Does anyone working in the bus industry know how the Senior Citizen's Concessionary Fares Scheme is funded?
Having recently become eligible for one, I am puzzled about the different procedures of different bus companies. Some issue tickets all the time regardless of distance, others ask for the destination before they issue the ticket, and some never issue any tickets.
One of my friends claims that the bus company receives a flat fare subsidy for each use of the Pass. But if no tickets are issued, how can they calculate this? If this is correct, how much do the bus companies receive?
Should this concession be withdrawn (often hinted at in the Tory press), most off-peak bus services would disappear overnight.
Paul Haywood
The instructions passed on to our drivers in East Yorkshire and North Yorkshire is that the passengers journey must be clearly registered in the wayfarer machine and a ticket issued. This registration is for East Riding passes or North Yorkshire passes. The ticket must be issued as a single ticket from the place of boarding to the place of alighting. All other passes are registered under one block and I assume a block claim is made from central government for this. There is no set amount paid to companies for repayment, each council setting the limit they will pay. Whilst the buses are carrying more passengers the actual revenue on some of our services has dropped.
It might be worth contacting Peter Shipp at EYMS Hull. He is a enthusiast and may just be able to help you out.
Terry Malloy
Re-national concession scheme question. My experience down here on the sunny south coast, Stagecoach Devon always issue a ticket showing the exact journey. Dawlish Coaches, which operates a local service round the town estates does not issue tickets, but appears to have a counter on the machine. From this I assume that Stagecoach make a claim on a sliding scale (not unreasonable on a 1½ hour journey from Exeter to Newton Abbot), but Dawlish Coaches get a flat rate - again, understandable on short local journeys. I understand the local authority pays. This was the subject of adverse comment when the scheme was first launched, since a disproportionate number of passengers in holiday regions are from outside the sponsoring authority's area. Lots of Brummy cards on Stagecoach Devon, not many Teignbridge on Wumpty, Centro, TWM or whatever they are called this week!
Stephen Ford
The concessionary fares scheme in England is based on an allocation to each authority by the DfT. The gross sum is paid from the treasury to the Dclog (dept of local gov) and is paid by a set formula, (nearly £1billion now) there were 4 choices and in the end the formula was chosen to best suit the SW region which is hugely disadvantaged anyway. The payment is made by counting benefit claimants, car ownership etc and you guessed it has nothing to do with buses, routes, passengers or anything else bus. As a result the formula has been adjusted in minor places to reflect reality yet massively under-rewarding some areas where there are good services and over paying very rural places such as West Devon/Somerset and under paying Brighton, Torbay and especially Exeter. The scheme makes the starting point the paying authority which is much against the small city big hubs such as Exeter. The actual payment to operators is determined by the RAT (reimbursement analysis tool) dreamed up by DfT and Leeds University boffins, this makes assumptions about elasticity and generation factors, the LA's apply this to fit the funding or less than the funding, so we have schemes that pay 73.6p in the £1 in places like Wales and Scotland, 72p in Somerset, 39p in Devon and now 38p in Blackburn. It is bizarre and unfair, the actual fare used is the average single fair paid, so for example in Devon this is an average of all fares including X38 Exeter - Plymouth but also say the Exeter- Cowick so it is based on actual fares not concessionary fare foregone. Some bus operators are sloppy with the recording others more precise. Oddly after the latest round of adjustments ALL the upgraded payments have been to operators with predominantly Stagecoach buses serving the given area.
Christopher
Thanks, Christopher for your thorough reply, but I'm now even more confused! It's typical of UK transport planning that we make such a hash of what should have been a simple and easy to calculate system. When it boils down to bus usage, it MUST be the case that, had this concession not been available, hundreds of services would have been cut by now. In my experience, on many non-peak services, it's now the exception rather than the rule for an actual pay-payer to board the bus.
Paul Haywood
Well not quite, the rationale behind the scheme is that the operator is no better or worse off, clearly with good payment and good passenger generation it is beneficial, the problem comes with big generation and the requirement for excess capacity, often this is unfunded. Overall the scheme works the trouble is the distribution so as was always thought there are winners and losers and the DfT made no secret that this would be so. Some operators have been big losers. The other wrinkle here is that in part this scheme has reduced revenue support in other areas so it is not necessarily the case that the operator has raked it in and has money for nowt, there are cases like that but mostly if an authority has more than it needs this is subject to viament (pays for town hall teas etc.) if it is short funded it complains. Overall it has probably done what it was supposed to do, the scheme though has unfairness within it and this was both known and ignored from the start, sad really.
Christopher
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