Surely the most sensible solution would be to means test the bus pass - if ‘free’ tv licence’s can be linked to pension credit eligibility, I see no reason why free bus passes can’t. Other pensioners would then revert back to the half fare bus pass.
Potentially politically challenging in the short term, but better than the system collapsing. If not, the funding needs revising to make it sustainable, but you’re then spending more money on a freebie for reasonable well off pensioners when public funds are tight.
I've seen it said that the benefit-to-cost ratio is highly positive for the ENCTS pass – in other words, every £1 spent on the scheme generates significantly more than £1 in economic boost. People going for days out that they otherwise wouldn't have done, and spending more freely because the journey has been free, all helps the economy in ways that our very narrow approach to expenditure and income doesn't capture, because the benefits accrued are not accounted for in the money spent.
Means-testing adds more barriers and inevitably puts in a cliff-edge where plenty of people would be left on the wrong side of the line – many people who really do benefit from the scheme and are not so well off that they could afford to make all of those journeys without thinking about the cost. It also adds an admin cost that isn't there with a universal scheme, and would reduce the number of people using buses (including some people who really need every encouragement we can give them to stop driving), which would reduce the viability of those routes further.
I would much rather see universal benefits with a higher tax take from people who can afford to pay it, rather than putting in place an arbitrary cut-off at which point people do/don't get the benefit.
This has happened to an extent, but it is (the £2 scheme aside) worth noting that anyone who travelled more than a few times a week would typically buy a weekly or monthly pass anyway, which are typically priced far below a return journey per day. Thus if you're going to base it on anything commercial, that would be the thing to use.
Would many pensioners have been travelling regularly enough to make it worth their while buying a pass (especially if not all journeys were with the same bus company)? I would be surprised if it was that common, but happy to defer to people with first-hand experience if they say otherwise.
That doesn't help much if most of that £1m is tied up in the value of the house that you've lived in for 40 years though.
Yes, some pensioners genuinely are very well off ... but how many of those travel by bus regularly? Their ENCTS use isn't costing the public purse very much if they only use it once every few months!
Why does ENCTs have to be free. I would have thought a 50p fare for over (say) 5 miles would be fair. Giving people free bus rides for journeys like Newcastle - Berwick, Leeds - Scarborough, Skipton - Lancaster or Lancaster - Keswick is not a good use of taxpayers money IMHO
It's a tricky one, because wherever you draw the line, there will be people who can make a good argument for extending it a little bit further in their case – and wherever you draw the line, you will create perverse incentives and it will in itself influence travel patterns. Not to mention that when you introduce a nominal sum at a nice round number, after a few years inflation means that it is not worth as much, but it's then much harder to increase that nominal sum than it would be to increase a commercial charge. How much difference do you think a charge of 50p on a journey from Leeds to Scarborough would make (1) to the passenger, (ii) to the council, or (c) to the bus company?
What happens on those buses where the bus runs through but on a different registration? The 555 Lancaster - Keswick does that. As does the 81/82 -581-580 Lancaster - Skipton. I dont think you have to re-do your pass tap, you just sit tight.
I am sure there are other routes like this in England, but I have given ones local to me as examples.
I think it generally works along the lines of, if you can
buy a through ticket from one end of the combined route to the other then you don't have to re-swipe your pass, because the reimbursement rate is based on the fares sold.
www.newportbus.co.uk
