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Bus pass delight
SIR —I am a motorist (who has just traded in my 18 year old banger for a brand new environmentally more friendly car under the governments scrappage scheme) but I have also recently qualified for my bus pass.
There are certain journeys for which I find my car essential and could not make without it. However, I have made full use of my bus pass during the last few months and I must say what a wonderful thing it has been.
When making, for example, a routine journey into Chesterfield I always use the bus and I feel that I am making an important contribution to reducing my carbon footprint, reducing congestion so that it is easier for road users who have no alternative but to be on the road and leaving an extra parking space available for someone who needs it more than I do. I also notice that the buses are carrying more of us old folks and talking to some of them if it were not for the free travel then they would not be out but instead staring at four walls.The advantages of this scheme are therefore obvious and cannot always be measured in monetary terms.
The down side to this of course is who pays. I am glad to see there is to be a consultation between the government and local authorities regarding proper and adequate funding but whatever the outcome of this surely one point needs to be bourne in mind. Bus operators ought to be properly paid for the number of passengers they carry and how far they carry them (just as with fare paying passengers). Some bus companies give tickets with this information on (and in my experience this is generally accurate) whilst on others a button is pressed on the ticket machine to record the passenger but not the length of journey, whilst others do nothing so that the fact that a passenger has been carried is not recorded at all! (This has happened to me recently on a Derbyshire tendered service with a new operator).
As I understand the scheme, the authority in which the passenger boards the bus should also be recorded irrespective of which authority issued the pass but in my experience this is not always the case particularly when travelling outside Derbyshire.
Let us hope that this matter of funding can be sorted out once and for all and that the anomolies in the scheme such as being able to use my pass on the tram in Sheffield but not in Nottingham or Blackpool can be addressed.
One final point, any political party who tries to undermine the freedom the bus pass gives to people is playing with dynamite, but if there is a shortfall in funding after the latest round of consultation then what about the idea of asking people to pay a nominal sum for the pass— surely that would help.
NEVILLE BRAILSFORD WHITMORE,
22 Little Morton Road,
North Wingfield.
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Weather for Chesterfield
Saturday 04 February 2012
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