Pensioners Bus Pass CutsWatch !

WhatRecovery

Does anyone know what's happening about the removal of the free bus pass issue? It's all gone very quiet after the earlier rumours of 1. Removal 2. Cuts and the latest rumour about the age changing? Had a chat with an elderly lady in tea shop and she said she goes from 1 store to another buying the bargain food ! V excited she had just bought huge jar of Rappor coffee on offer!

agrinnall

I very much doubt whether anything will happen in the remaining time of this parliament, can you imagine Dave doing something that would alienate the grey vote, one of the Tory party's core support groups?

dzug1

Nobody knows - that's partly why there are rumours, which usually turn out to be wrong.


Only thing that is true (and which the government doesn't want to get involved in) is that in many rural areas there will be fewer (and sometimes no) buses to use the passes on. But that's already happening

billynibbles

What concerns me is that the way the system is administered (could it be that they WANT it to look expensive as a means of justifying getting rid of it?)


ASAIK, the way it works in London is that I cost my borough about £400 a year whether I use it or not - the cost then goes up if I use it, via the Oyster card readers. I've worked out that my usage wouldn't even cost £400 pa if I was buying daily travel cards or Bus Passes which are the cheaper option so it would be way cheaper for them to give me my money back.


If it really costs councils £400 for every card issued, firstly why does it cost so much when to issue an London Oyster card carries a £10 admin fee, and since most bus companies now have some kind of smart reader, why can't the cost be based on usage alone (plus set-up fee)? Thus, those with b****r-all buses won't cost the council anything at all!


As I say, it seems stacked to fail, so some politico can show what he's saved the nation.


What a great way to help UK meet its air pollution targets - get the car-owing middle-classes back into them after just having discovered buses!

poppasmurf_bewdley

Does anyone know how much the Council/Government actually pays to a bus company every time the card is used?

I've heard of figures as low as 5p to as much as 50p.

To be honest, some of my friends were talking about this the other day and we all agreed it would be worth us each paying 50p each time we used the card if it meant we could keep it in the future, rather than lose it altogether.

martindow

I think it must be a fixed price per journey. On most buses (London being a notable exception) you touch the card on a reader as you get on so there is no knowing how far you are going. I used one on a bus going from Bude to Exeter which is over 50 miles but could have just been travelling a couple of stops.

dzug1

It's more complicated than a fixed price per journey - OK you collect data on the number of journeys (which can then be analysed by route, time of day, etc) and then you negotiate with the bus company how you actually pay them. I suspect there's a complicated formula involved

WhatRecovery

and now in these scary new times of data harvesting/selling on, every company/gov agency has stacks of data on each one of us, where we go, how much we pay if relevant, routes where highest profit can be squeezed out!! These stats can also be used to justify slashing bus routes for less used routes, leaving pensioners stranded high and dry with extortionate corner shops their only source of food !

WhatRecovery

agrinnall wrote: »

I very much doubt whether anything will happen in the remaining time of this parliament, can you imagine Dave doing something that would alienate the grey vote, one of the Tory party's core support groups?

Cons can't win now, but if they had, there are very shocking cuts in the pipeline, ready to roll out! Middle manager jobs will be cut out, GP visits paid for,bus passes for pupils removed, and pensioner bus passes slowly taken away! These are just some of the stories journos talk about on Twitter. Did anyone know that so-called British Gas name was sold to BG Group for $1 and they have the newly discovered offshore oilfield off Palestine/Gaza/Israel - they are building a gigantic raft and a pipeline so we can buy 'israel's oil but the Palestinians say it belongs to them! (just an example of what journos talk about on Twitter that we never get to hear on bbc!! Oilfield's called Leviathan if anyone wants to check!!

dggar

billynibbles wrote: »

What concerns me is that the way the system is administered (could it be that they WANT it to look expensive as a means of justifying getting rid of it?)


ASAIK, the way it works in London is that I cost my borough about £400 a year whether I use it or not - !

What information do you have to support this? It seems strange that just issuing a card with an embedded chip cost so much.


How much does it cost a bank to issue a debit card?

dzug1

Maybe your local council pays TfL a flat rate for participating in the service? Much like a membership fee.


(pure speculation I hasten to add)