Peter Shipp: Why a fare deal is needed on bus passes

However, there is currently nothing to stop a pensioner paying something for their bus travel. If a concessionary pass is presented, the holder must be allowed free travel, but passes are not issued automatically – they have to be applied for.

If a pensioner does have a free pass, there is no law to say they have to use it, so they could, for example, get half fare by using their pass only for the outward journey.

It is not lawful for a bus operator to charge any fare or even request a voluntary donation if a pass is produced, so there is currently no option for an operator to charge say 50p per journey, a figure which is often suggested.

While this is fundamentally a great scheme to help older and disabled people get out and about, it was ill-considered when introduced in 2008 and, in my opinion, has never been properly costed or funded.

Local authorities pay bus operators using money they receive from Government, but that funding is being cut and payments to many bus operators have been reduced almost evert year since the start of the scheme.

EYMS runs buses in Hull, the East Riding and the Scarborough area, and around 40 per cent of our passengers travel free under this scheme (90 per cent on some routes) so it is very clear that if we do not get proper reimbursement, a major part of our business is affected.

Even worse, if we are underpaid for concessionary passes, we have little option but to make fares for paying passengers higher than they would otherwise be which seems very unfair and must deter more of them from travelling – so we lose again.

The payments we receive are based on a very complicated formula produced by the Department for Transport which the bus industry believes is fundamentally flawed. Our national trade association finally managed to persuade the DfT to undertake further research to try and prove this, but we are told that the research will not be completed in time for next year’s DfT Reimbursement Guidance.

Even in the unlikely event that Government changed the rules to allow some payment, almost certainly the DfT would simply change the reimbursement formula to account for this.

Many pensioners say they would rather pay something than lose their bus service, but inevitably some would travel less if they had to pay any fare, so we would lose passengers.

In my opinion the only solution is to keep the free scheme so the undoubted benefits remain, but pay bus operators fairly and properly for it and reduce the time-consuming administration.

Recently the Local Government Association urged the Chancellor to provide local authorities with more funding for the scheme to avoid more bus routes being lost. Note that this request was only to stop councils having to make up the payments to operators from their own coffers. North Yorkshire County Council reported that the scheme costs £10m compared to the £5m it receives from Whitehall.

A government spokesman told The Yorkshire Post recently: “We know that bus services are vital for many older and disabled people. That is why the right to free travel is enshrined in law and government provides funding to bus operators to help more services run and keep ticket prices down.”

“More services”?  This disastrous scheme is forcing operators to cut services not provide more. 

“Keep ticket prices down”?  In some cases fares for paying passengers are higher than they might otherwise be as they are subsidising the free scheme.

These words have been used by the Government before, but about the Bus Service Operator Grant (which since the 1960s has offset all or much of the tax we pay on fuel). It sounds almost certain that the Government spokesman was talking about that and carefully avoiding comment on the free travel scheme.

It seems they simply won’t accept the fact that the concessionary scheme is damaging bus services and not supporting them.

Peter Shipp is chairman and chief executive of EYMS Group Ltd, based in Hull.