling out a couple of hours wages on a weekly bus ticket might be an extravagance.

People move house more often these days (in a Generation Rent world of private landlords, where a significant number of under fifties don’t know whether they’ll be in the same house this time next year). People move town too – no longer tied to the ones that their parents lived in. You might have known a local bus network as a child, but when you move to a new suburb/ town/ city, you are starting again. If you're only going to be there for a few months, will you bother to memorize bus routes?

And, as people move further from families, and work some distance from home, there’s not that support network that previous generations once had. You can’t afford to be a stay-at-home-mum in today’s economy, but you live some distance from your parents so the only way you can pick your kids up from school is to leave work at half past two – would you trust the bus to get you to the school gates on time to collect your cherubs?

Rail is a lot more attractive now – and much better advertised. You can depend on the railway not to change routes or change times on a regular basis. Whereas that bus timetable you printed off last week might already be out of date. Rail has taken the market for a number of middle-distance bus routes – a few garages lost their “flagship” services because they just couldn’t compete with the rail resurgence.

Some busy urban areas also faced competition from new tram networks that have impacted upon "cash cow" bus routes (e.g. Hillsborough used to have a bus every minute or two down Langsett Road into central Sheffield, now it's only a dozen... those busy double deckers used to cross-subsidise other corridors but now the tram has taken most of that market the other routes have struggled to stand on their own two feet).

Then you have councils unable to fund much more than Social Care – if your budget can only stretch to repairing playgrounds *or* funding evening bus services *or* meals-on-wheels then there are some cuts that are easier to make than others. Libraries have been closed down, other budgets slashed – it’s hard to keep bus services going in that environment.

BUT… In some ways, buses should be a lot more attractive (than they were a few years ago).

We’ve moved from a weekly shop at the megastore to doing “little and often” trips to a Sainsburys Local or an Aldi/Lidl – carrying just a couple of carrier bags onto a bus is feasible, whilst bringing home £100-worth from Tesco Extra certainly isn’t…

...car insurance prices have rocketed, supermarket online delivery means people don't *need* a car so much...

...and even if you do have a car from time to time, you don't have to *own* one (car rental used to be the preserve of Airports but now there are a few providers in each large conurbation - as well as "Car Clubs" etc)...

…Real Time information and Apps can make buses simpler to understand. Websites can contain a lot more detail than the tatty black and white timetable squashed into your pocket ever did. Colourful maps and Journey Planners become the norm, for those with online access…

…Drink driving laws mean evening buses have an advantage over cars…

…People care about the environment a lot more now than they used to (although it’s often along the lines of “other people should use public transport more”, rather than “we all should”)…

…Low floor buses aren’t just handy for people in wheelchairs, they are useful for people with bulky shopping/ pushchairs…

…We’ve got wifi/ USBs/ charging. Bus passengers can play games on their phones, which you can’t do driving a car...

…there are reasons to be cheerful, or at least reasons why we could be cheerful, if we are able to sell the improved product. But I can understand why several operations have scaled back to core networks,

A lot of operators haven’t helped themselves, of course. It’s been easier to cut PVRs and withdraw fringe services than it’s been to get Head Office to give you that proper fleet replacement that your garage ought to have. It’s been tempting to keep weekly tickets competitive but pay for fuel price rises by sticking ten/twenty pence on each single fare – which makes buses less attractive for casual users but at least maintains your core base of passengers. If you face a staff shortage, it’s simpler to withdraw services than pay enough wages to attract significant drivers. Short term thinking.

So I can see some of the OP's frustration but I think that most negatives have been external ones that the bus industry has struggled to cope with, rather than its own failings.

The system was designed to win the grey vote! It's a stupid, cynical and completely unaffordable idea

Agreed – but you’ll never win many votes by promising to take things off pensioners. Hence the recent problems when the Government suggested *only* giving pensioners a “double lock” guarantee on their benefits – which is still significantly more generous/ stable/ predictable than benefits paid to working age people (incapacity, child benefit, unemployment supports etc << most of which have no guarantees and have seen real term cuts each year).

We can take housing benefit away from the under 25s (and apply a lower Minimum Wage to them too) because they don’t vote, so we’re not scared of them. Pensioners do vote, so now that we’ve given them free bus passes that cover the whole country that they live in, they’re going to punish any party that dares cut this back.

Fisher tours might be another one on certain routes

Fishers are a great example of setting routes up to abuse the system.

For those who don’t know them, they were quick to spot a market for once-a-week services to destinations popular with the “Grey Pound”. Except that it didn’t matter what the cash fare was because you’d be filling your vehicle with pensioners taking a trip to the seaside at no cost to themselves.

If you can design routes to appeal to the “Wallace Arnold” market but then get reimbursed for running them as “bus” services (so that pensioners get a free jaunt to Largs or wherever) then the system is pretty rotten.

I’m not blaming Fishers – they are just exploiting the rules. I’m not blaming the pensioners who take advantage of a “free” trip to the seaside – they are making the most of a ridiculous set-up. I’m blaming the system that allows/ encourages them to waste our resources like this. The money used on sending some pensioners off for fish and chips on the promenade is money that could be used to maintain the bus into the local town centre for other people, but councils can only spend the money once.

* 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.

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

Put the little violin down.

Whilst I like public transport, it’s not the answer to everything. And paying people to drive buses around the country is not a solution to the fact that they cannot afford to heat their homes or because they have nothing else to do.

I’m all for innovative ideas about improving things but “we need to run more buses because it’ll give bored pensioners something to do during the daytime” really is a strawman argument.

If we need to spend more money on Social Care or increase the Winter Fuel Allowance then fair enough, but claiming that we can solve isolation/ fuel poverty/ boredom with double decker buses seems a little far fetched.

Maybe we need to set up social clubs to keep people active, maybe we should be encouraging people living alone to downsize into houses that they can afford to heat, maybe we should provide better insulation for pensioners in draughty old houses… those would be tackling the problem. Running buses is not going to solve the problems of “Mavis and Doris” – however emotive you want to make the argument.

IMO the English system as is works well for the passengers but again badly for the opperaters

It only works well for passengers as long as there’s enough revenue to keep the services going.

We face a reality in some areas that people have “free” bus passes but no services to use any more. Look at what is happening to some cash-strapped councils or the number of garages being closed in recent years.

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

We aren’t paying more and more in taxes every year though.

The basic rate of Income Tax was 29% in 1986 (when deregulation happened), kicking in on incomes above £2,205. The higher rates were up to 60% back then.

It is 20% today for basic rate (with the first £11,500 being tax free) and 40% for the majority of those richer. So a lot of people earning the National Minimum Wage don’t pay income tax as the threshold has been increased to take them out of it.

VAT has gone up from 15.0% to 20.0% since then (although it only applies to certain things), but in general we are paying a lower rate of tax and getting more of our incomes “tax free”.

Personally, I’d rather pay slightly higher taxes and get better public services, but I appreciate I’m in a minority.

the whole "coalface" thing is always questionable - should we insist that a doctor after spending X number of years qualifying etc then spend two years as a nurse?

Agreed.

See also "proper railway people" - the idea that, unless you've done every rung of the ladder then you aren't qualified to do a senior job...

 

[northwichcat]

Buses need stability to work.

People don’t like uncertainty, timetable changes… so for buses to work best then they need to be predictable, reliable, straightforward.

Excellent point which I think has been overlooked in this thread. The last significant timetable change for trains on my local line was almost 9 years ago - a significant change is now scheduled for next May.

On the other hand if weekdays services on the 88 Knutsford-Wilmslow-Altrincham bus route are looked at:
- Up until mid July 2016 half-hourly service with first departure from Knutsford at 05:25 and last departure from Altrincham at 19:20
- Mid July 2016 - 3 days of suspended service after operator went in to administration
- Mid July until August 2016 - hourly service with first departure from Knutsford at 06:45 and last departure from Altrincham at 18:45
- August to October 2016 - Half hourly frequency reinstated with first/last bus times remaining the same.
- October 2016 - New 'long term' contract awarded which sees first bus from Knutsford at 07:05 and last departure from Altrincham (for Knutsford) at 18:15. (The 18:45 departure remains but only goes part way.)
- May 2017 - Cheshire East council announce subsidy review which is set to see the service reduced to hourly with a later start and earlier finish from April 2018.

What's annoying is since October 2016 reliability has improved and usually high spec buses have been used which has seen passenger numbers rise and if the existing subsidy was retained for an extra couple of years it might be the half-hourly service could be retained at the same time as reducing the subsidy.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I remember some years ago hearing that there was a move not to allow the use of ENCTS passes on the Yorkshire Coastliner services to Scarborough, Bridlington and Whitby. Does anyone know how that matter eventually finished?

 

[TheGrandWazoo]

I remember some years ago hearing that there was a move not to allow the use of ENCTS passes on the Yorkshire Coastliner services to Scarborough, Bridlington and Whitby. Does anyone know how that matter eventually finished?

It was only the Whitby service and the council relented in upping the pathetic remuneration.

 

[overthewater]

So Silverdale in Scotland is still the only operator to actually refuse the passes and then win its case?

With Fisher tours remember there were dragged to the high court of this, as there treated the service as a coach tour etc. Alot of routes were dropped, and there are signed on the coach saying do not leave stuff on the seats etc.

To be fair the Livingston routes a fine since there do allow people to get to other shops etc, Fair paying passengers do use these routes, ( there phone up to get Cheap day returns) The rest of the network is questionable expect for the Callendar routes which seems to pick up alot of inbetween traffic.


Here is a BIG question, Lets just say ENCT scheme meant you only had local fixed fares for local passengers. Even with the funding cuts would the service still operates? I think the routes would have disappeared either way, since there are much cheaper options like Taxi buses or on demand services. Because of this and the changing economy and how people travel and do business people are losing sight of the bigger picture.

Most of what tbtc said is bang on, I know people who work all over the time period, 6am - 6pm or 2pm -10pm, or 7pm - 6am etc. its defragmented.

 

[lyndhurst25]

Take South Yorkshire for instance, it was the only place in England that offered free rail travel for the average South Yorkshire pensioner until SYPTE scrapped the offer cue a load of pensioners acting somewhat as children in Sheffield railway station demanding that they want their free rail travel returned which got them nowhere apart from being cuffed under Section 5 - Nowhere else offered free rail travel just South Yorkshire.

Merseyside still offer free rail travel.

 

[HSTEd]

If we go to the surprisingly in depth Government Bus statistics page we can find a breakdown of bus operator income.

Table BUS0501 demonstrates that total Bus Operator Revenue across England (includnig London) in 2015/16 was £5,567 million.

Of that, only £3,279 million was actually from fare income - 40% of total operator income was derived from subsidies of various types (including ENCTS passes).

Although its hard to find figures, it follows that ENCTS administration costs a significant sum of money, considering over a billion pounds is disbursed in England each year.

There are also significant costs in the Bus industry associated with handling cash, banking and such, as well as lots of money spent on maintaining fancy ticket printing systems, or even the equipment necessary for Oyster and such passes (if they ever take off anywhere else) to work.

All that could be abolished, for the cost of at most ~£3.3bn.

£3.3bn minus however much all that stuff costs, and you could abolish all bus fares.
If you want buses to take off as a serious competitor you have to make them free, you can also speed up loading by using multiple door buses all over the place, reducing PVRs and allowing for more advanced and efficient high capacity vehicles like articulated buses.
[Notice how fast people could pile on through three doors on Oxford Road (Manchester) for example].

 

[6Gman]

I'm going off the English scheme, as I mentioned that hidden disabilities / mental health conditions would be covered under the Learning Disability part.

You do realise that learning disabilities and mental health conditions are different?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Merseyside still offer free rail travel.

It would in my view be better to offer free all-modes travel within a constrained area[1] than free national bus only travel.

[1] With some thought - the local authority boundary is often not a helpful delimiter.

 

[AnonymousUser1]

What exactly do you mean by this?

I believe the poster has swallowed the bile spouted by those who feel that holding all the privileges entitles them to be taken more seriously than others .

 

[AnonymousUser1]

You do realise that learning disabilities and mental health conditions are different?

I don;t think that the poster 'Northern Spirit ' actually has the slightest clue about anything to do with disabilities / chronic conditions / Equality act / concessionary travel schemes etc etc etc.

 

[bussnapperwm]

I'm going off the English scheme, as I mentioned that hidden disabilities / mental health conditions would be covered under the Learning Disability part.

If someone has really bad asthma they too would be covered under the first part with points one and four (as some may find it easier going about in a wheelchair than to struggle walking because they have weak lungs).



It varies in England, some councils will issue passes en mass others will want to see proof.

Take South Yorkshire for instance, it was the only place in England that offered free rail travel for the average South Yorkshire pensioner until SYPTE scrapped the offer cue a load of pensioners acting somewhat as children in Sheffield railway station demanding that they want their free rail travel returned which got them nowhere apart from being cuffed under Section 5 - Nowhere else offered free rail travel just South Yorkshire.

Transport for West Midlands still offers for free rail and tram travel to its native pensioners and disabled pass holders

 

[NorthernSpirit]

I don't think that the poster 'Northern Spirit ' actually has the slightest clue about anything to do with disabilities / chronic conditions / Equality act / concessionary travel schemes etc etc etc.

First things first.

I knew of someone who is autistic, which is a learning disability. I know three others of which two who have aspergers and one has a mild form of ADHD, so its pointless saying that I don't know anything about disabilities when I know a few who are disabled.

I know of two people who have to use the most powerful inahailer because they have servere asamha. You do get people who have genuine injuries which renders them unable to work but as I've mentioned before you always get some who will try and cheat the system.

Concessionary travel schemes? - if its in England then I'll know however the Scottish and Welsh equivelent is different so if I mention something to do with it then I'm refering to the English system.

You'll be suprised at what I do know.

 

[NorthernSpirit]

Merseyside still offer free rail travel.

I stand corrected.

 

[Bletchleyite]

[Notice how fast people could pile on through three doors on Oxford Road (Manchester) for example].

Oxford Road is an absolutely perfect example of just how rubbish deregulation is in a city context. Overbussing because of competition, slow loading/unloading through single doors, awkward stop layouts, huge number of route variants etc.

Hamburg has an almost directly comparable route which is one number, two destinations (some short workings) and done using multi-door artics with most holding prepaid tickets (the driver sells if needed). Works much better, basically a rubber tyred tram.

 

[MCR247]

First things first.

I knew of someone who is autistic, which is a learning disability. I know three others of which two who have aspergers and one has a mild form of ADHD, so its pointless saying that I don't know anything about disabilities when I know a few who are disabled.

I know of two people who have to use the most powerful inahailer because they have servere asamha. You do get people who have genuine injuries which renders them unable to work but as I've mentioned before you always get some who will try and cheat the system.

Concessionary travel schemes? - if its in England then I'll know however the Scottish and Welsh equivelent is different so if I mention something to do with it then I'm refering to the English system.

You'll be suprised at what I do know.

Well if you don't know anything about mental health conditions then you should shut up to be quite frank because some of your previous comments are out of line

 

[Deerfold]

You'll be suprised at what I do know.

Oh, I am. Especially how you know what everyone has got their pass for.

 

[AnonymousUser1]

First things first.

I knew of someone who is autistic, which is a learning disability. I know three others of which two who have aspergers and one has a mild form of ADHD, so its pointless saying that I don't know anything about disabilities when I know a few who are disabled.

I know of two people who have to use the most powerful inahailer because they have servere asamha. You do get people who have genuine injuries which renders them unable to work but as I've mentioned before you always get some who will try and cheat the system.

Concessionary travel schemes? - if its in England then I'll know however the Scottish and Welsh equivelent is different so if I mention something to do with it then I'm refering to the English system.

You'll be suprised at what I do know.

However your postings on the topic do not represent this, also knowing peopel with chronic conditions does not enable to speak meaningfully and correctly on the topics in question as your previous posts have shown with their bilious tone and inaccurate , perhaps defamatory statements about people...

 

[NorthernSpirit]

The harshness of what I have put was and is aimed at those who cheat the system, not those who are genuine.

Those who are geniune about what their claim for are as entitiled to be peeved off about others playing the system. I had one neigbour who once was claiming for anything and everything so that they didn't have to work, yet an old man nearby who was registered as disabled due to his condition couldn't have a dedicated parking space put in outside his house and was refused a blue badge as he wasn't disabled enough. Me and a few other neigbours ensured that a parking space would be put in and within nine months it was.

The neigbour who we all saw cheat the system moved away and we all had an idea why.

 

[Deerfold]

The harshness of what I have put was and is aimed at those who cheat the system, not those who are genuine.

Those who are geniune about what their claim for are as entitiled to be peeved off about others playing the system. I had one neigbour who once was claiming for anything and everything so that they didn't have to work, yet an old man nearby who was registered as disabled due to his condition couldn't have a dedicated parking space put in outside his house and was refused a blue badge as he wasn't disabled enough. Me and a few other neigbours ensured that a parking space would be put in and within nine months it was.

The neigbour who we all saw cheat the system moved away and we all had an idea why.

How are you working out who isn't genuine?

 

[KendalKing]

Well if you don't know anything about mental health conditions then you should shut up to be quite frank because some of your previous comments are out of line

This one of disabilities that wife suffers from.

My wife is registered disable, she got a disable person railcard, yet she can't a disable person bus pass.

 

[Busaholic]

Roger French in August Buses magazine tells how he bought a ticket from First's GWR subsidiary to travel to Cornwall and they then bombarded him with information/offers on car hire and other stuff, but nowhere mentioned the fact that they operate the vast majority of bus services in the county and that cheap PlusBus tickets are available in many places for onward connection. He points out that a firm like Amazon would be trying to sell you other services that they provided, and bemoans how difficult it can be to obtain basic information. In the same magazine's Letters Page a writer compares his experiences of the integrated transport system in Zurich to taking a bus from Leeds/Bradford Airport. It's these sort of things that make me despair of (some) bus operators i.e. the things they can control, if they'd just look at things through a passenger's eyes for a change. A lot of them would cost peanuts too!

 

[GusB]

The harshness of what I have put was and is aimed at those who cheat the system, not those who are genuine.

Those who are geniune about what their claim for are as entitiled to be peeved off about others playing the system. I had one neigbour who once was claiming for anything and everything so that they didn't have to work, yet an old man nearby who was registered as disabled due to his condition couldn't have a dedicated parking space put in outside his house and was refused a blue badge as he wasn't disabled enough. Me and a few other neigbours ensured that a parking space would be put in and within nine months it was.

The neigbour who we all saw cheat the system moved away and we all had an idea why.

It isn't your place to decide. If someone gains a blue badge, bus pass or whatever it's actually none of your business. While you may think someone is gaming the system, at the end of the day you don't actually know the individual's circumstances, and neither are you entitled to know. If there is any kind of fraud involved, it's up to the authorities involved to investigate and make their decision accordingly.

You strike me as being a "libertarian" type. Well, why not practice what you preach, butt out of other people's lives and get on with your own, eh?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Oxford Road is an absolutely perfect example of just how rubbish deregulation is in a city context. Overbussing because of competition, slow loading/unloading through single doors, awkward stop layouts, huge number of route variants etc.

What other routes would you suggest as an alternative for some of these numerous bus services to use, bearing in mind that many of these are run by the same company along this route to the south Manchester area go to widely different destinations. Manchester University and the Manchester Royal Infirmary are two major points of note on the Oxford Road route.

 

[gnolife]

What other routes would you suggest as an alternative for some of these numerous bus services to use, bearing in mind that many of these are run by the same company along this route to the south Manchester area go to widely different destinations. Manchester University and the Manchester Royal Infirmary are two major points of note on the Oxford Road route.

Does there really need to be 45 buses per hour that run from Piccadilly, via Oxford Road and terminate at one of Withington, West Didsbury Central Road or Parrs Wood though (without even considering the 19 other buses each hour that run down the route then continue onto other destinations)

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Does there really need to be 45 buses per hour that run from Piccadilly, via Oxford Road and terminate at one of Withington, West Didsbury Central Road or Parrs Wood though (without even considering the 19 other buses each hour that run down the route then continue onto other destinations)

Can you see TfGM taking any action over the matter?

 

[MCR247]

The harshness of what I have put was and is aimed at those who cheat the system, not those who are genuine.

Those who are geniune about what their claim for are as entitiled to be peeved off about others playing the system. I had one neigbour who once was claiming for anything and everything so that they didn't have to work, yet an old man nearby who was registered as disabled due to his condition couldn't have a dedicated parking space put in outside his house and was refused a blue badge as he wasn't disabled enough. Me and a few other neigbours ensured that a parking space would be put in and within nine months it was.

The neigbour who we all saw cheat the system moved away and we all had an idea why.

Mate no one gives a flying toss about your neighbour that may or may not have existed. This doesn't excuse some of the absurd comments you've made, because then why not just have a go at benefits cheats? Why try and tar people with genuine mental health conditions with the same brush? Pathetic

 

[NorthernSpirit]

How are you working out who isn't genuine?

Through the persons behavour, some people can see how some people act as one of my other neigbours noticed how strange this person was acting - they left the house quite regulary but not to a working day pattern, they errected a patio and oddly enough reported my neighbour about their so called garage - its a shed. We all worked out what they were doing as time went on.

It isn't your place to decide. If someone gains a blue badge, bus pass or whatever it's actually none of your business. While you may think someone is gaming the system, at the end of the day you don't actually know the individual's circumstances, and neither are you entitled to know. If there is any kind of fraud involved, it's up to the authorities involved to investigate and make their decision accordingly.

You strike me as being a "libertarian" type. Well, why not practice what you preach, butt out of other people's lives and get on with your own, eh?

Who says that I could have landed a job at the local council who has to deal with this? The old man was the one who asked me and the other decent neigbours for some help and as such we offered to help them.

 

[MarkyT]

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

Agreed, and to an extent the system is 'self means tested'. Richer pensioners who wouldn't be seen dead on a bus don't apply for the pass, and if they do apply the only cost is the pass issuing admin, if they don't actually use it subsequently.

In Torbay we had a small local operator withdraw recently. Relying substantially on pensioner concession income, their main gripe was having to wait until the financial year end for their concession payments to be made from the local authority. It's not a great problem for a large operator like Stagecoach who corporately have huge cash reserves to tide them over, but for a small operator that is a major cash flow handicap. The route they operated nearest my elderly parents house has been taken over by a local voluntary organisation, and the LA announced it had negotiated a 'special deal' with them over concession payments. No detail of that special deal was released, but the LA insists it doesn't involve any subsidy, which they couldn't afford anyway. Perhaps they are just paying them monthly or quarterly.