Just to bring this topic back to its origins.
South Yorkshire agreed yesterday to make the recommended changes .... Including-
Withdraw Sheffield and Rotherham Freebee buses
Withdraw Doncaster's Park and Ride service 638
ENCT passes will be only valid 0930 to 2300 M-F (Sat & Sun anytime)
Passes valid on buses and Supertram only, no longer valid on trains in SY or on Northern to WY.
The changes are due in April 2014 (beginning or end isn't yet clear).
The financial savings will allow supported bus services to continue for next 4 years, I believe.
Thanks for taking this thread back on topic!
Yes, fairly predictable/ depressing news. A few thoughts:
I wonder whether this'll affect Northern Rail's income, as their subsidy payments won't take the loss of this income into account?
In a way, pensioners won't be too affected by the loss of the FreeBees, as there are plenty of commercial services along the same routes that they can still get free travel on (though these may be a little slower now).
No point in trying to charge a small fee on the Sheffield FreeBee for non-pensioners (like they tried in Leeds) as there's already a 50p flat fare for short "city centre" journeys on First services.
Whilst First won't be too badly affected by the loss of a three-vehicle contract (given the size of Olive Grove depot), this is worse news for Powells (operators of the Rotherham service), who mainly rely on school contracts (with a few commercial services slotted around them - e.g. the X7 from Maltby to Sheffield gets buses into the city in the morning peak ready to work duties to Sheffield schools). Can't be easy being a smaller operator in this day and age.
As it stands, just under 25% of bus operator income (outside London) comes from concessionary scheme funding. For both the bus operators and the councils, we need to consider whether that is sustainable in the medium or long term. I really don't think it is, and given the Treasury recently stuck a 20% cut on BSOG, clearly they don't either
I don't think that its sustainable either, and its worth reminding some people that that figure will be much higher in some "tourist" areas where a disproportionate amount of pensioner travel takes place (which the local council has to fund).
Trying to ignore all of the emotional blackmail stuff about whether pensioners should feel guilty (pity me, etc), I think that someone needs to have a serious look at how much we should fund and how we spread that burden (e.g. if ENCTS is a national Government scheme then national Government should fund it - we don't expect the local council in Blackpool/ Scarborough/ Falmouth to pay the pensions of all pensioners in the area, so why do we expect them to pay for all of the bus journeys of all pensioners in the area?)