Pensioners' threat to bus routes

[eos]

The only problem I see with the implementation is the 9.30 am surge. Everyone wants to be on that 'first bus', so that and the next one are usually full. Remove the 9.30am barrier and you would find that the 'full bus' syndrome would dissappear. My experience is that those with passes do not travel in the evening peak if at possible- they don't like taking a chance on standing.

There is confusion with the national scheme as to just what is allowed. Passes issued for travel in the West Midlands are valid after 9.30am on Bus, Rail, and Metro tram -free. But if you have a pass issued in leicester or Manchester and try to use it in the West Midlands, its only valid on buses ( if the bus operator accepts it- a lot of smaller operators don't). Some passes are valid in the area of issue from 9am, but not to residents with a pass from outside the area. So you have massive confusion when some passengers seem to board with impunity- and others get refused. The early advertising for the scheme was confused in that it claimed 'free travel anywhere in UK'- like a lot of government advertising the truth was very different. I don't think that passes issued in England are valid in Wales and Scotland , but I beleive the other way around is OK.
The physical difference on all the passes, apart the passport photo is an small icon representing the area of issue, no wonder some bus drivers seem to 'accept' all , and others get it wrong.

 

[Mojo]

Its not just old people who get free bus travel, i do to becuase i am registered visually impaired, the bus companies are getting paid the money from the govenment so its not costing them anything.

They do get a rebate from the Local Authority (or issuing authority in PTE/TfL areas) but it is rather small and much less than the standard fare (or even the old half fare arrangement that used to exist).

 

[gordonthemoron]

They do get a rebate from the Local Authority (or issuing authority in PTE/TfL areas) but it is rather small and much less than the standard fare (or even the old half fare arrangement that used to exist).

but it's better than they'd get for running an empty bus :roll:

 

[Mojo]

but it's better than they'd get for running an empty bus :roll:

Of course, but some operators have not reported large passenger number increases compared to the reduction in money they are getting.

 

[bunnahabhain]

Of course, but some operators have not reported large passenger number increases compared to the reduction in money they are getting.

Which means that you're going to get increased fuel usage, and more likely to have to repair or replace something on the bus that little bit sooner than you'd otherwise get from running empty.

 

[TEW]

Free travel for OAP's is just getting stupid now, combined with the rising cost of fuel it is very un-economical to travel via bus in Cornwall, with yet another fare rise today, the trains on the other hand cost little to nothing.

 

[Jim]

Its not just old people who get free bus travel, i do to becuase i am registered visually impaired, the bus companies are getting paid the money from the govenment so its not costing them anything. Hear in tamworth we cannot use our bus passes before 9.30 we have to pay like normal people i had forgot how expensive it is to use busses £2 for a 10 minuite journey.

Regards

Adam

But the councils pay nowehere near the old 60+ Half Fare

 

[Tom B]

... and where does the difference between the Government rebate and the actual costs come - oh thats right, our fares.

We have the 9am / 9.30am rush as well - many try to get on from 8.30am and then whinge at the driver that they're told to pay or get off!

 

[anthony263]

i have had my local bus route withdrawn because it wasnt making money, mostly because fare paying poassngers stopped using it because they couldnt get a seat because of all the OAP'S.


i am not against oaps getting free travel, some blame has to lay with the government because with the rising fuel costs, some bus operators are ruuning routes at a loss because they subsidy isnt enough to cover costs.

maybe free bus passes shouldn't be valid during peak hours, that shouldnt reduce some of teh problems

 

[Bill EWS]

OAP's may get free travel but surely the Council pays the bus companies a fixed sum per year to cover this. Nothing is really free. However, most pensioners have paid tax most of their working life so why grudge them something in return in later years. They are on a fixed sum and can't cover inflation as when you are working. Beside, 'this' will be 'you' one day not too far in the future and then you will learn to appreciate whatever financial help that is going. Once you retire you may have a reasonable amount of savings to keep you going for a few years but everytime you have to pay a hefty bill there is not a wage to top up with and your saving just get less and less.

I doubt if the buses are being removed due to pensioners taking up seats. More likely its due to the usual greed for profit by bus companies as they shunt buses and services around just to save a few ££'s here and there on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. The silliest thing you can do is to think these services are being run for you. It's a business and in every buisiness there is a bean-counter beavering away trying to stop you/me/us from getting all you should from any particular service.

However. There may be room for possibly having restrictions at certain times. However, while those restrcitions may make you happy it may not do so if you are a pensioner and need to catch a train that gets you where you want to go to at a reasonable time and which could make all the difference to whether it is worth going in the first place. There's always a catch!



"Always look at things from as many angles as possible. You are guaranteed to see more"

 

[Nick W]

Once again, I'm sure I speak for most people on this forum when I say that we're not against free bus travel for OAPs. We're against their travel being paid for from the farebox instead of by the taxpayer, and we're not happy that OAPs can travel at times where there's no room for them without other people standing.

 

[Bighat]

Heh. There's some blocks in Doncaster which are run by deckers specifically because of the number of OAPs.

It needs seriously sorting out - we are seeing fare paying passengers facing increases and cuts to services, whilst others travel free.

Tom B, this is the THIRD time this topic has reared its ugly head in the last twelve mnoths.

Are we so bereft of original ideas on RUK that we have to re-run these old plots, it's getting worse than repeats on TV.

PLEASE find another drum to go and bang!

One thing though, you'll be able to cut and paste all the tired arguements you have used before!

God help us!

 

[Metroland]

Once again, I'm sure I speak for most people on this forum when I say that we're not against free bus travel for OAPs. We're against their travel being paid for from the farebox instead of by the taxpayer, and we're not happy that OAPs can travel at times where there's no room for them without other people standing.

Well I had to get on a bus yesterday, paid £5.80 for a 10 mile return journey and had to sit on a seat at the back which stunk of p*** because all the other seats were taken by non-paying OAPs. I was pleased to get on a clean train, which cost me £5.60 for a 20 mile return journey where there were plenty of seats and a service which was double that of the bus.

I think despite the high fares, taxpayers are paying. Buses will get £2.5 billion subsidy this year, and pay very little if nothing towards the cost of the roads they run on. All paid for by the car driver. Most of the damage is caused by trucks and buses! (HGVs do about 150,000 the damage of a car, it's a good job they don't employ NR style track access fees to roads, else all road freight would be unprofitable!)

Anyway, I found myself looking at buying a car again yesterday, in future I shall drive to the station to get the train.

 

[gordonthemoron]

in future I shall drive to the station to get the train

and how much does the station car park cost?

 

[Metroland]

Think it's free for rail passengers, or £1.40 a day or something.

 

[jv3531]

Unfortunatly the problems that bus companies are experiencing are with the amount of money they get back. This varies area to area and can be considerably different.Several routes in my area have seen large numbers of increase since the introduction of "free" travel but the companies in question are having what is useually less than half of a normal fare back (something like around 40-50p per journey I believe?) which barely covers any fuel. This realy hits bus companies har because when your average route profit is slashed by half, the money has to come frome somewhere and unfortunatly these days its the services that are hit.

One of the other problems faced by some companies is of course the apparent lack of funding from some councils and this also affects operation because money is deflected from other services to cover the shortfalls.

The government apparently have announced that they intend to make re-payments standard by means of a fixed rate lumpsome per year rather than the current pay by journey/area scheme which has caused major headaches....It remains to be seen if this will sort out this underpayment problem or just makes matters worse....

 

[gordonthemoron]

don't believe what the bus companies claim, fuel (even at todays rates) is a minor component of their costs.

 

[RJ]

There is already free travel in London on some routes. They are called bendy busses!

You would think so, but I've seen large groups of revenue with BTP infiltrate bendy buses every now and again.

 

[Lewisham2221]

don't believe what the bus companies claim, fuel (even at todays rates) is a minor component of their costs.

Would you care to enlighten us as to what the more major components are then?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

but it's better than they'd get for running an empty bus :roll:

empty bus = no revenue = unviable service/journey can quite easily be withdrawn

bus full of pass holders = small amount of revenue = unviable service that is difficult to justify withdrawal of

bus full of paying passengers = largest amount of revenue = viable service



And for the record, I'm not against the concept of 'free' travel - simply the way that the scheme has been rush implemented on a whole.

 

[charley_17/7]

Personally I think the problem is not with the public transport industry (whether public, private or staff-owned!) but with local/regional/national government organisation in England.

Scotland and Wales, Ireland, have set similar concession schemes up successfully, years earlier, with much less fuss!

For example, a Cheshire concessionary pass can be used to travel by bus, say from Warrington, Widnes or Runcorn (Halton), both of which have been Unitary Authorities distinct from Cheshire since 1996 to travel, cross border into Wrexham (changing at Chester), which is Wales.

Yet the same pass cannot be used on the (Stagecoach) Metrolink in Altrincham, which was once Cheshire (pre-1974), but can be used on (Stagecoach) Supertram in Sheffield, despite the leaflet issued with the pass saying you can't.

A wholesale reorganisation of local/regional/national government needs to take place (ideally based on city-regions) to reflect peoples' real lives, which do not end at county boundaries tinkered with since 1974, as well as incorporating the Senior and Disabled Persons' Railcards into the scheme.

 

[323235]

Think it's free for rail passengers, or £1.40 a day or something.

incidentally car parking is £8 at Stockport

I am actually against 'free' travel for OAPs, because of the threat it posses to bus services and the quality of life for everyone in society

I rely on Public Transport as I can't afford a car and to have all my Bus services under threat from being withdrawn such as one which has had a 370% rise in pax numbers since 2003, due to council funding problems
from issues such as the free concessionary pass one

Then I start to worry

Indeed if something like this turns full circle , you actually start to realise that if bus services are withdrawn due to the volume of free passes,then the old people are actually causing there own hardship as well as depriving OAP's that could afford to travel before the introuduction of the scheme of a service which they would have still had access to but now have no way of being able to travel.

I would like to see OAP's pay a flat rate of 20-70p at all times per bus journey.

I'm not against anyone having access to public transport, but how can something like this continue when it's depriving more people of a service than it's benefiting.

In some cases the benefiters are in the end being deprives themselves

therefore there is no gain to anyone.

 

[anthony263]

I am a bus driver myself driving in the south wales region, i have driven a number of routes and a lot of them only tend to carry free pass holders.

my reinds are now having to travel to swansea from aberdare everyday as their express bus route X55 swansea - aberdare was withdrawn from august 2008 as it was no longer commercially viable.

i have done this service and have to say that it is always standing loads on board and this meaning that a lot of fair paying passengers cant use the service ass nearlly all the seats are taken up by oap's a lot of whown just travel on the bus all day.

finally as fuel increased sharply the money the bus operators get back from the local councils didnt cover the increased cost of fuel meaning that fares had to go up.

i am noot really against the free bus pass scheme, i just believe it should only be used off peak ie after 09:000 and passenger paying a flat fare of 70p-£1.00 during the peak hours

 

[gordonthemoron]

In Nottingham, OAPs only get half price tickets before 9:30 (free after) which keeps the buses reasonably OK in the morning rush

 

[Tom B]

Sadly in Edinburgh they travel free all the time - at peak times it can be a nightmare, so extra buses have had to be put on - and they don't come without a cost...

 

[mbonwick]

The thing that gets me with OAPs is how rude some of them are.

For example, I was waiting for my bus, as you do. It arrived, I stood up to get on and this woman barged past with the line "**** off you stupid boy, I was here first"
I stuck out an elbow, which pushed her into the door. "Waiting since quater to 4 have you? [it was 1634] You've only jsut got here"

EG2.

Get on bus...sit down at a fairly average seat, bout halfway back on the top deck. This OAP comes up, second person on the whole bus and asks, politely enough, to sit next to me. I politely pointed out that there were another 50 or so seats to choose from, and that I had nowhere to put my bag (it had my school uniform in that day as I had just come from rowing, in addition to my schoolbooks, so was rather large)
At this point, the man turned rather nasty, so I just stuck in my earphones. He went to complain to the driver, but she wasn't interested as she is a personal friend of mine

 

[anthony263]

i have had experience of rudeness of both oap and teenagers, i threw a group of kids off once toghetherwith their mother who was with them at the time, who incedently i asked a few times to keep them under control, phoned the office to complain to my boss. I did get a telling off from my boss which did cause me to give up driving buses. i know a few of my mates who are still working always try to avoid her where possible now.

also with the oap's they moan if teh bus is late and tehy then complain if you dont stop outside their house etc.

i did drive on a rural route once which was hail and ride and i did on that service try to stop the bus outside people houses if they had heavy shopping with them.

one of my freinds who drives the trecco bay to porthcawl bus service ha sbeen telling me about how many people get on the bus expecting to use the english bus passes which are not valid in wales apart from on the cross border bus services and then give hime lip about how he is discriminating against them etc.

 

[Daniel]

Regarding the timings of use for OAP passes, I believe in London, Freedom Pass 'E' (elderly) users only receive free travel off-peak, but Freedom Pass 'D' (disabled) users receive free travel during the peak, (which is fair enough IMO).

Or is that just on the Underground, not busses?